You Lie, You Lose -- Another Midco Transaction Fails (10/15/15)

I have discussed so-called Midco transactions in this blog before where a seller and buyer of a C Corporation with a built-in liability use a bullshit tax shelter to claim to eliminate the tax and share in the tax thus "eliminated." Yesterday, the Tax Court issued a new opinion in a Midco transaction where the parties tried to scam the fisc.  Tricharichi v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2015-201, here:

The Tax Court offers this succinct explanation of the Midco transaction:

Although Midco transactions took various forms, they shared several key features, well summarized by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Diebold Found. Inc. v. Commissioner, 736 F.3d 172, 175-176 (2d Cir. 2013), vacating and remanding T.C. Memo. 2010-238. These transactions were chiefly promoted to shareholders of closely held C corporations that had large built-in gains. These shareholders, while happy about the gains, were typically unhappy about the tax consequences. They faced the prospect of paying two levels of income tax on these gains: the usual corporate-level tax, followed by a shareholder-level tax when the gains were distributed to them as dividends or liquidating distributions. And this problem could not be avoided by selling the shares. Any rational buyer would normally insist on a discount to the purchase price equal to the built-in tax liability that he would be acquiring. 

Promoters of Midco transactions offered a purported solution to this problem. An "intermediary company" affiliated with the promoter -- typically, a shell company, often organized offshore -- would buy the shares of the target company. The target's cash would transit through the "intermediary company" to the selling shareholders. After acquiring the target's embedded tax liability, the "intermediary company" would plan to engage in a tax-motivated transaction that would offset the target's realized gains and eliminate the corporate-level tax. The promoter and the target's shareholders would agree to split the dollar value of the corporate tax thus avoided. The promoter would keep as its fee a negotiated percentage of the avoided corporate tax. The target's shareholders would keep the balance of the avoided corporate tax as a premium above the target's true net asset value (i.e., assets net of accrued tax liability). 

In due course the IRS would audit the Midco, disallow the fictional losses, and assess the corporate-level tax. But "[i]n many instances, the Midco is a newly formed entity created for the sole purpose of facilitating such a transaction, without other income or assets and thus likely to be judgment-proof. The IRS must then seek payment from other parties involved in the transaction in order to satisfy the tax liability the transaction was created to avoid." Id. at 176. 

In a nutshell, that is what happened here. Petitioner engaged in a Midco transaction with a Fortrend shell company; the shell company merged into West Side and engaged in a sham transaction to eliminate West Side's corporate tax; the IRS disallowed those fictional losses and assessed the corporate-level tax against West Side; but West Side, as was planned all along, is judgment proof. The IRS accordingly seeks to collect West Side's tax from petitioner as the transferee of West Side's cash. We hold that petitioner is liable for West Side's tax under the Ohio Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act and that the IRS may collect West Side's tax liabilities in full from petitioner under section 6901(a)(1) as a direct or indirect transferee of West Side. We accordingly rule for respondent on all issues.

The opinion is longer, but that is the opinion in a "nutshell."

In Tricarichi, the facts were ugly as to whether the seller knew or should have known that the tax savings, in which the seller was sharing, was fake.  Of course, the petitioner in Tricharichi claimed he neither knew nor should have known.  But, at several points, the Court said that it did not find the petitioner's testimony credible.  Let's look at some of those findings (bold-face supplied by JAT):

Petitioner testified that his motivation for this sale was to "continue to service West Side's customers." The Court did not find this testimony credible. The parties' placement of zero value on West Side's intangible assets, including its wireless customer base, trade name, and trade marks, belies any intention to serve those customers in the future. Indeed, it is not clear how LXV could continue to serve West Side's cell phone customers because West Side's principals, who were also LXV's principals, were barred after June 10, 2003, from conducting any form of cell phone business. The Court finds as a fact that petitioner arranged the sale of West Side's operating assets to LXV in order to comply with Fortrend's requirement that West Side have nothing left in it except tax liabilities and cash.

* * * * 

During later stages of the negotiations, the dollar amount of the "Fortrend premium" varied, but each iteration of the agreement contained the same formulaic calculation. Fortrend would pay petitioner the amount of cash remaining in West Side at the closing, less 31.875% of West Side's total Federal and State tax liability for 2003. In other words, the "Fortrend premium" equaled 31.875% of West Side's accrued 2003 tax liability. This left petitioner with a premium, above and beyond West Side's closing net asset value, equal to 68.125% of its accrued 2003 tax liability. 

