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Tax

Tax Law Defined®

There are few areas of the law that can affect a business’s bottom line or an individual’s livelihood like federal, state and local tax matters. Our tax team is armed with decades of hands-on experience in all manner of taxable transactions and tax-saving techniques. Whether counseling individual taxpayers, corporations or social-sector organizations, we look beyond a simple problem analysis to craft innovative solutions based on each client’s distinct tax and business situation.

Equally vital, we are committed to keeping clients fully apprised of the ever-changing laws, regulations and judicial decisions that govern our tax system. This combination of insight and attentiveness ensures that our clients pay the correct amount of tax while taking advantage of tax-saving opportunities and retaining amounts that are rightfully theirs.

Key Contacts

Jennifer Y. Barber Profile Image
Jennifer Y. Barber

Office Partner-in-Charge

Louisville, KY

502.779.8154 Email
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Rachael High Chamberlain

Partner

Florence, KY

859.817.5931 Email
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J. Christopher Coffman

Partner

Louisville, KY

502.568.0373 Email
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Scott W. Dolson

Partner

Louisville, KY

502.568.0203 Email
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Samuel G. Graber

Partner

Louisville, KY

502.568.0248 Email
Craig A. Griffith Profile Image
Craig A. Griffith

Partner

Charleston, WV

304.348.2407 Email
Brian S. Masterson Profile Image
Brian S. Masterson

Partner

Nashville, TN

615.251.5588 Email
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Martin E. Mooney

Partner

Cincinnati, OH

513.651.6979 Email
Daniel G. Mudd Profile Image
Daniel G. Mudd

Partner

Louisville, KY

502.779.8148 Email
Daniel P. Novakov Profile Image
Daniel P. Novakov

Partner

Dallas, TX

214.580.5840 Email
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Mark F. Sommer

Practice Group Leader

Louisville, KY

502.779.8150 Email
Laura L. Stapleton Profile Image
Laura L. Stapleton

Partner

Dallas, TX

214.580.5845 Email
Robert C. Webb Profile Image
Robert C. Webb

Partner

Louisville, KY

502.568.0313 Email
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Related Services

Audits, Tax Controversy, & Litigation

Our team draws on decades of experience representing both individual taxpayers and Fortune 500 companies in thousands of audits at the revenue agent, protest and administrative levels. Our deep understanding of the IRS’s and other tax authorities’ operating methods enables us to provide the best possible advice to taxpayers facing civil or criminal tax controversies. While our focus is foremost on minimizing our clients’ tax and trial exposure, we recognize that litigation is sometimes unavoidable or in our clients’ best interest. We provide extensive controversy management and trial support services, with the aim of resolving issues at the earliest stage possible.

Economic Incentives

We assist a variety of domestic and foreign clients in researching, negotiating and documenting economic incentives, local or state income tax credits, enterprise zone districts and low or no-interest loans. Our team is frequently brought on once a project is underway to assist with program compliance or in the event of a default situation or dispute with a governmental agency. By addressing our clients’ immediate tax needs, planning ahead and maintaining persistent contact with local and state agencies, we ensure that businesses have the means to proceed with equipment purchases, hire much-needed personnel and ultimately see their important projects to fruition.

Learn more about our tax credit finance services as it relates to the following incentive programs:

International Tax

We assist with everything from trade agreements, compliance and controversy issues, to custom duties, expatriate and global income tax, to totalization agreements and the formation of IC-DISCs. Our clients look to us for guidance with respect to navigating the complex, high-risk world of international tax. We help them overcome barriers to commerce and locate avenues for profit and growth.

Nonprofit Organization Tax

Our attorneys have a deep understanding of the many tax and compliance-related issues unique to the nonprofit sector. We work with nonprofits, community foundations and other tax-exempt organizations to document, maintain and take full advantage of their tax-exempt status. We also advise on matters of entity and board formation, corporate governance, executive and employee compensation, acquisitions and joint-venture formations. Finally, we pride ourselves on being ahead of the curve with respect to new regulations and incentives. We offer innovative, tax-efficient strategies for keeping costs down while increasing our clients’ organizational impact.

Pass-Through Entities

Our attorneys understand, in a comprehensive way, the highly specialized aspects of LLC and S corporation taxation and how these tax implications affect business formation, employee and equity compensation, as well as a host of other planning-related issues. Several of us focus predominantly on partnership tax issues for pass-through entities. We use this knowledge to help clients determine which tax framework is best suited to their business and tax needs. Whether we’re facilitating the formation, operation or sale of a business or investment, we work diligently to ensure that every transaction is properly structured and executed in the most efficient manner possible.

Regulated Industries Tax

Our team has significant experience assisting with the legal and tax challenges highly regulated businesses face on a routine basis. From providing transactional due diligence, to defending an audit before various state and federal administrative agencies, to litigating complicated tax issues, we deliver solutions based on a detailed accounting of each client’s business, understood within the broader context of their industry. Though we advise on the tax and regulatory overlay for virtually every industry, we have notable depth in the manufacturing, tobacco, alcohol, gaming, energy, banking and auto sectors.

State & Local Tax (SALT)

Frost Brown Todd’s State and Local Tax (SALT) practice advises clients on the full gamut of SALT matters at all stages of the tax continuum, providing high quality defense in tax-related litigation, audits and appeals, as well as proven strategies to help clients optimize their specific tax positions. Furthermore, by working collaboratively with attorneys across the entire footprint of the firm, we are able to capitalize on and leverage the firm’s various industry and specialty practices as needed.

Members of our SALT practice are among the most active, sophisticated and regionally preeminent tax professionals in our mid-American footprint. Our state and local tax experience runs deep. We’ve represented thousands of taxpayers at all administrative and judicial levels and in SALT controversies ranging from sales and use tax to real property, tobacco and motor vehicle tax, and all areas in between.

Our attorneys likewise know how tax and revenue departments work from the inside, as members of our team served in governmental positions before entering private practice. With the necessary experience and relationships, we find practical and innovative ways to minimize our clients’ state and local tax exposure and turn the latest developments to their advantage.

Tax Planning & QSBS Services

Tax Planning

Our attorneys advise on the full spectrum of taxable transactions and tax-saving techniques at the individual and entity levels. Most important, our tax planning advice focuses not just on our clients’ immediate needs but also in anticipation of the likely issues they will face as the business evolves. By being both practical and painstaking, we help clients develop a tax-efficient structure that complies with the law, prevents undue expense and ultimately achieves the desired tax and business outcomes.

Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) Services

Under Code Section 1202, taxpayers who are issued founder or investor corporate stock for cash, services, or other property (excluding stock) can potentially exclude at least $10 million of gain at the federal (and often state) level upon the sale of qualified small business stock (QSBS) held by the taxpayer for at least five years. The overarching mission of our QSBS practice encompasses:

  • Helping clients navigate through the choice of entity decision, and in particular whether to operate their business through a C corporation and seek eligibility for claiming the Section 1202 gain exclusion.
  • Assisting clients in their efforts to meet the eligibility requirements for claiming the Section 1202 gain exclusion.
  • Assisting clients in preparing for a potential IRS audit by gathering the information and documentation necessary to establish that they have met each of Section 1202’s eligibility requirements.

Want to learn more about Qualified Small Business Stock? Dive into all related articles in our OSBS library. You can also download our QSBS Services Brochure and view more resources below. 

 

Download QSBS Brochure

Tax Law Defined® Blog

Featuring everything from legislative updates to judicial trends and tax-saving techniques.

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