Elite Pharmaceuticals Inc (ELTP)

[Hike]

No, no tax benefit.

However the company can't pay dividends until they erase the accumulated deficit.

This explains it fairly well: http://www.ehow.com/info_12184977_can-pay-dividends-negative-retained-earnings.html

Prior earnings cannot be factored into the decision to make a dividend payment when the current earnings statement shows a negative balance. A company could conceivably post positive earnings for nine years in a row and have one bad year in which all of those earnings are lost. A dividend payment could not be paid, despite the fact that the company had good financial health 90 percent of the time. For instance, if a company retains $100,000 per year for nine years and accumulates $900,000 in retained earnings, but then loses $1 million in its 10th year in business, it could not pay a dividend to shareholders because its balance sheet would be showing negative retained earnings of $100,000.

Believe me I'd much rather see positive retained earnings. But if Elite had positive retained earnings I doubt it would be trading at .10 a share.