Tennessee Federal Tax Conference

Turney P. Berry concentrates his practice in the areas of estate planning, fiduciary matters, and charitable planning. Mr. Berry is Chair of Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs' Trusts, Estates & Personal Planning Service Team and a past member of the firm's Executive Committee.

Mr. Berry is active in the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), and has served as President of the ACTEC Foundation, Regent of the College, State Chair for Kentucky, Chair of the Estate & Gift Committee, and Chair of the Charitable and Tax Exempt Committee. Currently he serves as Vice Chair of the State Laws Committee, and a member of the Long Range Planning Committee.

As a Uniform Law Commissioner, Mr. Berry currently serves as Co-Chair of the Drafting Committee on Economic Rights of Unmarried Cohabitants Act, Member of the Drafting Committee on Revised Disposition of Community Property Rights at Death Act, Vice-Chair of the Drafting Committee on Conflicts of Laws in Trusts and Estates, and Member of the Joint Editorial Board for Uniform Trust and Estate Acts. He has served as chair of the Uniform Fiduciary Income and Principal Act (UFIPA), chair of the Uniform Power of Appointment Act, Vice Chair of the Drafting Committee on Electronic Wills Act, and as a member of the drafting committees for the Directed Trust Act, the Revised Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, the Trust Decanting Act, the Insurable Interests in Trusts Act, the Premarital and Marital Agreements Act, the Transfer on Death Deeds Act, and the Uniform Probate Code Artificial Reproductive Technology provisions, and an adjunct member of the Fundraising Through Public Appeals Act.

Mr. Berry is a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel, a member of the American Law Institute, a member of The International Academy of Estate and Trust Law, a member of the Advisory Council of the Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning, a Member of the Advisory Board of Trusts and Estates Monthly, and a member of the Bloomberg BNA Tax Advisory Board (Estates, Gifts, and Trusts). He serves as Adjunct Professor at the University of Miami Estate Planning LLM Program (teaching Business Succession Planning), and has served as Adjunct Professor at Vanderbilt University, the University of Missouri, and the University of Louisville, and regularly speaks at the nation's leading estate planning conferences. Since 1996, Mr. Berry has served as Co-Chair of the Midwest/Midsouth Estate Planning Institute at the University of Kentucky (the longest continuously run CLE event in Kentucky).

Mr. Berry has been certified as an Accredited Estate Planner® (AEP®) by the National Association of Estate Planners & Councils and is a member of its Estate Planning Hall of Fame [Kentucky does not recognize legal specialties]. He is listed in Woodward/White's The Best Lawyers in America® and in the Kentucky Super Lawyer Magazine in the area of Trusts and Estates.

Mr. Berry is the author or co-author of three Tax Management Portfolios: Estate Tax Deductions - Sections 2053 and 2054; Private Foundations - Self Dealing - Section 4941; and Taxable Expenditures - Section 4945. In addition he is co-author of Trust Law in Kentucky (in progress) and his frequent articles have appeared in numerous journals and magazines. Mr. Berry received the Texas Bar Foundation Outstanding Law Review Article award for an article he co-authored with Paul Lee titled "Retaining, Sustaining and Obtaining Basis" which was published by the Texas Tech Estate Planning and Community Property Law Journal in January 2015

Mr. Berry has been an Articles Editor of The Tax Lawyer and a past chair of the Louisville Bar Association Probate and Estate Planning Section (1989 Section of the Year). He is a member of the Louisville Estate Planning Council, Kentuckiana Planned Giving Council, and an adjunct member of the American Association of Life Underwriters.

Mr. Berry is a member of the Civilian Review and Accountability Board, Chair of the Center for Interfaith Relations, and Earth School/Carbon Nation. He is a member of Louisville Downtown Rotary, and a Member of the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels. He is a past member of the Board of Directors for the Muhammad Ali Center, Kentucky Opera, Actors Theatre, the Filson Historical Society, the Louisville Science Center, among others, as well as past President of the Daily Bread Sunday School Class at Christ Church United Methodist. Mr. Berry is the recipient of the National Philanthropy Day Baylor Landrum Award and has been recognized as a Distinguished Citizen of Louisville.

A native of Tennessee, Mr. Berry received his B.A. and B.L.S. in 1983 from the University of Memphis and his J.D. in 1986 from Vanderbilt University.

Aaron Flinn is a private wealth services attorney in Holland & Knight's Nashville office. Business owners and entrepreneurs, corporate officers and executives, and investors and families with inherited assets seek advice from Mr. Flinn for the purpose of ensuring financial stability and continued prosperity. Serving clients with trust and estate as well as wealth preservation needs, he helps craft and deliver strategies that reflect the client's values while capturing the tax benefits available under their given circumstances. He also works with assisting business owners in succession planning and other issues often encountered by closely held companies.

Mr. Flinn offers advice to clients on how to protect and retain wealth through strategic planning related to income, estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer taxes. Tax-exempt and nonprofit organizations also rely on him for day-to-day guidance in relation to taxation and governance matters.

Mr. Flinn also assists trust officers and other fiduciaries in the administration trusts and decedents' estates, and works with ultra-high-net-worth families with regard to all facets of Private Family Trust Companies in Tennessee, including the migration of trusts and other administration issues.

Hale E. Sheppard is a Shareholder in the Tax Dispute Section and Chair of the International Tax Section of Chamberlain Hrdlicka. He defends individual and businesses with IRS problems, particularly those involving international issues.

