| Associated Press | Illinois Tool Works Inc. has lowered its first-quarter and full-year earnings forecast due to costs related to the health care legislation recently passed by Congress. The industrial equipment maker said Tuesday that it will record a tax The company’s shares rose during after-hours trading Tuesday, and they rose 15 cents during midday trading Wednesday to $47.58. |
See also • Caterpillar says health care bill would cost it $100M • AT&T takes $1B charge • Deere, Cat take $100M-plus charges |
Illinois Tool Works now expects to earn 48 cents to 56 cents per share for the first quarter. It earlier forecast profit of 52 cents to 60 cents per share.
It expects yearly profit of $2.39 to $2.89, down from prior guidance of $2.43 and $2.93 per share.
Analysts expect a profit of 57 cents per share for the first quarter and $2.78 per share for the year.
This is a Tribune “staff report”? It reads more like a press release printed almost verbatim. Does it seem worth elaborating on the fact that the deduction that the health care reform law eliminates is on federally subsidized expenditures. It’s double dipping, aka corporate welfare, a massive drain on the Treasury foisted onto taxpayers by the Republicans in their 2003 Medicare Part D legislation. Eliminating is a fiscally responsible thing to do, unless you are one of the corporate shareholders that has been raking in free government money for the past several years.