Hunt Brothers Pizza Fights IRS Assessments on Insurance Premiums

The unusual business model of national pizza chain Hunt Brothers Pizza justifies a microcaptive insurance arrangement, it told a district court in a suit challenging an assessment of more than $650,000.

An affiliate of the Nashville-based chain, which counts over 10,000 locations across 33 states, says the IRS’s determination that about $1.3 million in 2021 payments to its microcaptive insurance arrangement weren’t legitimate insurance for tax purposes was a mistake.

On that basis the IRS calculated that Hunt owes $658,600 in taxes and penalties, according to the complaint filed Tuesday in the US District Court for the Eastern District of ...