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Return to Cash Flow Tax Planning
LIVE Webcast
Raymond J. Freda
Managing Director – New York
WTAS LLC
Raymond Freda has over 13 years of state and local tax experience in advising clients with respect to income/franchise, gross receipts, sales and use, property, employment, and other state industry-specific excise taxes. He represents corporate and individual clients during state tax audits, conciliation conferences, and other administrative proceedings. Raymond also helps clients go through voluntary disclosure and tax amnesty programs.
Raymond has extensive experience advising private equity and corporate clients throughout all phases of a transaction, including sell-side tax planning, due diligence, state tax structuring, transfer tax analysis and post-acquisition integration.
Before Joining WTAS, Raymond was a tax partner in the transactions practice of an international professional services firm where he specialized in state and local taxes. He also worked at the New York State Tax Appeals Tribunal Administrative Law Judge Unit.
Raymond has appeared as a speaker before the New York State CPA Society.
Gary C. Bingel, JD, CPA, MBA
Director - State and Local Tax Consulting
EisnerAmper LLP
Gary Bingel is Director of the State and Local Tax Group at Amper, Politziner & Mattia. With over 15 years of experience, his expertise focuses on state and local income taxation, but also includes sales and use tax consulting. He has significant experience serving clients in the manufacturing, retail, pharmaceutical, biotechnology and services industries. Prior to joining Amper, Gary was Partner/Managing Director in an advisory and consulting firm in New York where his clients ranged from start-up entities to Fortune 500 companies. His work centered on state income and franchise tax consulting and also included consulting on various sales and use tax issues. Gary also has significant experience in the area of state credits and incentives, including negotiations and site selection. Gary’s additional experience includes serving as a State and Local Tax Manager for Arthur Andersen and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Gary received his Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Villanova University; his Juris Doctor degree from Villanova University School of Law (cum laude); and his Master of Business Administration from Villanova University College of Commerce & Finance. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants (PICPA), Pennsylvania Bar and Philadelphia Bar. A frequent lecturer, Gary has presented various state and local tax topics to a range of organizations including the Tax Executives Institute and state CPA associations. He has authored articles for the PICPA as well.
Thomas H. Steele
Partner, Co-Chair, State & Local Tax Group
Morrison Foerster
Thomas Steele is currently co-chair of the firm's State & Local Tax Group. Mr. Steele has focused his practice for the last 25 years on state and local tax matters, including tax controversy matters. He has actively litigated matters in numerous states involving a variety of taxes, including income/franchise, sales and use, excise, environmental, gross receipts, and property taxes. In addition to focusing on tax controversy in various states, he has developed special expertise in state and local tax issues faced by national communication companies, including both traditional telecommunications providers and emerging technologies (such as smart phones and Voice over Internet Protocol).
While Mr. Steele has an active court litigation practice, where possible, he has worked to resolve cases through administrative appeals in order to avoid the expense and delay of court litigation.
Mr. Steele's tax controversy experience includes a number of high impact, large monetary value cases at both the state and local levels. For example, in the corporate income tax arena, he acted as counsel of record in United States Supreme Court proceedings involving a successful challenge to California's discriminatory dividend received deduction that reportedly involved refunds for taxpayers in excess of $1 billion. He acted as lead counsel in a worldwide unitary combination case (that involved over $700 million in potential California franchise taxes) and that was successfully resolved at the administrative level. In the personal tax arena, he acted as lead counsel in a large case (involving over $500 million in potential California personal income taxes for one family) that was also successfully resolved at the administrative level. In the property tax arena, he represented the Sante Fe Railroad and the Southern Pacific Railroad in challenging the simultaneous reassessment under Proposition 13 of almost 5,000 separate parcels (including such high profile development projects as the San Francisco Mission Bay Project and ranch lands covering hundreds of thousands of acres). Finally, in the sales and use tax arena, he represented the developers of the large geothermal steam field at the Geysers in successful litigation defeating an attempt to impose sales tax on steam used for generating electricity.
Mr. Steele is currently the deputy chair of BNA's Tax Management Multistate Advisory Board and is the past chairman of the Bar Association of San Francisco's Tax Section. While earning his degree from the School of Law at the University of California, Davis, Mr. Steele was Editor-in-Chief of the U.C. Davis Law Review, and was elected to Order of the Coif. In addition, he received the U.C. Davis Law School Medal.
Mr. Steele recognized for his work in tax controversy by Legal 500, 2010 , and is recommended as a leading lawyer by Best Lawyers in America 2011.
Education: University of Virginia (B.A., 1970); University of California, Davis, School of Law (J.D., 1976).
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