Sprint’s Under-the-Radar Tax Gift to T-Mobile

Sprint Corp. is bringing more to the table than just a fatter telecom market share in its merger deal with T-Mobile US Inc. It’s bringing what is essentially an annual tax deduction of a half-billion dollars or more, according to tax professionals.

“Everyone is focusing on the business benefits and antitrust concerns, but I would imagine this would be a factor in the attractiveness of Sprint,” said Robert Willens, an independent tax consultant based in New York. Sprint’s massive tax assets “could reduce the real acquisition cost by hundreds of millions of dollars,” he told Bloomberg Tax.

Overland Park, ...