Advocacy
Our tax lawyers have taken a proactive leadership role in formalizing, documenting and presenting nonprofit industry and client concerns to federal legislators and administrative bodies with respect to tax laws and policies. We constantly monitor and respond to proposed legislation and, when necessary, have sought and obtained targeted legislative relief on behalf of clients. We have represented clients and organizations before Congress, executive departments, the IRS and other administrative agencies.
Corporate
Our corporate lawyers assist clients with the issuance of tax-exempt bonds for nonprofit institutions, including institutions of higher education and hospitals and other health care providers. The firm has developed a national reputation in the area of tax-exempt financing for colleges and universities. We have been involved in financings for most of the major educational institutions in Pennsylvania for years, as well as other major universities around the country. Our practice also includes a growing number of financings for private independent secondary and elementary schools. In addition, we have been involved in some creative financings for other charitable service organizations and cultural institutions.
Foundations
Our group assists individuals and corporate entities with establishing 501(c) (3) organizations, including entity formation and applicable state and federal tax matters. We also represent private foundations and public charities in tax matters and the structuring and formation of partnerships and limited liability companies used as acquisition vehicles by exempt organizations. Our group counsels individual clients on donations and estate planning to ensure that their personal planning goals associated with the contributions and tax planning needs are met.
Health Care
Our lawyers assist health care clients in the areas of advocacy, community benefit and charity care, transactional and regulatory counseling and advocacy, fiduciary issues confronting governance and management and intermediate sanctions. Our clients include hospitals, nursing facilities, managed care organizations, physician clinics and research facilities. We also counsel clients on federal and state tax compliance in mergers, affiliations, joint ventures and other strategic transactions and health system formation and restructuring, including tax-exempt and public charity status.
Labor and Employment
We have assisted nonprofit companies with managing and administering health and welfare benefits, retirement plans and non-qualified plans. We also guide clients on the design, implementation and operation of benefit plans to ensure consistency with plan terms and compliance with ERISA and tax code requirements.
Tax
Our lawyers have helped numerous clients develop creative strategies to comply with the restrictions on executive and deferred compensation arrangements imposed by the Internal Revenue Code. We have represented organizations before the IRS at all points in their life cycles, from the filing of initial exemption applications and requests for private letter rulings for specific transactions to examinations of an organization. We regularly work with the boards of directors and management of tax-exempt nonprofit organizations engaged in a wide variety of transactions to ensure that they have taken all practical steps to comply with tax exemption requirements and avoid excise tax exposure. We advise on governance, executive compensation, corporate structure and compliance.
