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Practice Highlights

  • Tax planning for businesses and individuals
  • Tax dispute resolution
  • Services for Marcellus Shale landowners 

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Tax and Estates

The challenge in the tax arena is to determine which route will get you to your goal with a minimum tax burden. Our tax and estates lawyers, together with our colleagues in various practice groups throughout the firm, work to identify the most tax-efficient solutions available.

Whether you’re a business owner considering the sale of your business, a company with a multi-million dollar income tax liability resulting from the restructuring of a loan in default, a family member interested in a tax-efficient means of passing wealth, or the administrator of an estate, our lawyers rely upon their many years of experience across multiple tax disciplines to identify overlooked opportunities that could benefit all interested parties.  

Our group’s mission is to carefully evaluate the needs of our clients in order to formulate effective tax saving solutions. We can do this because our tax attorneys are well-versed in several sub disciplines, hold advanced degrees, and bring to bear years of experience in both government and the private sector. This depth allows us to assist families considering intricate estate planning, a management team considering a corporate transaction, and the administrators of an estate navigating hostile waters. We regularly provide timely advice to closely-held businesses, entrepreneurs, large corporations and their shareholders, tax-exempt organizations, partnerships, and multi-generational families. We work with private equity funds, investment bankers, financial, accounting and other professional advisors.

We provide practical legal solutions related to:

  • Business formation and choice of entity
  • Taxable and tax-free mergers, acquisitions and divestitures
  • Real estate transactions, including like-kind exchanges
  • State and local tax planning
  • International taxes, including transfer pricing
  • Executive compensation
  • Charitable giving and tax-exempt organizations
  • Individual estate and income tax planning
  • Wills, trusts and elder law planning
  • Estate and trust administration and probate litigation
  • Tax dispute resolution

Marcellus Shale Landowners

Over the past five years, landowners in the northern tier of Pennsylvania and southern tier of New York have seen firsthand the income potential from leasing their land to natural gas exploration companies. For generations, families in these regions have not been concerned with estate and gift tax laws which now threaten their ability to pass significant wealth to future generations. These families are further challenged by a lack of sound advice on how to pursue tax saving opportunities. Our group has been involved in representing residents in their home counties, educating residents, and providing the quality of service and breadth of ideas which are not regularly available in rural areas. As a multi-practice firm, we also offer the ability and depth of experience to represent landowners in any dispute they might be drawn into as a consequence of their gas leases.

In the earliest days of the Marcellus Shale natural gas boom, landowners were most concerned with the terms of their leases. With little known about the potential for future income, bonus payments and royalty rates started low and have increased over time. As payment rates have increased, so too have tax liabilities. There are income taxes, transfer taxes, estate taxes, inheritance taxes and gift taxes associated with gas and oil royalties and bonuses. Landowners need to be concerned about all of these. Bringing tax efficiency to the oil and gas exploration relationship is absolutely essential.

MarcellusShaleTax.com was created by Scott Borsack to provide updates on Marcellus Shale issues and notices of educational seminars, as well as to serve as a clearinghouse of online resources to assist landowners in dealing with their royalty interests. Scott is Chair of the Tax and Estates Practice Group and has been a practicing attorney for 24 years. He has presented to over 1,300 individuals and families about proper tax and estate planning for land owners who are benefitting financially from the Marcellus Shale natural gas play. 

More information may be found here:

Tax

Our lawyers assist clients with issues such as federal, state, local and international tax planning and the formation, operation and liquidation of various business entities. Our goal is to develop practical approaches that are consistent with individual and business objectives while reducing the overall tax burden. Working closely with clients, their professional advisors and lawyers in other practice groups at White and Williams, we help to structure and implement taxable and tax-free business and investment transactions involving individuals, corporations, partnerships, limited liability companies, S Corporations, trusts and estates.

Estate Planning and Administration

We guide individual clients and their families to plan for their long-term needs while being sensitive to particular current needs and desires. These plans allow for the passage of wealth to junior generations while minimizing the transfer tax burden. Our lawyers regularly counsel individuals on ownership succession for closely-held businesses and lifetime gifts. As part of our estate planning practice, we have developed significant experience in the design and use of irrevocable life insurance trusts, qualified personal residence trusts, family limited partnerships and limited liability companies, charitable remainder trusts and private foundations, generation-skipping trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts, and other sophisticated tax savings techniques. 

Dispute Resolution

Our lawyers regularly represent clients before various administrative agencies and courts, including the Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Tax Court, state and local taxing authorities and numerous state probate tribunals. We have represented clients before the IRS defending a variety of tax return positions. We also have successfully navigated the complex procedural issues presented by advance ruling requests, tax audits, administrative appeals, and tax litigation.

Representative Matters

  • Represented a family with a closely-held business interest worth more than $30 million by designing a transaction structured as a sale which did not yield income taxes and shifted ownership to the next generation without incidence of the gift tax
  • Successfully represented a multi-state bank in administrative proceedings, as well as before state appellate courts including the state Supreme Court, challenging a state tax assessment of several hundred thousand dollars
  • Represented a family with several hundred acres of land leased to a natural gas exploration company by crafting a plan to transfer significant wealth to the next generation without incidence of the gift tax

Tax

  • Worked together as part of a team to restructure a loan workout which eliminated more than $20 million in income taxes
  • Worked with the board of directors of a corporation to create a stock option plan for senior executives that provided income tax benefits while at the same time deferring the recognition of income until underlying shares were sold

Dispute Resolution 

  • Represented numerous clients in state and federal voluntary disclosure programs (including failing to report foreign bank accounts) avoiding hundreds of thousands in penalties, and reducing additional taxes and interest that would otherwise be payable to taxing authorities
  • Successfully represented clients accused of civil tax fraud before federal and state administrative agencies

Marcellus Shale

  • Represented a family to identify and correct defects and deficiencies in an estate plan implemented to transfer royalties between generations 

Events

  • What Every Real Estate Lawyer Needs To Know About Marcellus Shale 
    Pennsylvania Bar Institute Real Estate Forum (Philadelphia, PA)
    December 8, 2011
  • Women's Financial and Health Demands - Answered 
    NAWBO - Greater Philadelphia Chapter
    November 8, 2011
  • Avoiding Nightmares in Marcellus Shale Estate Planning 
    Delaware County Estate Planning Council
    September 19, 2011
  • Tax Aspects of Loan Restructurings and Workouts 
    15th Annual Real Estate Forum, Pennsylvania Bar Institute
    December 13, 2010
  • Executive Compensation: Attracting and Retaining Key People in a Changing Economy (KYW Newsradio Event) 
    October 20, 2010
  • Marcellus Shale Leasing and Tax Concerns 
    Mansfield, PA
    October 2010
  • IMN Distressed Commercial Real Estate Forum 
    New York, NY
    October 13, 2010
  • Tax Aspects of Loan Restructurings and Workouts 
    Pennsylvania Bar Institute
    September 2010
  • IMN Distressed Properties and Real Estate Loan Workouts Forum 
    New York, NY
    April 2010
  • Top 10 Estate Planning Techniques 
    National Business Institute
    June 13, 2009
  • Deferred Consideration Payments in Acquisitions 
    14th Annual Business lawyers’ Institute, Pennsylvania Bar Institute
    November 2008
  • Riding the Wave of Foreign Investment: Strategies for Foreign Buyers, U.S. Sellers and Their Advisors 
    June 13, 2008

Publications