Microsoft suit seeks details of $2.1M Quinn Emanuel contract to provide services for IRS
The Internal Revenue Service should disclose information relating to a $2.1 million contract with Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan to provide legal services in some tax audits, Microsoft alleges in a freedom of information lawsuit.
Microsoft’s suit (PDF), filed in Washington, D.C., federal court Monday, says the IRS withheld records regarding the May 19 contract with Quinn Emanuel, which will provide legal services in audits of intercompany transactions. Bloomberg, Forbes and the Puget Sound Business Journal have stories.
Microsoft is seeking documents regarding Quinn Emanuel’s services related to the IRS audit of Microsoft’s transactions between international subsidiaries from 2004 to 2009.
According to Forbes, the hiring of the law firm appears to be the first examination using private contractors to become public. The publication says the IRS often hires experts to help in evaluation or other specific functions, but the hiring of Quinn Emanuel “suggests that the IRS seeks to try a new technique in the examination of large corporations presenting sophisticated issues.”