EOTJ Interviews

Phil Hackney Interview on IRS Office of Chief Counsel and Current Issues

1 – Charitable Deduction Critiqued

2 – Views of Greg Colvin on Current EO Issues

Interview of Boyd Black

What follows is a May 11 interview of Boyd J. Black, Associate General Counsel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons).

1 – The EOTJ Mailbag

2 – Interview of Morgen Cheshire

Laura Kalick Discusses Current UBIT Issues

What follows is an October 6 interview of Laura Kalick of BDO USA, LLP, Bethesda, Maryland. Laura is the co-chair of the Subcommittee on Unrelated Business Income for the EO Committee of the ABA’s Tax Section and BDO’s National Director of Nonprofit Tax Consulting.

Today I’m sending along a transcript of the last of my three summer interviews. For previous transcripts, see email update 2011-138 (interview of Gerry Griffith) and email update 2011-140 (interview of Beth Kingsley). I’m happy to say all three interviewees have survived the grueling experience and I think we are all more informed thanks to their willingness to share their insights and knowledge. I’ll be focusing on the slew of upcoming EO tax programs in October and November, but come December I expect to have time for more interviews, since we all know the IRS pretty much closes up after Thanksgiving.

Suzy McDowell Interview

1 – Verizon Strike

3 – Summer Interviews

Well, Animal Kingdom didn’t win the Preakness on Saturday, but neither did the world come to an end — apocalypse deferred, I suppose. A couple of weeks ago I had an interview of Heidi Neff Christianson, who gave us a Minnesota EO perspective. Today readers get the New York perspective in the person of Dave Shevlin, whom I got to interview earlier this month at the Washington gathering of the ABA Tax Section.

News this week is that Treasury’s #1 tax guy, Michael Mundaca, the current assistant secretary for tax policy, is turning in his keys to the men’s room on Friday. The Wall Street Journal describes him as “unflappable.” As one wag has defined it, unflappable is when your wife is on line one, your girlfriend is on line two, and your mother is on line three.

Mundaca’s departure cannot be good for EO guidance. Emily McMahon, the deputy assistant secretary for tax policy, will move into the acting spot, but usually actors await a permanent replacement to sign off on regs projects. So, unless Mundaca signs off on the supporting organizations regs as he leaves on Friday, Ruth Madrigal’s promise of “soon” may have just become a little — or a lot — longer.

I hope to have the third panel of the February 4 daylong meeting of the TE/GE area councils this week, which featured the IRS’ Steve Clarke on Form 990 developments. One of the unsung heroes of that meeting is Nicola Toubia, who helps coordinate the EO portion of the gathering.

Since I’ve found her to be an interesting person, I asked her to share some of her background and views with us. I. no shrinking violet, have always considered myself a good judge of talent and I put Nicola on my list of future leaders of the EO tax bar. Much as I hate to say it, many of the current leaders of the EO tax bar are in their sixties, or rapidly approaching. While there is nothing wrong with this age group, to which I belong, we need to begin recognizing the next generation of leaders of the EO tax bar, and so I hope to begin interviewing folks in this category. I don’t want to be the sole judge of who’s who, so please send me your next-generation nominees.

Interview of Nicola Fuentes Toubia