Justin W. Clark
Tax Planning & Controversy
Trusts & Estate Planning
Business Organizations & Governance
Justin W. Clark is a licensed attorney in Texas, Illinois and Missouri. Justin has experience in a variety of business transactions where tax implications played an integral role, including tax free reorganizations, cross-border transactions, transfer pricing, foreign investments in United States companies, taxable stock and asset sales, allocations of purchase price, partnership profits interests, Subchapter K mixing bowl transactions, net operating loss utilization, corporate conversions to Subchapter S status, and deferred and incentive compensation arrangements.
Justin has represented individual and business taxpayers in controversies with the Internal Revenue Service in audits, protests and IRS Appeals. In 2010 Justin and a colleague at his former firm were successful in having the IRS abate over eight million dollars ($8,000,000) in excise taxes and penalties arising from pension underfunding by citing United States Supreme Court precedent from the 1930s and 1940s that arguably held the statute of limitations had expired for the years in question. On multiple occasions, Justin has succeeded in having employees of business entities absolved from liability for the company's unpaid withholding taxes because they were not "responsible persons" within the company for remitting taxes. In the case of Cavoto v. Hayes, (2009 WL 3380664) (N.D.Ill. Oct 19, 2009), Justin was the primary author of a successful motion for summary judgment in a case of first impression involving fraudulent filing liability under Code Section 7434.
Justin also has developed estate plans that utilize a variety of techniques and approaches, including generation skipping transfer planning, family limited partnerships, death bed gifts, creditor protection for beneficiaries, qualified domestic trusts for non-citizen spouses, irrevocable life insurance trusts, charitable bequests, and succession planning for family businesses. Justin co-authored "Estate and Gift Tax Updates and Opportunities in the Current Economy," that was nationally published in IMCA's Investments and Wealth Monitor, July/August, 2009 issue.
Justin joined the firm in 2011 after practicing in Chicago with Golan & Christie LLP for two and a half years. Prior to obtaining his Masters in Taxation from New York University, Justin clerked for a boutique tax and estate planning firm in Kansas City, Missouri.
Bar Admissions:
Missouri, 2007
Illinois, 2008
Texas, 2011
U.S. Tax Court, 2009
Education:
New York University School of Law
New York, New York, 2008
LL.M. in Taxation
University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law
Kansas City, Missouri, 2007
J.D.
Honors: Cum Laude
Law Review: UMKC Law Review Associate Editor
Westminster College
Fulton, MO, 2004
B.S., Business Finance and Political Science
Honors: Scholarship Chair for the Kappa Alpha Order
Professional Associations and Memberships:
Midland Country Bar Association Member
Midland County Young Lawyers Association Member
State Bar of Illinois Member
State Bar of Missouri Member
State Bar of Texas Member
Young Professionals in Energy, Board Member
