Merck's Lower Tax Rate
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- It seems innocuous, at least in the hands of the media. Merck's (MRK) - Get Report tax rate was "lower," Reuters said twice in coverage of the drug giant's 4th quarter earnings report this week.
Nearly all media outlets, from ABC News to The Washington Post, used a similar voicing. Merck's earnings were up on a lower tax rate.But how much lower?
In nearly all cases, that was left to the imagination. The natural assumption, of course, with the use of the word "lower" and no qualifier like "incredibly" is that the shift in tax rate between this year's quarter and last year's was negligible. A rounding error. Not worth mentioning.
But the difference in tax rate was no rounding error. In fact, it fell to about 2% in this year's 4th quarter versus 40% in last year's quarter. That's an eye-popping decline. And it was right there in the press release. The Wall Street Journal, by the way, didn't even mention anything about the tax rate.
At the time of publication, Fuchs had no positions in any of the stocks mentioned in this column.
Marek Fuchs was a stockbroker for Shearson Lehman Brothers and a money manager before becoming a journalist who wrote The New York Times' "County Lines" column for six years. He also did back-up beat coverage of The New York Knicks for the paper's Sports section for two seasons and covered other professional and collegiate sports. He has contributed frequently to many of the Times' other sections, including National, Metro, Escapes, Style, Real Estate, Arts & Leisure, Travel, Money & Business, Circuits and the Op-Ed Page.
For his "Business Press Maven" column on how business and finance are covered by the media, Fuchs was named best business journalist critic in the nation by the Talking Biz website at The University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Fuchs is a frequent speaker on the business media, in venues ranging from National Public Radio to the annual conference of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.
Fuchs appreciates your feedback;
to send him an email.
