TRENTON, N.J.-Lucent Technologies Inc. may enjoy a tax windfall of $816 million in refunds if the IRS and the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation give their nods. Already, the IRS has offered a tentative agreement to the refund.
Taking advantage of a tax-law technicality, Lucent has asked the IRS to refund the money after it carried back its net operating loss of $16.2 billion from 2001 to 1996 and deducted the losses from the profit. In 1996, Lucent was still part of AT&T Corp.
Lucent had filed a claim Sept. 30, 2003, but the IRS accepted only $139 million. The $816 million includes the $139 million, according to the company’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
If Lucent gets the money, it will come with some undetermined interest during its next fiscal year that starts Oct.1, 2005.
Standard & Poor’s Rating Services did not change Lucent’s debt ratings, but sees a positive. It described the refund as bolstering the “company’s liquidity, which stood at $4.7 billion on June 30, 2004,” adding it believes Lucent will continue “to prudently manage its balance sheet.”
