| Abstract: | The US 1986 Tax Reform Act (TRA) contains several tax provisions affecting many areas of corporate finance including lease financing. One of the more important provisions is the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) which determines an alternative in addition to the usual tax computation, and consequently results in a new lessee-lessor tax-asymmetry. To investigate the overall impact on the net advantage of leasing (NAL) of both the AMT and the other relevant provisions of the TRA, a leasing model is developed which incorporates these tax provisions. In the context of this leasing model, the following results are derived. When the AMT provision does not apply, the Tax Reform Act (TRA) reduces substantially the net advantage of leasing (NAL) over buying. In contrast, the effect of the AMT symmetry is positive. As a result, the combined effect of the AMT and the other changes in the TRA on the NAL is negligible for property class of assets of the more common length of time (about ten years), but becomes negative for real-property type of assets. |
