14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has recently become one of the companies that quickly take anyone to court, be they businesses or state agencies, so it shouldn't come as a big surprise that Redmond has recently decided to sue the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). For the second time, that is.
The software giant first took the IRS to court in November, requesting access to a contract between the IRS itself and business litigation firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. The IRS, which is investigating Microsoft's taxes between 2004 and 2009, signed a deal with Emanuel Urquhart to work on Redmond's case, so the company decided to fight back by asking for details regarding this contract.
The IRS, however, ignored Microsoft's request, so the company decided to move the dispute to a court in Washington DC. Microsoft dropped the claims last month, after the IRS provided the company with a copy of the contract.
This time, Microsoft is suing the IRS for similar reasons. According to the Seattle Times, the Redmond-based software giant contacted the IRS in December to ask for more details on a different contract, this time between the agency and law firm Boies Schiller & Flexner.
Tax dodging claims
Just like in the first case, the IRS ignored Microsoft's request, so the company filed another lawsuit against the agency, seeking access to these documents. No details have been provided from either side, but the IRS is obviously expected to provide Microsoft with the requested information sometime in the coming months, so the lawsuit would be dropped.
Microsoft has long been under investigation in the United States in several overseas markets for its tax practices, as the company has been accused of channeling its sales through tax havens in Singapore and other countries in order to dodge taxes in its home market.
Redmond, however, denied all these claims every single time, and its attempts to get the IRS to court might be a way to prove its innocence.