Practice Strengths

With more than 75 tax attorneys serving 11 offices, Baker Hostetler's Tax Group is one of the legal profession's largest. Our clients rely on us for effective, practical judgment and technical advice in structuring tax-efficient transactions, in handling federal, state and local tax controversies—including litigation—and in structuring business operations to minimize tax and compliance burdens.

Members of our Tax Group have served in senior positions at the Department of Treasury, the IRS, the Department of Justice, the Joint Committee on Taxation and on Capitol Hill. Our tax attorneys also serve the academic community and the legal profession as adjunct professors, tax committee chairs and as officers of various tax organizations. We are listed in the latest edition of Chambers USA as a top tax law firm in Washington, D.C.

We serve as regular tax counsel to major corporations and also represent medium-sized businesses, tax-exempt organizations, trusts and estates and individuals.

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (“FATCA”) is a broad reporting and withholding regime designed to improve tax compliance involving financial assets held offshore. The substantive provisions of FATCA will not be fully in force until January 1, 2014, but foreign financial institutions (“FFIs”) must now begin planning to ensure compliance with FATCA.   FATCA Information Page

Tax Controversies
Our Tax Controversy team has experience in all major areas of tax controversy, successfully representing clients before the IRS Appeals Office, in alternative dispute resolution, in IRS National Office matters, before the U.S. Competent Authority and in IRS examination. We have won precedent-setting victories in the U.S. Tax Court, U.S. Court of Federal Claims, U.S. District Courts, U.S. Courts of Appeals, the U.S. Supreme Court, and state and local trial and appellate courts.

Tax controversies require experienced tax lawyers with litigation skills. Our Tax Controversy team is led by senior attorneys with deep tax policy experience, seasoned trial litigators and skilled appellate advocates with a record of creativity and achievement. Our attorneys have extensive practical experience, working relationships with the IRS and Department of Justice, and prior service in government and industry.

Our Tax Controversy team analyzes problems to their core at the onset of a tax controversy and uses that analysis to guide responses to IRS activities and positions. We advise our clients concerning cost-effective potential solutions while anticipating and preparing for litigation. Our clients work directly with senior tax lawyers who are able to direct use of client and firm resources effectively with victory in mind. Our approach to the resolution of tax controversies is forged from experience and proven to be effective.

International
Baker Hostetler offers the full complement of international tax advice on both outbound and inbound tax issues. The Baker Hostetler team has significant experience handling multibillion-dollar international merger, acquisition and disposition transactions, cross-border financing transactions, cross-border planning issues (including, where necessary, obtaining private rulings), treaty issues, transfer pricing matters (including, where necessary, advanced pricing agreements, pre-filing agreements and Competent Authority advice) and controversy matters.

In addition to handling large transactions and case matters, the Baker Hostetler team regularly provides efficient and practical advice to small and mid-size businesses expanding their operations and opportunities globally. Overseas investment opportunities are becoming increasingly more attractive in the private capital markets; the Baker Hostetler international tax team has become a critical component to the firm's broader, market-leading private equity advisory group.

Transactional
We advise both publicly traded companies and private entities and their owners on the federal, international, state and local tax implications of their mergers, acquisitions, sales and other transactions. Our tax lawyers have developed sophisticated techniques relating to the purchase, sale and financing of publicly traded and privately held companies, and the maintenance of management and ownership continuity for closely held business enterprises.

We remain at the forefront of the use of limited liability companies, partnerships, joint ventures and subchapter S corporations to own and operate business activities. Our tax lawyers have substantial experience in planning and implementing tax-oriented investment opportunities that involve Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), sale-leasebacks, leveraged leasing and other ventures.

Real Estate
Baker Hostetler's Tax Group includes a Real Estate Tax Transactions Team whose members have substantial experience in all types of transactional real estate activities. The Team's lawyers have worked extensively with all types of transactions involving the acquisition, disposition, development and financing of real property. These include Section 1031 like-kind exchange transactions, sophisticated financing transactions, tax credit transactions, federal, state and local subsidies and incentives, property development, redevelopment and rehabilitation, valuation issues, foreign and tax-exempt investment in real estate, fund structure and real estate investment trusts.

Our team has provided legal and tax counsel to owners, operators and developers of real estate with all varieties of projects. Our clients rely on us for effective, practical judgment and technical advice in structuring tax-efficient real estate transactions, as well as tax-advantaged ownership and operating structures, to minimize tax and compliance burdens. Our lawyers are not only skilled in advising on the technical tax considerations of these various real estate activities, but also especially in the creative planning and structuring for these kinds of transactions and the practical implementation thereof.

State/Local Tax
In states across the country, Baker Hostetler is an effective advocate for clients in their disputes with state and local taxing authorities. We frequently negotiate or litigate favorable outcomes in tax disputes. We have made numerous successful appearances before state supreme courts.

We often advance client interests before legislators, policymakers and administrators with respect to state tax matters. At the local level, we help clients explore and implement property tax abatement opportunities and enterprise zones to promote new business investments and real estate developments. 

Tax Shelter Compliance
Our Reportable Transactions Services team takes a proactive and practical approach to dealing with the complex web of regulations that require disclosure of tax shelters-or potentially abusive tax avoidance transactions. The current disclosure rules require careful analysis and interpretation, particularly in view of significant new penalties for failure to comply.

Our team has designed and implemented systems that help clients ensure compliance with the reportable transaction disclosure rules on a cost-effective basis. We offer an alternative to expensive, off-the-shelf compliance “packages” sold by other service providers. Our extensive experience lets us target situations and issues where there are significant disclosure risks.

We provide independent, timely and cost-effective reviews of both proposed and executed transactions to determine whether disclosure is required. We work together with clients to find an overall solution for a potentially reportable transaction—one that takes into account their existing corporate risk minimization policies. We provide responsible advice that takes into account penalty protection and privilege alternatives.

In fact, you might say that we “wrote the book” on reportable transactions. Members of our team co-authored BNA Tax Management Portfolio 798, Tax Shelters and often participate in cutting-edge forums on tax shelter policy. A member of our team was a primary author of the final tax shelter regulations.
 
Tax-Exempt Organizations and Charitable Giving
Baker Hostetler has one of the largest comprehensive tax practices that includes a group dedicated to representing tax-exempt organizations, their officers and directors and families who support charitable causes. We understand the myriad of regulatory and compliance challenges faced by tax-exempt organizations, and we advise them on all operational aspects including reporting and tax obligations under state and federal laws in an increasingly regulated environment. We also counsel individuals and families on sophisticated charitable giving techniques, helping them organize assets to best meet their charitable goals.

Energy Tax
The Energy Tax Practice Team takes a comprehensive approach to addressing the myriad tax laws that apply to the broad range of energy sector activities conducted today, including renewable energy and oil and gas. We offer a full complement of services in the areas of federal and state taxation, including advising on energy incentives and disincentives, structuring energy projects to optimize tax benefits and finding and implementing legislative solutions at both the federal and state levels.