In a case involving a who’s who’s of big law tax litigators and amici briefs from several well known international companies, a split panel of the 9th Circuit has reversed the Tax Court in Altera Corp. v. Commissioner. The two judge majority held that the IRS’s Section 482 cost-sharing regulations withstand scrutiny under general administrative law principles and are entitled to Chevron deference. The Tax Court decision invalidating those regulations as arbitrary and capricious is reversed.
Read the majority opinion and dissent here: Altera Corp. v. Commissioner.