Karl Zeswitz, a member of Sutherland’s Tax Practice Group, advises clients on a wide range of transactional tax planning and tax controversy matters. His practice is broad-based, involving all aspects of corporate and partnership tax planning for domestic and multi-national companies, publicly traded and privately held clients, and clients in the nonprofit sector. He also assists clients with tax accounting matters, FIN 48 reporting, worker classification issues, financing transactions and consolidated return issues. His transactional practice focuses on tax planning in mergers, acquisitions, reorganizations and recapitalizations for domestic and cross-border transactions. He also advises clients in matters involving corporate joint ventures, venture capital and hedge funds, and complex pooling and financing arrangements.

In addition to transactional tax planning, Karl maintains a significant tax controversy practice, handling individual and large case audits, and litigation in various federal and state jurisdictions. He has extensive experience in tax controversy matters at all administrative government levels (federal, state and local), including before the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and U.S. Departments of the Treasury and Justice. He has litigated cases in federal jurisdictions, before the U.S. Tax Court, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth, Sixth and Federal Circuits, as well as in trial and appellate courts in state and local jurisdictions, including in California, New York, Maryland, Virginia, Illinois and in the District of Columbia. State and local tax matters he has handled include income, franchise, sales and use, and business license tax controversies.

Prior to joining Sutherland, Karl was the Washington, D.C., Tax Group Coordinator for a large national law firm (with that firm from 1986 to 1998). Before entering private practice, he was a Senior Trial Attorney with the Office of Chief Counsel (with the IRS from 1980 to 1985), where he was first chair in major tax litigation and served as senior counsel on other matters in the District Counsel office, including evaluation of criminal tax cases and bankruptcy proceedings.

Karl’s client base ranges from high-profile individuals in the entertainment industry to Fortune 50 businesses. He provides advice to CFOs and tax directors, as well as to major accounting firms and investment banks, with respect to domestic and international tax planning for businesses with global operations. He also frequently manages tax controversies that have adversarial as well as public relations challenges for clients well-known in the public domain.

Additionally, Karl devotes time to teaching tax law, having served as an adjunct professor in the areas of taxation of partnerships, corporate tax, consolidated returns and income tax accounting in the LL.M. in Taxation program at Georgetown University Law Center for more than 20 years.