Tax Notes Federal feature article: Silver and Altera: Modern-Day Tales of David and Goliath

Monte Silver
By Monte Silver

Silver and Altera: Modern-Day Tales of David and Goliath

This article I wrote appears in Tax Notes Federal, an online and offline publication.  It is one of best articles I have ever published.  Very proud of it.  

"This article compares two lawsuits that challenged Treasury regulations: Silver and Altera.


It argues that while some similarities exist between the cases, they represent vastly different situations: (1) a small business that challenged a federal regulation that was aimed at massive corporations, but that inadvertently caught 200,000 smaller businesses in its net and imposed tremendous compliance costs on them; and (2) massive corporations that employ armies of lobbyists, lawyers, and tax professionals to get laws and regulations tailored to their needs, and then file lawsuits to invalidate regulations they don’t like.


The article concludes that because smaller businesses are transparent to the federal regulatory process, as well as to large law, accounting, and lobbying firms, courts will be sympathetic to their actions. On the other hand, courts will continue to frustrate corporate Goliaths that employ every trick in the book to avoid paying their fair share of taxes."

To read the complete article, see https://www.taxnotes.com/tax-notes-federal/transfer-pricing/silver-and-altera-modern-day-tales-david-and-goliath/2020/08/10/2cs69?highlight=andrew%20Velarde