A company is considering a proposed new plant that would increase productive capacity. Which of the following statements is correct?
Since depreciation is a noncash expense, the firm does not need to deal with depreciation when calculating the operating cash flows.
When estimating the project’s operating cash flows, it is important to include any opportunity costs and sunk costs, but the firm should ignore cash flow effects of externalities since they are accounted for in the discounting process.
Capital budgeting decisions should be based on BEFORE-TAX cash flows.
In calculating the project’s operating cash flows, the firm should NOT deduct financing costs such as interest expense, because financing costs are accounted for by discounting at the WACC. If interest were deducted when estimating cash flows, it would in effect be “double-counted.”