Naturalized-Texan
03-03-2007, 01:27 PM
Group expected to win big tax fight with IRS (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/4598702.html)
WASHINGTON — An ad hoc group of accountants and lawyers may be close to winning a federal court battle that could help millions of investors claim billions of dollars in overpaid federal taxes the past 15 years.
Led by Charles Ulrich, a retired accountant in Baxter, Minn., the group charges the Internal Revenue Service overtaxed stock and cash these investors received from mutual life insurance companies when they reorganized into publicly traded corporations.
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Mutual insurance companies are owned by their policyholders, and companies distribute shares and cash or both in exchange for policyholders' ownership interests when they incorporate into public companies with shares traded on stock exchanges.
It's called demutualization, and more than 30 companies took the plunge in recent years, most in the late 1990s and early this decade. Two of the biggest demutualizations involved Prudential Financial and MetLife, which each had over 11 million policyholders. MetLife distributed over $7 billion worth of stock. Prudential distributed $12.5 billion in stock.
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Anyone who might be affected in these cases should file a claim for a refund because even if it is rejected, the claim extends the deadline for a potential refund by two years, Ulrich said.
WASHINGTON — An ad hoc group of accountants and lawyers may be close to winning a federal court battle that could help millions of investors claim billions of dollars in overpaid federal taxes the past 15 years.
Led by Charles Ulrich, a retired accountant in Baxter, Minn., the group charges the Internal Revenue Service overtaxed stock and cash these investors received from mutual life insurance companies when they reorganized into publicly traded corporations.
...............
Mutual insurance companies are owned by their policyholders, and companies distribute shares and cash or both in exchange for policyholders' ownership interests when they incorporate into public companies with shares traded on stock exchanges.
It's called demutualization, and more than 30 companies took the plunge in recent years, most in the late 1990s and early this decade. Two of the biggest demutualizations involved Prudential Financial and MetLife, which each had over 11 million policyholders. MetLife distributed over $7 billion worth of stock. Prudential distributed $12.5 billion in stock.
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Anyone who might be affected in these cases should file a claim for a refund because even if it is rejected, the claim extends the deadline for a potential refund by two years, Ulrich said.