Tax Law

Practice Area

Harris Beach recognizes the integral role tax counseling plays in the many business dealings of our clients. For that reason, we offer a complete range of representation on all aspects of federal, state, local, and international tax law.

Our tax attorneys are consulted on a regular basis to ensure that all of our clients’ transactions are carefully planned to minimize tax costs. Our tax attorneys also provide direct client representation in all types of civil or criminal actions involving taxing authorities.

Our services include:

Corporate Transactions

We are involved with all phases of a client’s tax planning and with structural decisions, including mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, refinancings, leveraged buy-outs, incorporations, public offerings, and private placements. We also provide our clients with the tax advice they need to run the day-to-day operations of their businesses as well as handle unusual tax transactions for them.

Employee Benefits

Our attorneys have considerable experience handling all aspects of ERISA requirements, tax-qualified pension and profit-sharing plans, employee stock ownership plans, stock option plans, and other executive compensation arrangements that provide significant tax benefits, often to employee and employer alike.

Personal Tax Planning

We provide personal tax planning for transactions as diverse as selling a home, investment activities, divorce, employment, and retirement planning as well as help families transfer assets to other family members with the minimum tax liability.

Representing Not-For-Profit Organizations

We provide a full range of services to not-for-profit organizations, including incorporation and securing tax-exempt status, maintaining exemptions during operations, structuring activities that produce both exempt and taxable income, and handling the dissolution or termination of exempt entities.

Public Finance

Our attorneys have extensive experience with tax-exempt and taxable public financing transactions.

Civil and Criminal Representation

With the more aggressive pursuit of civil and criminal audits on the part of the federal Internal Revenue Service and the New York Department of Taxation, our attorneys have taken an aggressive approach to representing our clients to produce cost-effective results.

Counseling Partnerships and Limited Liability Companies

Our attorneys help plan and execute strategies designed to meet our clients’ business and personal goals in addition to providing practical recommendations that help them minimize tax cost and comply with increasingly complex tax rules and regulations. We also help with succession and estate planning for owners of closely held businesses.