The increasing use of corporate inversions, whereby a company via merger achieves 20 percent or more new ownership, claims non-U.S. residence, and is then permitted to adopt that country’s lower corporate tax structure and take advantage of tax base reduction techniques, has been the subject of intense media commentary and political attention. That is perhaps not surprising given the numbers: there was approximately one inversion in 2010, four in each of 2011 and 2012, six in 2013 and 16 signed or consummated this year to date — or more than in all other years combined. And, the threat of anti-inversion legislation appears only to be hastening the pace at which companies are contemplating such transactions.

The political outcry has come from the president, who called inversions “wrong,” the Treasury secretary, members of Congress and others. On Aug. 5, three senators urged executive action to curtail corporate inversions motivated by tax considerations. In a letter to President Barack Obama, Senate Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Sens. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., members of the Banking Committee, advocated that the president use executive authority to reduce or eliminate tax breaks for companies that adopt foreign citizenship to avoid paying U.S. taxes.

Originally published in Law360, New York on September 8, 2014.