At two points in his testimony, petitioner stated that he did not understand the "Fortrend premium" to have any correlation to West Side's tax liabilities. The Court did not find this testimony credible. Petitioner testified that he participated in negotiating Fortrend's fee, and numerous spreadsheets prepared by his brother explicitly state that Fortrend's fee was to equal 31.875% of West Side's accrued tax liabilities for 2003. Confronted with this evidence, petitioner became visibly uncomfortable. The Court finds as a fact that petitioner knew at all times that the "Fortrend premium" would be computed as a negotiated percentage of West Side's 2003 corporate tax liability. 

* * * * 

Numerous other features of Fortrend's proposal raised red flags that demanded further inquiry. Fortrend offered to pay petitioner $11.2 million more than the net book value of West Side -- representing a premium of 47% -- while insisting that West Side's assets be reduced to cash. Petitioner was a sophisticated entrepreneur who had built a company and knew how to value a business. It should have provoked tremendous skepticism to discover that Fortrend was willing to pay a 47% premium to acquire cash, which by definition cannot be worth more than its face value. 

The business purpose alleged for the transaction, moreover, made absolutely no sense. Petitioner and his advisers were told that Fortrend intended to put West Side into the "distressed debt" business. "[T]he business purpose for the acquisition," according to PwC's memo, was "based on the new business' need for cash to purchase the charged-off credit card debt as commercial financing for such purposes is apparently difficult." 

This explanation demanded further inquiry from any reasonably diligent person. In order to purchase West Side's stock, Fortrend needed to have cash or be able to borrow cash. If Fortrend had cash or could easily borrow cash, why would it want to acquire West Side in order to get cash? Moreover, as PwC noted in a parenthetical, "most of the $40,000,000 cash in Westside will be distributed out of Westside and used by * * * [Fortrend] to pay back the cash borrowed to purchase * * * [petitioner's] Westside stock." Since there was going to be precious little cash left in West Side after the deal closed, the "business purpose" alleged for the transaction did not pass the straight-face test. 

The icing on the cake was the manner in which the purchase price was determined. Numrous spreadsheets prepared by petitioner's brother explicitly state that the purchase price would equal West Side's closing cash balance plus 68.125% of its accrued tax liabilities. A sophisticated businessman like petitioner should have been curious as to why the purchase price for his company was being computed as a percentage of its tax liabilities, and why this was the only number that Fortrend seemed to care about. In effect, Fortrend was offering to assume a $16.9 million tax liability in exchange for a $5 million fee. Because the economics of the deal made it obvious that Fortrend was not going to pay West Side's tax liabilities, this fact alone put petitioner on "inquiry knowledge." 

Petitioner testified that he had no contemporaneous understanding that the "Fortrend premium" was correlated to West Side's accrued tax liabilities. The Court did not find this testimony credible. Petitioner actively participated in negotiating Fortrend's fee. When confronted with his brother's spreadsheets that invariably compute Fortrend's fee as 31.875% of West Side's tax liabilities, petitioner became visibly uncomfortable. Petitioner's evasive testimony is further evidence that he had at least constructive knowledge that Fortrend planned to use a tax-avoidance scheme to eliminate West Side's tax liability.

To conclude that the totality of these circumstances did not give rise to constructive knowledge on petitioner's part "would do away with the distinction between actual and constructive knowledge." Diebold Found., Inc., 736 F.3d at 189. And to relieve petitioner and his advisers of the duty to inquire, when the surrounding circumstances cried out for such inquiry, "would be to bless the willful blindness the constructive knowledge test was designed to root out." Ibid. We find as a fact that petitioner had constructive knowledge that Fortrend intended to implement an illegitimate scheme to evade West Side's accrued tax liabilities and leave it without assets to satisfy those liabilities. The various steps of the Midco transaction may thus be "collapsed" in determining whether petitioner was a "transferee" of West Side under Ohio law. 

Finally, proving that there is little honor among thieves, in the negotiations leading to the sale of the C Corporation stock, the petitioner tried to play off two supposed competitors in the Midco transaction market -- Midco and Fortrend -- to squeeze out the largest share of the tax being avoided.  Here is what the Court said about that "competition:"

Because petitioner regarded MidCoast and Fortrend as competitors, he began negotiating with both in the hope of stirring up a bidding war. James arranged further conference calls with both companies. Rather than compete, MidCoast secretly agreed with Fortrend to step away from the transaction in exchange for a fee of $1,180,000 (ultimately paid by West Side on September 14, 2003). MidCoast's final offer was adjusted to make it seem unattractive, and petitioner therefore chose to pursue discussions with Fortrend in order to "maximize" his profits.