- After talking with tax lawyers and lobbyists, policy analysis/research firm Capstone thinks recent comments from an IRS official about potentially changing tax-free spinoff rules were "carefully choreographed" by the IRS and Treasury, and "designed to send a message to Yahoo (YHOO) concerning the Alibaba spinoff, though neither company was mentioned by name."
- Capstone thinks an adverse ruling would have an $11B impact on Yahoo, whose 384M-share Alibaba stake is currently worth $33.7B. It also notes (citing a law firm) the aggregate value of all spinoffs occurring in 2012 and 2013 was respectively just $41B and $33B.
- Yahoo tumbled on May 19 after an IRS official stated the agency is reviewing rules on "spinoffs of trades or businesses that are small compared with a company’s other assets," but recovered a chunk of its losses after responding to the comments.