Billionaire Paul Allen gets a $4 billion stimulus

The co-founder of Microsoft must be thrilled:

The [new economic stimulus legislation] makes clear that partnerships like Charter Holdco, parent company of Charter Communications Inc., also are eligible to benefit from the provision. Under normal tax rules, forgiveness of partnership debt is counted as a "deemed distribution" to the partner. The law ensures that the income from this distribution does not have to be recognized until 2014.

Since Mr. Allen's stake in Charter is around 50%, his partnership share of the debt forgiveness could be as much as $4 billion.