Telus hasn't paid taxes since 2000 - the benefits of tax-loss carryforwards after it acquired Clearnet for $6.6-billion - and it has no plans to do so in the future after unveiling the details of an income trust conversion earlier today. So what does it mean for Telus? Not much, if anything, from a business perspective. It's one of those "eat your cake and have it too kind" of deals: it keeps more than enough cash to supports its growth strategy while not giving any cash to fine folks at Revenue Canada. In other words, it's a sweet piece of financing engineering that investors seem to love as Telus shares climbed more than $7, or 13.5% today. Of course, when a $20-billion (market cap) entity decides to do an income trust and not pay taxes, it may not go over well with the tax man, particularly if other large companies - say the banks - also decide to jump on the income trust band wagon. The spotlight is now on BCE Inc., which has been rumoured to be an income trust candidate. The downside is BCE's assets aren't as good or lucrative as Telus', and BCE already played an income trust card earlier this year when it farmed out 20% of its lines (mostly rural) to BCE Aliant Income Trust. Man, I'd would have loved to a fly on the fly of BCE CEO Michael Sabia this morning when he read the Telus news.

Update: Here's my story in today's Financial Post on Telus' conversion plans.

So, we're all trying to read the chicken entrails for the future of Web 2.0 and whether there's a bubble on the horizon. Well, here's another reason to believe it's the beginning of the end: Mary Meeker will among the keynote speakers at a Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco next month. During the dot-com boom, the Morgan Stanley analyst (for more than 10 years, which proves, if anything, she's a survivor) was the "Queen of the Net". Along with Henry Blodget, Meeker was a huge dot-com believer even as the house of cards began to disintegrate. Of course, everyone's got to make a living - and Meeker doesn't appear to be afraid to put the past behind and re-invent herself. For example, she jumped hard on the Chinese's Internet story. So, it makes sense for Meeker to align herself with Web 2.0 and the Internet services movement. Of course, this could signal trouble ahead because Wall St. analysts usually want publicly-traded companies to cover. This could mean some more IPOs - the absence of which has played a key role in keeping the Web 2.0 landscape from bubbling over.
Update: Want more evidence there's a bunch of Web 2.0 whackiness happening. Dogster - the social networking site for dogs - has raise $1-million from a group of angel investors. VentureBeat reports that many people are pretending to be dogs and writing little diaries. Hilarious! Weird, but hilarious.