Tax Arbitrage

  

Categories: Tax, Investing

You run a company that makes giant novelty forks. You have agreed to buy your biggest rival, a company specializing in enormous spoons. You've worked out the general outline of the deal with the CEO of the other company. Now you're just waiting for the lawyers and accountants to work out the details.

The number-crunchers realize that you can get a tax break on the deal. They've discovered a little known loophole. If you sign the document at high noon on the summer solstice while standing at the Four Corners monument, you’ll save $1 million in taxes.

This situation describes an instance of tax arbitrage. It's the act of exploiting tax loopholes. Finding little rules that can lower a company's tax bill, and then steering corporate action to take advantage of those rules.

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Finance: What is the IRS?19 Views

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Finance allah shmoop What is the i r s Well

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i rest might be the three most hated letters in

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the alphabet Well after d m v a pms and

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well maybe std The i r s is the internal

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revenue service Their internal i e inside the government they're

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service you and it doesn't feel good So yeah these

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correctly and submitted the proper amount And if you screwed

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up in any way they will let you know about

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it and a half in the form of angry letters

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back window Whatever it takes to get you to pay

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they owed Or the irs can do even worse and

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all kinds of things You claim that you did that

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were deductible that may or may not have been forcing

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turn your head and cough you uh might actually be

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