United States' Motion to Exclude Expert Testimony of Plaintiffs'

taxpayer wil prevail on the merits of each issue. The Opinion concludes for each issuethat the taxpayers were more likely than not to prevaiL. Therefore, the Opinion meetsthis requirement.(iv) Overall Conclusion. The advice must provide the practitioner's overallconclusion as to the likelihood that the Federal tax treatment of the transaction is theproper treatment and the reasons for that conclusion. Matt Coscia, of Coscia Greilchprovided this conclusion to the taxpayers. Therefore, the advice given by CosciaGreilch meets this requirement.2. Reasonable Reliance on the OpinionBecause of the overwhelming complexity of our tax system, we must allowtaxpayers to rely on experts - it simply makes no sense to require each taxpayer tomaster the technical intricacies of arcane parts of the tax law. Implicit in the idea ofreasonable reliance, however, is that the taxpayer not have reasons to suspect that theadvice is not proper. For this reason, there are now significant restrictions in theactivities of tax shelter promoters and on the ability to rely on marketed transactionsand opinions.Many Notice 2000-44 transactions were marketed by promoters and, therefore,regardless of the technical merits of the opinions, there is an argument that taxpayersshould have been sufficiently on notice that reliance on such opinions was notreasonable. Although I take no view on whether the transaction here was a Notice2000-44 transaction, a key fact about the Opinion was that it came from a trusted taxadvisor rather than someone marketing or sellng the transaction. There was no"opinion shopping". The taxpayers simply received advice in the ordinary course of abusiness transaction. There was, therefore, little reason for the taxpayers to try tosecond guess their advisor, and every reason to rely on the advice.The transaction was also part of an ordinary business transaction, the plannedtender offer for Solution 6. It was not a separate transaction with no connection toordinary business operations, as most Notice 2000-44 transactions were. Although taxbenefits were a significant feature of the transaction, most ordinary businesstransactions include significant tax structuring, and smart taxpayers always look forlegitimate ways to reduce their tax liabilties.14