John A. Biek represents large publicly traded and privately held businesses in controversies, transactional matters and tax planning involving multistate corporate income/franchise taxes, gross receipts taxes, sales and use taxes, and other business privilege taxes. He has represented clients in state tax audits and litigation before courts, administrative law judges and departments of revenue throughout the United States.
As one of the nation’s leading lawyers in the emerging fi eld of state unclaimed property laws, John devotes a substantial part of his practice to representing and advising clients in a broad range of industries, including manufacturing, retailing, distribution, aerospace, technology, pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, fi nancial and investment services, telecommunications, healthcare, insurance, utilities and transportation businesses, with complex multistate unclaimed property audits, litigation, voluntary disclosure and transactional matters. He helps clients determine whether their business operations are producing unclaimed property liabilities and how those operations can be restructured to minimize unclaimed property exposure.
John is an adjunct professor of law in the IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law Graduate Tax Program. He currently serves as the chair of the Unclaimed Property Subcommittee of the American Bar Association Tax Section’s State & Local Tax Committee. He is also a frequent
speaker and author on state tax and unclaimed property issues. He is co-author of a chapter entitled, Federal and State Tax Issues for Energy Companies: A Case Study, in a book entitled, Energy and Environmental Trading: U.S. Law and Taxation (1st Ed. 2008), a publication focused on discussions of the new energy and environmental markets and their developing framework of corporate, regulatory, tax and fi nancial law. He is author of the Unclaimed Property chapter in a treatise entitled, State Business Taxes (1st Ed. 2009), a publication designed to help corporate, tax and trial counsel and accountants deal with all aspects of state tax matters, from
constitutional issues to the taxation of digital goods.
John was elected in 2007 as a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel.
John has been recognized as a leader in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business (recommended in “National: Tax Controversy” and “Illinois: Tax”) since 2008. He has been selected by his peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America since 2007 and in the Chicago Bulletin Publishing Company’s Leading Lawyers Network. He is AV Peer Review Rated (the highest possible rating) via the Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Ratings.
While in law school, John served as executive editor of Th e Tax Lawyer.
Representative Matters:
As lead counsel for Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, obtained summary judgement from the Illinois Circuit Court in January 2011, that the double interest/penalty provisions of the 2003 Illinois Amnesty Act did not apply to federal tax adjustments to MetLife's 1998 and 1999 tax years that were not fi nalized until after the amnesty reporting period had concluded.