Meaning of Profit After Tax (PAT), Formula & How to Calculate

Taxes are integral parts of every business unit. Therefore, the Indian Government has introduced Profit After Tax (PAT) to evaluate the amount of money that remains with you once you are done paying off all their taxes. It is simply the profit amount left with the shareholders of organizations, including private limited, public limited, government-owned, privately-owned companies after they have paid their taxes.

Do you wish to learn all about PAT and maintain it in your business? Then, this article will guide you with all the advantages, disadvantages and significance of this measure!

[Source]

The Indian business laws make it mandatory for every business unit to pay income taxes annually. Profit After Tax refers to the earnings of a business after the income taxes are deducted. It is often seen as the final amount of profit made by a company and its best ability to generate a return. PAT incorporates operating income and income from other sources, including interest income.

Investors usually keep an eye at the PAT of an organization closely to analyze its changes over time. It, therefore, acts as a valuation indicator, which also affects the stock price of a company. Thus, if you wonder, "what is Profit After Tax?", it is the final amount that an organization retains after paying off all its taxes and liabilities and distributes among the shareholders as its retained earnings.

[Source]

Profit After Tax is an amount that an organization and its shareholders can take home. In this regard, you can understand this concept further with its following features.

• PAT represents a corporation's true profitability and is regarded by its stakeholders, the best parameter for investor decisions.
• PAT is an essential financial measure looking after the rise or fall of a company’s retained earnings.
• PAT is generally used by an organization to pay dividends or kept at the company to reinvest.
• It measures the capabilities of an organization in converting its revenue into profits.
• People often use it for margin analysis, particularly while comparing companies within an industry.
• Investors determine the competency of a company to make profitability by measuring its PAT.
• Companies can use their PAT to understand if they need to control their costs.
• It helps investors to determine Net Profit Margin which indicates how much profit a company has made out of every rupee of total revenue or sales.
• PAT indicates the health of the company. A growing PAT indicates better business prospects and opportunities.

[Source]

The concept of Net Profit After Tax is a significant one for analyzing an organization’s growth and capabilities. It provides the employers with internal and external management with financial data depicting a company's performance in terms of its financial developments. As it already reduces one variable, the taxation amount, the company owners can reflect on the take-home profit of their company and try to improve it. 

If a company is functioning in an industry that generates considerable tax benefits, it will help increase its net income. However, if the industry is facing unfavorable tax benefits, a company's net income will naturally decrease. After calculating the PAT, company owners can compare the operations of other firms regardless of the tax laws already in existence.

Moreover, Profit After Tax is a financial indicator that also helps investors analyze their investment decisions. A higher PAT ratio indicates the higher efficacy of a company while the lower PAT indicates the vice versa. If they calculate and examine the PAT of certain companies, it will give them a wholesome view of its financial competence. If this begins to decrease, the investor will have to decide whether or not to continue investing in it.

[Source]

Now that you know the purpose and capabilities of Profit After Tax, you should check out the following advantages of this measure to implement it in your company.

• PAT increases stockholder equity and stock value by adding the retained earnings to the corporate balance sheet.
• The increased stock price momentum helps companies attract investors.
• PAT increases liquidity in companies, thereby providing funds for emergencies and helping a company survive without taking loans.
• As investors learn more about a company's retained earnings, they might take an interest in funding for its growth.

While Profit After Tax can be helpful for most businesses and their future growth, one should also consider its disadvantages in this regard.

• Interest rates are more beneficial for companies while borrowing money than relying only on the growth rates of an existing profit.
• Moreover, shareholders prefer to receive higher dividends than reinvesting the profit to increase the stock value.

• PAT is calculated only in case of profits in the company. In case of losses taxes are NIL. Therefore, the company is not viable during continuous losses. 

• If the tax rate is raised, PAT reduces. This leaves a minimal amount for the shareholders as well as reserves and surpluses. 

• As you can see, Profit After Tax is an essential requirement for analyzing companies' financial profitability and competence. Its calculation process requires you to exclude all the taxable amounts once you pay them. Maintaining this amount helps you analyze the retained earnings of your organization for the shareholders.

As you can see, Profit After Tax is an essential requirement for analyzing companies' financial profitability and competence. Its calculation process requires you to exclude all the taxable amounts once you pay them. Maintaining this amount helps you analyze the retained earnings of your organization for the shareholders.