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H. Karl Zeswitz

Partner

Karl has more than 30 years of experience as an adviser, advocate and mentor in tax law. 

He provides clients with sophisticated tax planning and defends them in tax inquiries and investigations.

Working with domestic and multinational publicly traded, privately held and nonprofit clients, Karl provides advice on corporate and partnership tax planning, tax accounting methods, FIN 48 reporting, worker classifications, financing transactions, and consolidated return matters. He helps clients navigate the multiple layers of tax planning in mergers, acquisitions, reorganizations and recapitalizations for domestic and cross-border transactions, and advises them in corporate joint ventures, venture capital and hedge funds matters, and complex pooling and financing arrangements.

He began his law career as a trial attorney with the Office of Chief Counsel of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Karl now maintains a significant tax controversy practice, handling individual and large case audits and litigation. Because his clients range from high-profile individuals in the entertainment industry to Fortune 50 businesses, Karl frequently manages tax controversies that have adversarial, as well as public relations, challenges for well-known clients. He appears in tax controversy matters at all administrative government levels (federal, state and local), including before the IRS and U.S. Departments of the Treasury and Justice, and he litigates cases before the U.S. Tax Court, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fifth, Sixth and Federal Circuits, as well as in trial and appellate courts in state and local jurisdictions across the country.

Karl devotes time to teaching tax law and has served as an adjunct professor in taxation of partnerships, corporate tax, consolidated returns, and income tax accounting at Georgetown University Law Center for more than 20 years.

  • Represented India-based supplier of pharmaceutical and nutraceutical products and services in its acquisition of a capsule manufacturing business from a subsidiary of Nestle Health Sciences.
  • Represented Columbia Care Inc. in its public listing on the Canadian NEO Stock Exchange, making it the first company with an enterprise value of more than $1 billion to list on the NEO.
  • Advises a multistate medical cannabis operator on raising private capital, secondary sales of equity interests, acquisitions and Canadian SPAC financing, and provides tax, benefits and general corporate advice.
  • Represented a provider of working capital loans to small businesses in connection with both a control investment by a private equity firm and the subsequent acquisition of a controlling interest in a complementary business.
  • Represented a private equity firm in connection with its formation, development and financing of, and exit from, multiple wireless communication tower companies.
  • Mistakes were Made: Considerations for Addressing Errors in Tax Filings, November 2, 2023, Philly Tax Day
  • Circular 230 and Tax Opinion Standards: From “Will” to “No Way,” November 16, 2022, Philly Tax Day
  • Navigating Privilege and Ethics Obligations, November 21, 2019, Philly CPE Day
  • Eversheds Sutherland Year-End Tax Seminar – Navigating the Changing World of Tax, November 14, 2018
  • Named to The Best Lawyers in America in the area of tax law (2014-2024)
  • Member, Tax Section, American Bar Association
  • Member, Tax Section, District of Columbia Bar
  • Member, Tax Section, Louisiana State Bar Association
  • Member, Tax Section, State Bar of California
  • California
  • District of Columbia
  • Louisiana
  • Pennsylvania
  • U.S. Tax Court
  • U.S. Court of Federal Claims
  • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
  • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
  • LL.M. in Taxation, Georgetown University Law Center
  • B.S., Pennsylvania State University
  • J.D., cum laude, Dickinson School of Law
H. Zeswitz

Partner

H. Zeswitz

Partner

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