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The business practice includes a tax group. All of the attorneys in the group have an LL.M. in taxation, and three are also CPAs and one a CFP. The group includes past presidents of the Taxation Section and the Estates and Trusts Section of the Mississippi Bar. One attorney has worked in the IRS National Office. One is a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, and one is listed in The Best Lawyers of America in tax law. Two attorneys are members of the organization Attorneys for Family-Held Enterprises. One attorney was an Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer of a business for seven years. But they all share the same characteristic: Each is committed, open-minded, and resourceful in serving the client and attaining the client’s goals.
The tax group handles a wide variety of work. They advise clients on the tax and legal considerations in choosing the legal entity (for example, a limited liability company or a C or S corporation) for a start-up business and in the structuring of that business. They also assist clients in the tax and legal concerns with ongoing business issues. This encompasses a broad range of services from the commonplace to the sophisticated: from drafting or reviewing documents to helping to restructure the business or to sell the business or acquire another business, in either case by a taxable transaction or tax-free reorganization.
Obviously, none of the foregoing tax and legal work for businesses can be separated from the inevitable business considerations. Thus, the tax group always takes into account the many business concerns and practicalities. All of the group’s attorneys are knowledgeable about the business world. They also employ that experience in simply conferring with businesses and business owners on the many decisions and obstacles – and also opportunities – they face.
In the case of a family-owned business, the tax group works and counsels with the family with its myriad and unique – and often sensitive – issues and uncertainties. These include, for example, the determination of which family member will manage the business or who will be the successor, and the resolution of the fair treatment of all family owners when some work in the business but others do not.
In addition, the tax group advises individual clients in numerous matters, such as individual income taxation and real-estate transactions and their tax consequences, including tax-free like-kind exchanges. They also help, for example, in the tax, legal, and business considerations in entering into a business or joint venture. Asset protection has now moved to the forefront with the traditional areas of practice. The tax group thus assists in using proper arrangements to protect the client’s assets from future claimants.
Another important component to the tax group’s practice is estate planning. This entails the preparation of such documents as wills and trust agreements. Of greater importance, though, it also brings to bear the broader expertise of the group – such as in devising strategies to reduce the client’s estate and gift taxation, and in conferring with the client on familial concerns and on the customized provisions to be included in the will or trust agreement.
Probate of wills and administration of estates is a further area of the tax group’s practice. Among other things, they advise the estate’s representative in complying with the court rules and in carrying out its duties, and advise and confer with the representative in construing and interpreting the will and in dealing with sometimes difficult familial problems or dissatisfied or contentious heirs. They likewise do the same for the trustee of a trust under the will (and also a trust created during life). Other times, they instead advise the heir or beneficiary in the foregoing.
The tax group also has experience in handling legal controversies. Often the controversies are over taxes – income, estate and gift, or other – with the IRS or the state tax commission through its administrative audit and appeals and then, if necessary, through the courts. Other times, for example, the controversies involve lawsuits over the construction and interpretation of the will or trust agreement or over the claims of disgruntled heirs or beneficiaries. The tax group has background with both sides, representing the estate or trust and also representing the heirs or beneficiaries.
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