| | | The proposed new stimulus appropriation, which the president is now recommending, contain provisions allowing corporations to deduct losses this year, due to the coronavirus, from earnings in previous years. This provision would give the airlines, as well as some hotel stocks and cruise lines, a tax refund on earlier year taxes. No wonder stocks are going up.
The real question is whether mere tax benefits justify investing in airlines whose seat sales are down some 67% this year over last year. A better, more equitable way would be for the government to buy new convertible preferred stocks issued by the individual airline companies, giving the government (i.e., taxpayers) the ability to recover the cost of bailing out the airlines. This is similar to the way the government provided funds to GM and Chrysler in 2008-09 and was able to recover most, if not all its investment.
A tax refund based on earlier year earnings is nothing more than a humongous gift, courtesy of the taxpayers.
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