Question

Is the cost of equity calculated from the CAPM model, pre -tax or post-tax?

Answer 1

The existence of pre-tax cost of debt and post-tax cost of debt is due to the acknoledgement of the tax benefit from issuing debt.There is no tax benefit from paying divdends,so it makes no sense talking about pre-tax,post-tax cost of equity for a firm.When you think about cash flow to equity you can only assume that the taxes owed by the company have already been paid.Now, the taxation over the income of the shareholder is a whole different issue that does not take place in this discussion,since it is not taken in consideration either in cost of equity or cost of debt.