Ford loses $445M case against IRS

Ford has lost a federal court challenge against the U.S. Internal Revenue Service arguing the automaker was owed $445 million in interest from a tax dispute. The ruling involves an arcane corporate tax law allowing businesses to avoid steep interest payments if they’re found to have underpaid taxes on returns going back decades.

In the early 1990s, Ford had paid the IRS to stop the clock on any interest due for taxes it might have owed between 1983 and 1994, and later asked the IRS to consider that money a tax payment. When the IRS later found that Ford had overpaid its taxes, it gave the automaker a refund with interest.

But Ford contended the IRS withheld $445 million in interest on the stop-the-clock money that the automaker was owed. The IRS argued, and U.S. District Judge Patrick Duggan agreed, that federal rules don’t allow for interest in such cases.