3M, AT&T Take Charges on Health Care Reform

U.S. firms have started what many believe to be a spin war, possibly using the passage of the health care reform legislation to temper expectations for their coming quarters.

By Andrea Tse , Mar 26, 2010 4:19 PM EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- U.S. firms have started what many believe to be a spin war, possibly using the passage of the health care reform legislation to temper expectations for their coming quarters.

The latest to join these ranks of companies is

(MMM) - Get Report

. The company announced in an SEC filing on March 26 that under the new law, 3M will be taking a one-time non-cash charge to 3M's earnings in the first quarter of 2010 of about $85 to $90 million after tax, which is about 12 cents per share.

3M said that the elimination of a tax-advantaged subsidy to encourage companies to provide retiree prescription drug coverage will result in a reduction of the value of the company's deferred tax asset related to the subsidy -- despite expectations that the elimination of this tax advantage does not take effect until 2013.

On Friday,

AT&T

(T) - Get Report

filed a similar statement of its own. The company said in an SEC filing that it intends to take a non-cash charge of about $1 billion in the first quarter of 2010 to reflect the impact of a change in the tax treatment of the Medicare Part D subsidy under the health care reform law. As a result of this legislation, including the additional tax burden, AT&T will be evaluating prospective changes to the active and retiree health care benefits offered by the company.

From

Deere

(DE) - Get Report

and

Caterpillar

(CAT) - Get Report

Verizon

(VZ) - Get Report

and

Medtronic

(MDT) - Get Report

, U.S. firms in recent days have seized the opportunity to announce