Thread: Cost of Debt
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Old 02-28-06, 03:46 AM
acdelatorre acdelatorre is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 7
Cost of Debt

Hello,

I was referred to join here by Mr. Joe Styles from Investopedia.com. There is this one question that has been bugging me for about a month now.

WACC is calculated as:

[(E/V) * Re] + [(D/V) * Rd * (1-Rt)]

Where;

E = Total Equity

D = Total Debt

V = E + D

Re = Cost of Equity

Rd = Cost of debt

Rt = Tax rate

Now, my question is - why is there such a concept as a pre-tax cost of debt and post-tax cost of debt? Why is the cost of debt being multiplied by (1-Rt)? I have begun my foray into the world of management accounting by first studying cash flows, so I can't see the implications of these concepts. I mean...why not be the 'cost of debt' be just it and not multiply it anymore by the said factor? Please help me.

Many thanks,

lex
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