From BostonHerald.com Business Today:
“It took seven years, but Charles Ulrich did something many people dream about, but few succeed at: he beat the IRS in a tax dispute.
Not only that, but tax experts say potentially millions of other taxpayers could benefit from his victory. The case potentially involves payouts from a wide range of insurers, including Prudential.
The accountant challenged the method the IRS has used for more than 20 years to tax shares and cash distributed by mutual life insurance firms to their policyholders when they reorganize as public companies.
A federal court recently agreed with his interpretation.
‘There’s a tremendous amount of money at stake,’ said Robert Willens, a New York City-based tax analyst at Robert Willens LLC. “Tens of thousands of people could be in line for a refund.”
Don Alexander, an IRS commissioner in the 1970s and now a tax attorney in Washington, said while it’s not unusual for individuals to take on the agency, ‘most of them lose.’
Alexander called it ‘quite a significant case.’
The dispute arose when more than 30 mutual life insurance companies became publicly traded corporations in the late 1990s and earlier this decade, in a process known as demutualization.
Mutual companies are owned by their policyholders, so the companies provided stock and cash to compensate them for the loss of their ownership interests when they went public.
All told, roughly 30 million policyholders received distributions, Ulrich estimates. MetLife Inc. provided over $7 billion of stock to about 11 million policyholders when it went public in 2000, while Prudential distributed $12.5 billion in stock to another 11 million.
The IRS held that the recipients hadn’t paid anything for the shares and owed taxes on the full amount when the shares were sold. Cash distributions also were fully taxable, the IRS said.
That didn’t sound right to Ulrich, 72, an accountant for 49 years. He began researching the issue in 2001, when he received shares from two companies, Prudential and Indianapolis Life.
Ulrich concluded that policyholders had paid for their ownership rights through their premiums so the distributions should have been tax-free.
That could make a significant difference in what a taxpayer owes. If a company distributed shares worth $30 and a recipient subsequently sold them at $32, under the IRS’ view they would pay taxes on all $32. Under Ulrich’s interpretation, they would owe taxes only on the $2 per share gain.
In 2003, Ulrich publicized his views by contacting tax and insurance experts and setting up a Web site.
