Washington, D.C., partner Stuart Bassin was quoted in an October 22, 2009, Bloomberg News article, "Con Edison Wins U.S. Tax Claim on Dutch Power Plant."
According to the article, Con Edison, the owner of New York City's largest utility, won the right to take tax deductions relating to its lease of a power plant in the Netherlands, a defeat in the IRS's war on tax shelters. The ruling that the transaction has economic substance was a defeat for the IRS, which has won a series of closely watched cases at the appellate level where courts ruled similar tax shelters were shams, according to the article.
"This is a very big deal,” said Bassin, a tax, who won a similar case for the government in May 2008 involving a company called AWG Leasing Trust in which a Cleveland judge allowed the IRS to impose penalties.
The ruling in the Con Edison case was the second one this month to reject IRS arguments that a corporate tax shelter lacked economic substance. "The momentum on economic substance seems to be shifting against the IRS," Bassin said.