James B. Sowell

James Sowell is a former chairman of the Real Estate Committee of the American Bar Association (Tax Section) and is a former vice chairman of the Tax Policy Advisory Committee of the Real Estate Roundtable. He is a member of the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts, where he is an active participant on the Government Relations Committee. Mr. Sowell also currently is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Southern Federal Tax Institute.

Mr. Sowell has written articles for various publications and speaks at numerous conferences.

Before joining KPMG, Mr. Sowell was with the national tax offices of other major accounting firms. 

Prior to that time, Mr. Sowell was with the U.S. Department of Treasury (Office of Tax Policy) where he served first as an attorney advisor and then as an associate tax legislative counsel. While at the Treasury Department, Mr. Sowell was primarily responsible for administrative guidance and legislation involving partnerships, real estate investment trusts, like-kind exchanges, and other issues. The many matters that Mr. Sowell was involved in while at Treasury included the regulations relating to partnership mergers and divisions, the partnership basis adjustment regulations, the regulations relating to amortization of intangible property, and the legislation relating to taxable REIT subsidiaries. 

Prior to the Treasury Department, Mr. Sowell was an associate at King & Spalding LLP in Atlanta, Georgia.

Mr. Sowell was chief tax editor of the Florida Law Review and was a graduate editor of New York University’s Tax Law Review.