The Influence of Tax Loss Carry-Forwards on the Valuation of Corporations in the Context of Acquisitions

Seminar paper from the year 2017 in the subject Business economics - Accounting and Taxes, grade: 1,3, University of Applied Sciences Aalen, language: English, abstract: This paper deals with the influence of tax loss carry-forwards of target companies on their valuation in acquisitions. Under German tax law, losses can be offset with future profits, if certain conditions are met. This makes tax loss carry-forwards an asset, which may influence the corporate value of the target company from the purchaser's persepective. When and how tax loss carry-forwards may impact corporate valuations in the context of acquisitions shall be explained in this paper.

The main body of the paper is divided into two parts. The first part includes the theoretical foundations, beginning with a short introduction into the topic of M&A and company valuations for the further clarification of the topic. Afterwards, legal foundations about the treatment of tax loss carry-forwards in case of transactions are presented.

The subsequent analysis part includes mainly two qualitative research methods. At first, two expert interviews are conducted to find out how relevant the topic is in practice and how it is practically addressed. At second, the mathematical relationship between tax loss carry-forwards and the corporate value is determined by doing a case study. Thereby, a fictitious corporation is assessed. For a comprehensive research, different cases are considered.

During the last decades, mergers & acquisitions have increased substantially in popularity. Their growth in transaction volume and the number of transactions bespeak the importance of this topic. Although theory seems plausible, the success of M&A-transactions does not always meet expectations. On the one hand, this is often owed to unrealistic assumptions, especially overrated hypothetic synergy effects. On the other hand, it origins in the complexity of such transactions.