Pam Olson is the Deputy Tax Leader and Washington National Tax Services Practice Leader of PwC. In her role as WNTS leader, Ms. Olson leads a team that includes many former senior government officials and policy advisers.
Prior to joining PwC, Ms. Olson retired from the head of a major law firm's Washington office Tax Group, and formerly was an assistant secretary for tax policy at the US Department of the Treasury.
Ms. Olson has represented clients in a broad range of matters, including IRS audits, appeals and litigation; congressional investigations; private letter ruling requests and other administrative guidance; and in the submission of comments on proposed regulations. She also has advised clients on tax and social security reform, legislative matters and the structuring of transactions. She is a frequent speaker on tax, economic and federal budget matters and has testified before several congressional committees.
As assistant secretary for tax policy, Ms. Olson had supervisory responsibility for providing the secretary of the treasury with policy analysis and recommendations for all domestic and international issues of federal taxation, including legislative proposals, regulatory guidance, and tax treaties, and for providing the official estimates of all government receipts for the president's budget and treasury cash management decisions. Ms. Olson also held positions with the chief counsel's office of the Internal Revenue Service as special assistant to the chief counsel, attorney-adviser in the Legislation and Regulations Division and trial attorney in San Diego District Counsel.
In 2000 and 2001, Ms. Olson was the first woman to serve as chair of the American Bar Association Section of Taxation. She served as a senior economic adviser to the Bush-Cheney campaign and as federal tax adviser to the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform. She has been included repeatedly in Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business and The Best Lawyers in America for tax law. Ms. Olson served as a Regent of the American College of Tax Counsel and on the board of several tax exempt organizations. She received distinguished service awards from the Federal Bar Association and from Tax Executives Institute.
Ms. Olson received her M.B.A. from the University of Minnesota and her J.D. from the University of Minnesota. She graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. from the University of Minnesota