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Overview
Plaintiff lawyers have used a unique tax strategy for decades – fee deferral. With it, lawyers earning large lump sum fees can spread their income over many years, reducing their effective tax rate. They can also defer taxation of investment earnings on those fees. In short, the “fee structure” or “fee deferral” acts like an uncapped 401(k). In late 2022 the IRS issued a non-binding memo that considered a particularly aggressive fee deferral, concluding that it failed to defer taxation. This presentation will discuss the impact to the current range of fee deferral arrangements and how to protect your tax benefits.
Please join tax and settlement-planning expert Jeremy Babener for a walk through the IRS’ analysis, its impact to the range of fee deferral arrangements, and how to protect your tax benefits. Issues discussed will include the following:
- The IRS general legal advice memorandum (10 minutes)
- Necessary elements of an effective fee deferral arrangement (10 minutes)
- Problematic aspects of aggressive arrangements (15 minutes)
- How to assess an arrangement’s effectiveness (15 minutes)
- How to maximize the financial benefits of fee deferral (10 minutes)
Program Level: Overview
Prerequisites: None
Advanced Preparation: None
Faculty:
Jeremy Babener
Founder, Structured Consulting
Special Tax Counsel, Lane Powell