Yes the merger with Micro Focus is clearly a sale and I know a 1099-B was issued in that transaction. I've dealt with that transaction several times in here.
I was referring to the spin off of Seattle Spinco, which was tax free. The question is: are the Seattle Spinco shares received also "ESPP shares"? It seems like logically they must be but "logic" and "income taxes" hardly ever appear in the same sentence and I've never been able to pin that question down definitively. This is another question I've dealt with several times over the years. In at least once case the poster claimed, based on W-2 reporting due to a sale of parent company stock, that all the ESPP elements remained with the parent company stock, i.e., there was no unaccounted for discount to be attributed to the spun off company stock, but since I couldn't really see any documentation I'm uncertain if that claim is correct or not.
