Prior Engagements

Greg Wilson has described a few of his prior engagements below in order to provide additional information about the types of services he provides. 

Examples of Prior Tax Controversy Matters

  • Successfully negotiated several IRS offers in compromises including one for reduction of over $1,000,000 in tax and related liabilities.
  • Successfully identified and obtained IRS and FTB refunds based on novel theory of applying Section 121 to exclude gain attributable to sale of residence not legally owned by taxpayer.
  • Represented taxpayer in IRS lien foreclosure action.
  • Obtained “no changes” (IRS concedes case and agrees taxpayer owes no additional taxes) in over two dozen separate Tax Court cases where the IRS asserted patronage dividends were subject to self-employment tax
  • Successfully pursued refund litigation in U.S. District Court to obtain refund based on application of ordinary income tax rates – rather than long term capital gains rate – on income realized on partnership profits interest
  • Successfully litigated two separate cases asserting complex IRC section 121 (principal residence exclusion) positions relating to dual use properties
  • Negotiated offer in compromise with FTB to pay $25,000 to settle in full tax liability in excess of $750,000
  • Provided business and its owner with four year respite from tax collection efforts and managed process to reduce personal liability for trust fund portion of payroll tax and eventual bankruptcy of entity discharging taxes
  • Successfully pursued innocent spouse claim for tax assessed against a taxpayer in excess of $500,000 related to adjustments made to a tax shelter investment.

Examples of Prior Tax Planning Matters

  • Identified/structured/implemented plan for taxpayer to obtain refund and reduce tax liability attributable to fee income disgorged by SEC.
  • Identified/structured/implemented plan for taxpayer to obtain long term capital gain instead of ordinary income tax rate on large stock position obtained for payment of services.
  • Identified/structured/implemented plan for taxpayer to repatriate foreign property to U.S. obtained with deferred income and convert later income realized to long term capital gain.
  • Advised several clients with offshore bank accounts through various options including voluntary IRS disclosure programs.
  • Advised clients expatriating from U.S. to reduce taxes going forward.
  • Designed and structured sale of divisions of C corporation insurance business as sale of personal goodwill to reduce the effective tax rate on gain from the sale by over 50%
  • Discovered/advanced tax reporting position for ex-CEO of public company that options remained ISOs rather than converting to non-qualified stock options (a position contrary to that of the issuer) entitling holder to defer tax and pay lower rate of tax on income when recognized;  Issued tax opinion for such position
  • Land owner was planning to trade land to developer/builder for his land back with building constructed;  Designed transaction so that exchange would fall outside Section 1031 to trigger gain in order to utilize expiring capital losses (to, in effect, swap expiring capital losses for increased basis in replacement property - effectively saving a portion of the capital losses)
  • Designed and structured three different synthetic spin-offs of corporate divisions to allow shareholders to divide up company in tax-free manner when the requirements of Section 355 could not be met.
  • Structured two tax-free spin-offs of corporate subsidiaries within the scope of Section 355 by satisfying the active trade or business test using a method usually not considered by tax advisors.
  • Designed and structured transaction to avoid Subchapter K disguised sales rules but permit founding partner to substantially exit his historic ownership of partnership tax-free and bring in new investors.
  • Designed transaction to utilize Section 108(i) added to the Code in 2009 to defer the recognition of over $3,000,000 of cancellation of indebtedness income caused by the renegotiation of debt on real estate.