We understand that taxes have a direct impact on your bottom line, and we work to find creative and practical ways to minimize the impact of taxes of all types. With over 70 lawyers—including preeminent tax practitioners recognized by both their peers and by leading legal industry publications—who devote their practices solely to tax issues, we are able to provide innovative and comprehensive advice on planning, investments, transactions, controversy and litigation, and lobby projects.
We also work in conjunction with other lawyers in the firm to ensure that tax considerations are integrated into our clients’ business and transactional projects. Our clients include Fortune 500 companies, start-up companies, individuals, and others, enabling us to share with you a wide-ranging breadth and depth of experience. K&L Gates’ global reach means that we can efficiently and effectively access experience in international, federal, state, and local taxes. We offer: One-Stop Management, National, and International Coverage: K&L Gates has the capacity to efficiently handle multiple U.S. and international tax issues, with a single local contact person capable of managing the K&L Gates team and affiliate law firms as needed. Through this approach, K&L Gates can ensure a client’s internal legal requirements are uniformly applied while offering unlimited capacity and efficiency in handling multiple transactions, and one-stop management for clients. Proven Efficiency, Exceptional Client Service: Through our extensive experience, we are able to provide added value to large and small clients involved in all types of tax matters. Our tax practice is service-oriented, and we give virtually every matter partner-level attention. K&L Gates tax lawyers consistently monitor legislative developments and advise clients with respect to the potential impact of pending legislation on their businesses and personal finances. We also routinely realize significant cost efficiencies for our clients by handling all of their tax needs–and implementing creative solutions to help meet their business objectives. Local Service, Global Reach: In the United States, K&L Gates has the capability to provide tax counsel in virtually every state and the District of Columbia. We maintain local counsel relationships in those few states in which K&L Gates lawyers are not licensed to practice. Through the firm’s six office locations in Asia, we have successfully partnered with clients to expand their businesses. Also, in the U.K., Europe, and Middle East, where the firm maintains nine offices, we have substantial experience in providing advice on taxes.
The firm’s tax lawyers advise U.S, U.K., and internationally based clients on a variety of tax and business matters, including the planning, negotiation, and implementation of mergers, acquisitions and dispositions, spin-offs, public and private offerings, leveraged buyouts, joint ventures, reconstructions and demergers in the U.K., recapitalizations and restructurings, and choice of entity.
We have extensive experience in obtaining private letter rulings from the IRS National Office, rulings from U.S. state tax authorities when appropriate, and rulings and advance clearances from the HM Revenue & Customs in the U.K..
Sometimes the taxing authorities are wrong. K&L Gates has extensive experience and success representing clients at the administrative level and in state and federal courts, including the Supreme Court. Our lawyers have appeared in the U.S. Supreme Court on tax matters over eight times. We also have significant experience in efforts to minimize tax controversies by obtaining private letter rulings or taking other proactive measures.
In the international area, we have represented clients before the taxing authorities of foreign jurisdictions, such as the United Kingdom Office of Oil Taxation. In the U.K., we advise on disputes with HM Revenue & Customs both in the fields of direct and indirect tax.
We have worked on international tax-planning strategies and transactions, international tax consequences of cross-border acquisitions and dispositions of businesses, dual consolidated losses, the maximum utilization of foreign tax credits, Subpart F taxation, transfer pricing, VAT, the PFIC rules, sourcing of income, and the FIRPTA rules. For example, our experience includes: