The New Section 199A Qualified Business Deduction: Opportunities and Stumbling Blocks for Your Business

Douglas Schwartz, in his 30-plus years of practice, has specialized in tax matters affecting personal, business, and other planning for nonprofits; public agencies; and clients in entertainment, art, retail and wholesale, professional services, oil and gas, healthcare, biomed, software, manufacturing, and real estate. He advises on international, federal, state, and local taxes (including, in California, income and franchise taxes; sales and use tax; Proposition 13; documentary transfer tax; and local business license taxes) and his practice encompasses tax planning; transactional work; audits and other tax controversies. He focuses on entrepreneurs who are forming and expanding businesses or interested in succession planning, and in that area is familiar with pass-through entities (sole proprietorships, S corporations, partnerships and LLCs) and their related tax issues (including, now, working through the Code section 199A qualified business income deduction).

Mr. Lake is an associate in Seyfarth Shaw LLP's Tax and Corporate practice groups, based in the firm’s New York office.  He represents public and private clients on tax matters including partnerships and joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, Section 1031 like-kind exchanges, REITs and real estate funds, restructurings, financings, and tax controversy.  Prior to joining Seyfarth Shaw, Mr. Lake served as a law clerk to the Honorable Maurice B. Foley at the United States Tax Court. 

Louis Vlahos is a partner and leads the firm’s tax practice.  Mr. Vlahos has extensive experience in corporate, individual and partnership income taxation, and in estate and gift taxation, including tax planning, ruling requests, and tax controversy.  He advises clients in connection with corporate operations and reorganizations; sales and acquisitions of businesses; corporate distributions, redemptions, liquidations and spin-offs; shareholder and buy-sell agreements; partnership organizations and transactions; real estate sales, exchanges and operations; executive and deferred compensation arrangements; estate and succession planning, including the transfer of business interests, and estate and gift tax audits; charitable giving; private foundation, tax exemption, not-for-profit restructuring, charitable gift acceptance, and excess benefit issues. He is a frequent contributor to the firm's Tax Law for the Closely-Held Business blog and also writes for the firm's New York Trusts & Estates Litigation blog.

Mr. Vlahos counsels not-for-profit corporations in connection with reorganizations.  He has advised cultural institutions, hospitals and other non-profit organizations on their tax exempt status, corporate restructuring, the creation and operation of supporting organizations

(including fundraising entities), the structuring and acceptance of charitable gifts (including charitable trusts), compensation and other excess benefit issues, deferred compensation arrangements, and the taxation of unrelated business income.

In 2016, Mr. Vlahos was selected to serve as a member of the IRS Taxpayer Advocacy Panel (TAP). He will volunteer for three years.

Mr. Vlahos received his LL.M. in taxation from New York University in 1993, after he received his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1987.  He graduated with a B.A. magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia College in 1984.

Mr. Vlahos is admitted to practice in New York State and in the U.S. Tax Court.  He has

an AV Preeminent Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Rating.