Tax Accounting in Mergers and Acquisitions, 2014 Edition

There are many considerations that influence how a transaction is structured, including tax considerations. The most basic tax issue is whether to structure the transaction as taxable or tax-free. In general, there are four basic structures for a corporate acquisition: (1) a taxable acquisition of a target corporations stock; (2) a taxable acquisition of target corporations assets; (3) a tax-free acquisition of the target corporations stock; or (4) a tax-free acquisition of target corporations assets.