1. To maintain a strong credit rating, Freedom will borrow $1.2 million today to finance the Ingleburn facility’s expansion. The ten-year principal-and-interest loan has annual interest repayments of $147,949 (assuming a 4% p.a. rate). Freedom’s accountant confirms that interest is classified as a business expense and is tax deductible.
2. There is an anticipated expense of $180,000 to install the equipment associated with the Ingleburn expansion, and a $50,000 cost to upgrade the electricity supply required to commence operations. According to the ATO both of these items are classified as a business expense. The manager of the Ingleburn facility would prefer to classify these expenses as assets and therefore depreciate them over the ten-year project life to give the appearance of higher profitability for the 2018 financial year. The manager is budgeting to achieve a net profit for 2018 of $1.22 million and increasing it by $150,000 for 2019.
3. You assume that the Ingleburn building can be sold for $1.9 million in the year 2028, and at any point in time the equipment will have a resale value of $650,000. In ten years’ time Freedom assumes that it will have cash holdings of $12 million. You note the ATO regulation that all non-current assets be depreciated to zero.
a) Identify the cash flows at the start
b) Identify the cash flows over the life
c) Identify the cash flows at the end