Corporate Inversions Could Get Hit With Retroactive Legislation

As corporate inversions have ramped up from just one in 2010 to sixteen signed so far this year (though not all of them finalized), one of the common tropes about the ensuing political backlash is that it will only drive corporations finish their inversion deals before new legislation takes effect. But rushing into a merger purely for tax reasons could easily backfire as Congress has a record of making retroactive changes to the tax code, which the courts have allowed as long as the change doesn’t go back for more than about a year. Corporate inversions: Supreme Court allows retroactive…