with a multibilliondollar tax case possibly drawing to a close cocacola co was upgraded to buy from hold at cfra cocacola’s ko price target was lifted to 68 from 58 the case has been lingering for more than a year with a november 2020 decision stating that cocacola owed about 34 billion in taxes from the years 2007 to 2009 there has been a risk that the company could owe even more as the tax examination continued “in our view the pending resolution of its irs tax case a potential liability of 12b or a 35 increase in its effective tax rate will lift a major overhang allowing investors to focus on cocacola’s fundamentals and strong underlying momentum from the rebound in onpremise sales and robust pricing environment” wrote garrett nelson in a cfra note “while the outcome of the tax case remains difficult to handicap the consequence of an adverse outcome should be largely offset by cash flow from improved concentrate sales and pricemix 13 and 5 respectively in the first three quarters of ’21” jpmorgan which downgraded cocacola in january 2021 due to the case upgraded the stock to overweight from neutral in december 2021 citing advantages such as topline momentum and valuation even as a final decision on the case looms “if the court rules in favor of the irs cocacola will have 180 days to deposit part of the past potential liability in order to appeal 90 days to estimate liability and 90 days to appeal” jpmorgan analysts wrote “we don’t believe this cash need will impact dividends or cocacola’s debt rating… as such we see limited downside potential for cocacola shares at these levels even if the litigation goes against cocacola and we think a resolution either positive or negative would remove this overhang” cocacola stock has run up 164 over the last year while the dow jones industrial average djia has gained 211 for the period