The New Bailout

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Obama Stimulus Saves Microsoft Billionaire Hundreds Of Millions

Billionaire Paul Allen is a Microsoft cofounder, the owner of the NFL's Seattle Seahawks and the owner of the NBA's Portland Trailblazers.

And, thanks to the stimulus bill President Obama signed this week, he's also about to be as much as a billion dollars richer.

Here's how:

Allen owns a majority stake in cable provider Charter Communications.
Charter Communications this month said it would reduce its debt load by $8 billion and enter Chapter 11.
Normally, partners at a firm like Charter Communications would have to pay taxes on the amount of debt forgiven in this process, which is, in a sense a one-time income windfall. Tax law calls it a "deemed distribution."

But under the new bill, companies like Charter Communications will be able to avoid paying taxes on forgiven debt until 2014. Even then, Paul will have until 2018 to pay it completely off.
Paul owns about half of Charter, so his share of the Charter Commuincations' $8 billion debt forgiveness is around $4 billion. At a tax rate of 25%, Allen could avoid paying as much as $1 billion in taxes until 2014, tax expert Robert Willens told the WSJ.

Not clear how a corporate tax benefit would be passed through to Paul's personal tax payments? A reader informs us:

"It's not a 'corporate tax' since it's a partnership rather than a corporation. The partners pay tax on their share of a partnerships income, which is why partnerships are referred to as "pass-through" entities."

For what it's worth, one of Paul's representatives told the WSJ the billionaire didn't lobby for the windfall. It just fell into his lap, lucky dog.

http://www.businessinsider.com/obama...ns-phew-2009-2

And I'm quite sure, if this is true, that republicans wrote that part of the fucking bill. They ARE the ones who wanted all the fucking tax cuts. Obama put a lot of porky ones for rich people in there in order to appease them and get some votes. But they voted against it anyway. And he will have to take the heat for it. A very stupid move IMO.

I think, after the House dug their heals in and decided to completely vote against it, he should have just taken out everything he didn't want, and put the stuff back in he DID want that they took out for republican support. Fuck them. He will not get any support from them. That is pretty obvious.