Ofer Lion to Speak at ABA Tax Section 2026 Midyear Tax Meeting

Ofer Lion, partner in Seyfarth's Corporate department and chair of the firm's Tax Exempt practice, will serve as a panelist for the session, "Tax-Exempt Organizations Case Study: Higher Education – The Last (Unconsolidated) Bastion," at the ABA Tax Section 2026 Midyear Tax Meeting on January 16 in San Diego, California.

As a sector, higher education is facing reductions in undergraduate enrollment (and the number of high school graduates generally), increases in cost and complexity, and more limited federal and state funding. In a perhaps overdue reaction, higher education is now in the early stages of a major consolidation movement. Mergers, acquisitions, strategic alliances, and closures are all up. When it comes to higher education consolidation transactions, corporate, nonprofit and tax issues must be addressed in alignment with Department of Education requirements for changes of control, the required consents of accreditation agencies, and other regulatory bodies. The panel will address the legal and regulatory "life cycle" of such transactions, from seeking potential partners (nondisclosure agreements, LOIs), conducting comprehensive due diligence (and the inevitable problems with federal student loan compliance), transaction structuring (the one-step, two-step dance), dealing with employment and other cost reduction issues, and addressing (in advance) various “before and after” issues (real property ownership, carrying on the name and legacy, tenure, donor-restricted funds, UBIT/NOLs and other tax issues, etc.).