Tax reform may not be the most exciting topic to discuss over dinner, but analysts say it’s one of the reasons for the stock market’s rally since Donald Trump was elected president.
Although it remains to be seen whether sweeping tax changes will come to fruition, there are some clues about what Trump’s proposals for corporate taxes could mean for shareholders.
Reforming the unwieldy and complicated corporate tax system has been an animating feature of the post-election stock market rally, says Katrina Lamb, head of investment strategy and research for asset management firm MV Financial Group. The sentiment has been favorable because of expectations the Republicans will achieve tax cuts that would be good for business and the economy, she says.
[See: 7 Dividend Stocks to Benefit From Trump Tax Changes.]
The main points of Trump’s plan that will affect corporate America are a reduction in the statutory tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent and an incentive for U.S.-based multinationals to move home some of their trillions of overseas profits.
Such a reduction in the corporate tax level would be a big win for individual shareholders, says Eric Ervin, CEO of asset management firm Reality Shares. Paying less in taxes would mean more in earnings and that would mean bigger shareholder payouts, he says.
“You would see a meaningful increase in dividends,” Ervin says.
A similar scenario could result if companies are allowed to bring earnings stashed abroad into the United States and pay only 10 percent in taxes, as Trump is reportedly seeking.
Right now, there is around $2.6 trillion earned by U.S. companies in cash overseas, with about $825 billion held by dividend-paying Standard & Poor’s 500 index companies, Ervin says.
But it is far from certain how changes to the tax code will actually look.
Many companies already pay less than the statutory tax rate because of complicated loopholes, and there will be resistance to broadening the tax base by eliminating those exemptions, Lamb says. But if the tax rate is lowered to 15 percent and current loopholes remain, that could add $7 trillion per year to the national debt, which could be a headwind for the broader economy, she says.
Still, Lamb says there isn’t a compelling reason based on what’s known — or not known — about the tax plan for an investor to exit equity holdings, given that modest economic growth is still chugging along.
“If you’re an investor with a long-term time horizon this is probably not the time to start hedging your equities exposure,” Lamb says.
But it’s also not the time to make stock buying or selling decisions based on potential outcomes for tax reform, she adds. “There are so many things to factor in,” Lamb says. “Where would we find the winners and losers? It’s too early for that.”
There is also the risk that tax reform has already been priced into the stock market, says Trip Miller, managing partner at hedge fund Gullane Capital Partners. “There are a lot of details that still need to be worked out,” Miller says. “I wonder if there’s a real chance of investors in the market being disappointed.”
[See: 9 Most-loved Stocks in the Trump White House.]
That could happen if a final deal puts the statutory corporate tax rate in the 20 percent range instead of 15 percent, a scenario Miller says is likely if a final package gets approved.
Still, cutting taxes by any amount should boost company earnings and stock prices, Miller says, meaning that shareholders who own the right names should do well.
Miller says small cap companies will benefit more from tax reform because they tend to be more U.S.-centric than multinational companies like the Coca-Cola Co. (ticker: KO) or PepsiCo ( PEP).
He also thinks Apple ( AAPL) will benefit from the repatriation side of tax reform, given it’s huge pile of cash parked overseas.
But over the longer term, international tech companies like Google, owned by Alphabet ( GOOG, GOOGL), and Apple that have geographically diverse taxable income and already pay less than the statutory tax rate in the U.S. won’t benefit as much as companies that earn more of their money in the U.S., Ervin says.
His firm rates companies on a variety of factors, including if the firms are healthy enough to pay a dividend, free cash flow compared to dividend and analysts’ estimates for dividend growth.
“Many of the highest quality dividend growing stocks … would greatly benefit from the proposed tax rate restructuring,” says Reality Shares senior analyst Kian Salehizadeh.
[See: 9 Ways to Buy Stocks That Everyone Needs.]
Those include Tyson Foods ( TSN), Dr Pepper Snapple Group ( DPS), Foot Locker ( FL), and Tiffany & Co. ( TIF), he says. All of them currently pay more than 30 percent in taxes, according to data compiled by Reality Shares.
More from U.S. News
7 Horrendous Dividend Stocks to Actively Avoid
6 Things to Know About Mark Zuckerberg’s Manifesto
8 Things Not to Hide From Your Investment Professional
Too Early to Tell Impact of Trump’s Tax Plan originally appeared on usnews.com
