The Tax Practice Group of Seyfarth Shaw LLP provides tax advice that fits the circumstances, challenges, and objectives of our clients.

We work closely and seamlessly with our clients, their internal staffs and outside accountants, and our colleagues across the firm to design and implement practical solutions. We have become trusted tax advisors to clients by combining innovative thinking and efficiency with careful analysis and sound judgment.

Corporate and Securities Tax Practice/Mergers and Acquisitions

Our corporate tax practice spans the range of issues that arise in connection with the formation, operation, and termination of public and privately held companies. We deal with corporations, their investors, and their businesses and investments. Working hand-in-hand with our corporate/business lawyers from the outset of the engagement, we advise our clients and help them structure their taxable and tax-free stock and asset acquisitions or dispositions, mergers, consolidations, and liquidations. We also advise our clients as to the tax issues that may arise from the myriad of transactional and business decisions, such as dividend and redemption distributions, debt and equity issuances, bankruptcy restructurings and workouts, asset-based financing (including leasing, project finance, and partnership transactions), derivatives and financial products, and licensing of intellectual property. We provide our clients with practical solutions to these issues and help our clients structure these transactions in a manner that enables them to achieve the optimal tax results consistent with their non-tax business objectives.

Real Estate Tax Practice

We have a broad and varied real estate practice, together with the tax experience needed to address the many tax issues and concerns that our clients have when engaging in real estate transactions. We provide our clients with practical solutions to the many tax and tax-structuring issues and concerns that often arise in connection with the construction, development, acquisition, financing and re-financing, operation, conversion (into cooperative or condominium form of ownership) and disposition of all types of real estate and real estate-related assets and interests, including office properties, hotels, shopping centers and other commercial real estate, mortgages, easements, residential cooperative and condominium buildings and units, residential rental real estate, as well as interests in REITs, REMICs, and real estate partnerships/LLCs. We represent developers, operators, and real estate investors, including individuals, insurance companies, pension funds, and public and private REITs located in all regions of the country and abroad.

Our comprehensive approach includes teaming with the firm’s real estate lawyers on appropriate matters from the outset. Whatever the tax issues that arise in a given real estate transaction, we provide practical solutions to these issues to help our clients structure their real estate transactions in a favorable manner.

Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation

We have substantial experience advising public and large private companies with Internal Revenue Code and ERISA compliance of qualified retirement plans of all types including pension, profit sharing, ESOPs, stock bonus, and cash or deferred plans. We regularly represent clients before the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Labor, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. We advise employers and executives on the design, taxation, and implementation of executive and equity compensation plan matters including nonqualified deferred compensation and retirement plans, incentive and nonqualified stock option plans, restricted stock plans, stock appreciation rights and phantom stock plans, excess benefit plans, and change-in-control and golden parachute arrangements.

Estate and Individual Tax Planning

Our estate and individual tax planning practice seeks to minimize federal, state and local income, estate, inheritance, generation skipping transfer, and gift taxes to achieve the accumulation and transmission of wealth at the lowest tax cost consistent with the personal, family, charitable and business objectives of our clients.

State and Local Taxation

With offices strategically located across the country, we deal with state and local tax issues with a national footprint. We assist our clients in matters of individual and corporate income and franchise taxes as well as unincorporated business taxes, including issues of nexus and taxing jurisdiction, allocation and apportionment of income, and unitary business and combined reporting. We also assist our clients in matters of real property ad valorem, transfer and gains taxes, sales and use taxes, and other non-income taxes.