Liquidmetal Technologies Inc (LQMT)

[chipboarder]

OK I’ll bite….nobody came forward with the potential value for the tax loss carry forward so I’ll give it a try. First the disclaimer…I’m an engineer, not a tax professional but I can research ( the internet) and will summarize my findings….

LQMT’s cumulative losses are in the neighborhood of $280 million +/- and are carried on the balance sheet.

The IRS allows companies to use previous losses to offset current taxable income…the previous losses do not expire.

When companies combine, the balance sheets are merged and the line items are netted out and become the balance sheet for the combined company. In the case of accumulated losses the total moves to new balance sheet. It has value as a tax offset for the new company.

So…how much is it worth as an offset…that depends upon the incremental tax rate for the combined company.
If the incremental tax rate is 40%….it’s offset value is 40% of $280 million or something like $112 million.
If the incremental tax rate is 20%….the benefit drops to $56 million.

Either case, it’s a big number….the largest on the balance sheet and it’s tracked religiously on each and every 10Q. If it wasn’t important, I would stop reporting it or bury it in a footnote on page 78.

If there are any tax professionals out there, I welcome any input that may be relevant.