You’ll help to keep one of three Paul Allen mega-yachts afloat. Yay!

Obama Stimulus Saves Microsoft Billionaire Hundreds Of Millions — Apparently Paul Allen will be a bigger beneficiary of the Obama plan than you will.

Allen owns a majority stake in cable provider Charter Communications. Charter Communications this month said it would reduce its debt load by $8 billion and enter Chapter 11. Normally, partners at a firm like Charter Communications would have to pay taxes on the amount of debt forgiven in this process, which is, in a sense a one-time income windfall. Tax law calls it a “deemed distribution.” But under the new bill, companies like Charter Communications will be able to avoid paying taxes on forgiven debt until 2014. Even then, Paul will have until 2018 to pay it completely off. Paul owns about half of Charter, so his share of the Charter Commuincations’ $8 billion debt forgiveness is around $4 billion. At a tax rate of 25%, Allen could avoid paying as much as $1 billion in taxes until 2014, tax expert Robert Willens told the WSJ.