Yahoo's board is considering an activist shareholder's demand to sell the Internet services the company is best known for, a maneuver that might help the company dodge a tax bill of more than $10 billion looming over its holdings in China's Alibaba Group.<br />The boardroom intrigue revolves around a recent proposal from Starboard Value, a New York hedge fund that been pressuring Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer to take dramatic steps to boost the company's stock.<br />Starboard's latest idea is for Yahoo to sell its websites, mobile applications, ad services and data analytics so it can abandon a plan to spin off its 15 percent stake in Alibaba, a thriving e-commerce company.<br />Starboard's demand evidently prodded the board to consider an alternative way to avoid a tax bill that could wipe out more than two-thirds of the gain on Yahoo's Alibaba stake, which was acquired a decade ago for $1 billion and is currently worth $33 billion.
