Net Operating Losses (NOL)

Net operating losses (“NOL”) are generated when taxable income is negative, and may be used to offset positive taxable income, thereby reducing taxes payable. If you haven’t done so, you may want to review our primer on NOL before proceeding with this step.

NOL may be carried forward for use in future periods up to 20 years from the period in which they are generated. However, companies rarely disclose the remaining life of NOL and, without the benefit of further diligence, we assume in our model that the remaining NOL life is 15 years (implying that all of the NOL was generated five years ago). The MRY NOL balance would be sourced from a 10-K, annual report, or other regulatory filings.

The DTA attributable to NOL is computed here only to highlight the relationship between such DTA and the NOL, but does not flow elsewhere in our operating model. Note that we have computed the DTA attributable to NOL as the NOL balance multiplied by the tax rate. Depending on disclosure, you can alternatively compute the NOL balance as the DTA attributable to NOL divided by the tax rate. DTA attributable to NOL is often reported in annual reports and 10-K filings, but is less frequently disclosed in quarterly 10-Q filings. Actual NOL balances may not be disclosed at all.

Note that our MRY DTA attributable to NOL is computed using the assumed tax rate in the first projected period, rather than the MRY tax rate. This ensures that the DTA attributable to NOL goes to zero when the NOL has been fully utilized. Try modifying this formula to instead link to the MRY tax rate and observe that the DTA attributable to NOL does not go to zero in the first projected period.