Representative Cases

N/A

OUTCOME:

The Chicoine Law Group has recently completed an 8 day trial before the United States Tax Court involving our clients’ alleged Transferee Liability resulting from the sale of their stock in a family bu ... siness to a purchaser who subsequently failed to pay federal and Oregon State corporate income taxes. Mr. Chicoine was the lead counsel against the IRS. The IRS alleges the clients participated in an Intermediary Transaction and seeks $23,000,000 in taxes dating back to 2003, plus interest. The government was represented by four trial attorneys and relied upon an expert witness whom it agreed to pay almost $250,000 for his opinion and testimony. Mr. Chicoine was co-lead counsel in an eight day trial in the U.S. federal district court in Denver, Colorado which sought a $29,000,000 tax refund arising out of an alleged Son of Boss transaction. The case was one of the few such cases to result in a judgment for the taxpayer. There too the Department of Justice called a financial expert witness to testify against the taxpayer. The IRS had paid the witness approximately $1,000,000 per year to testify in similar cases. The testimony of the IRS expert, who was crossed examined by Mr. Chicoine at trial, was rejected by the court. Mr. Chicoine appeared as co-counsel before the U.S. Supreme Court in a case which had been previously lost in the U.S. Tax Court and the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals on an issue involving statutory interpretation in the context of basis calculation for shareholders for a closely held Sub Chapter S business. The U. S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of our clients in a rare eight to one opinion overturning the lower courts’ rulings. Mr. Chicoine was engaged by a bankruptcy trustee in Idaho to pursue a contact claim of approximately $10,000,000 on the debtor’s behalf against the large Oklahoma chemical company, Kerr-McGee, for breach of contract. Mr. Chicoine successfully defended Kerr-McGee’s motion for summary judgment, and then won his cross motion for partial summary judgment against Kerr-McGee. The case was subsequently settled as a result. Mr. Chicoine was engaged by the beneficiaries of their father’s estate to defend an IRS estate tax audit which focused upon the valuation of the decedent’s interest in his highly successful family business. The decedent had transferred much of his interest to family members in related transactions, the substance of which was challenged by the IRS. The IRS attempted to disregard the transactions and challenged the valuation used on the estate tax return by relying, in part, on a subsequent sale of the business at a price significantly greater than the reported value. Mr. Chicoine was able to avoid litigation and negotiated a resolution and valuation that was extremely beneficial to the beneficiaries.