Hale holds five college degrees. At the University of Kansas, he earned a B.S., with distinction, M.A., with honors, and J.D. He later received an LL.M. degree in international law, with highest distinction, from the University of Chile. Finally, he obtained an LL.M. degree in tax from the University of Florida, where he was a graduate tax scholar. During his studies, Hale served as a graduate editor of the Florida Tax Review and member of the Kansas Journal of Law & Public Policy.

Hale ranks among the most active tax writers in the country, publishing over 150 major articles in some of the nation's top law reviews and tax journals, including Journal of Taxation, International Tax Journal, The Tax Adviser, Journal of International Taxation, Journal of Tax Practice and Procedure, Taxes Magazine, Practical Tax Lawyer, Journal of Passthrough Entities, Tax Management International Journal, Journal of Multi-State Tax & Incentives, Tax Notes International, Practical Tax Strategies, Journal of Real Estate Taxation, Journal of Taxation of Financial Products, and Corporate Business Taxation.

Hale has participated in over 120 cases before the U.S. Tax Court, with recent rulings including Landow v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo 2011-177 (Tax Court case regarding employee stock ownership plans and taxpayer rights in cases of involuntary conversations), Virginia Historic Tax Credit Fund v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo 2009-295, rev'd 639 F.3d 129 (case of first impression regarding federal tax treatment of state tax-credit partnerships), Topping v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo 2007-92 (hobby loss case in which the Tax Court ruled in favor of the taxpayer on all major issues), Vines v. Commissioner, 126 T.C. 279 (case of first impression involving use of mark-to-market accounting by securities traders).

Hale has also obtained over 20 favorable Private Letter Rulings for clients from the IRS National Office on assorted procedural, tax, and international issues.

John Bunge is a tax and private wealth services attorney in Holland & Knight's Nashville office. Mr. Bunge helps clients navigate the confluence of tax planning, business succession planning and estate planning, and seeks to find the most elegant solutions possible to reach their goals.

Mr. Bunge's wealth preservation experience includes income, gift, estate and generation-skipping transfer tax minimization, through the use of irrevocable trusts, sales and gifts to trusts, charitable-interest trusts and grantor-retained annuity trusts, among other sophisticated wealth planning strategies. He also advises families on the formation of investment entities, such as family limited partnerships and family LLCs.

Mr. Bunge helps clients reach their charitable goals, using charitable giving techniques to minimize income, estate and gift taxes, and advising clients on the formation and operation of tax-exempt organizations, including private foundations.

He also counsels families regarding the formation, structuring and operation of family offices and private trust companies.

Additionally, Mr. Bunge helps clients minimize income taxes through individual, partnership and corporate tax planning. He also has experience assisting taxpayers through IRS audits, appeals and U.S. Tax Court litigation.

Bryan Howard is a tax attorney in Holland & Knight's Nashville office, where he works with ultra-high-net-worth families regarding their estate planning, closely held businesses, tax planning, philanthropy and asset protection matters. Mr. Howard assists clients to ensure an orderly and tax-efficient transmission of their wealth from one generation to the next.

Mr. Howard advises the owners of closely held businesses with respect to entity structure, federal and state income tax minimization, succession planning, as well as an exit from the business. He helps philanthropic clients to determine the appropriate vehicle for accomplishing their charitable objectives while obtaining income tax benefits. Mr. Howard was the principal drafter of the Tennessee Investment Services Trust Act that has enabled many Tennesseans to protect their assets from future creditors.

Many of Mr. Howard's clients have worked with him for a number of years. He often represents two or three generations of a family and/or siblings and cousins of his clients. Mr. Howard regularly works with formal and informal family offices, including their various advisors.

Since 2001, Michael has worked in the financial services industry with a focus on helping employers, participants and financial advisors with their qualified plan needs. From working with some of the countries leading record keepers to becoming a partner of Acuff & Associates serving as a third party retirement plan administrator, he has experience with almost all aspects of qualified retirement plans. Currently, Michael serves as a Regional Sales Director for JULY Business Services, a full service retirement plan provider. Michael graduated from Tennessee Technological University with both his BS degree as well as his MBA. When not talking about 401(k) plans, Michael enjoys spending time with his wife Kristin and his 2 daughters, Harper & Avery.

Dr. Marilyn Young is a Professor of Accounting at Belmont University. She joined the faculty in 2001. She has a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Master of Tax Accounting from the University of Alabama, and a Ph.D. in Accounting from the University of Mississippi.

Her industry experience includes work as a Tax Accountant for Deloitte and Frasier, Dean, and Howard and as a Tax Specialist in Corporate Finance at Empire Berol Corporation. Before coming to Belmont University, she taught at Lipscomb University. Her teaching experience at Belmont includes both undergraduate and graduate classes in taxation and financial accounting. Dr. Young also helps non-accounting students prepare to enter the Master in Accountancy program by teaching in the Summer Accounting Institute. She has presented her research at various regional and national conferences and published articles in Tax Adviser, Journal of Accountancy, State Tax Notes, Strategic Finance, Issues in Accounting Education, Tennessee CPA Journal, Economics and Politics, and Journal of S Corporation Taxation.

Dr. Young holds membership in the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), Tennessee Society of Certified Public Accountants (TSCPA), American Accounting Association, and American Taxation Association. She is currently a member of the AICPA IRS Advocacy and Relations Committee and a member of the TSCPA Nashville Chapter Board. The AIPCA has twice awarded her honorable mention for the Bea Sanders/AICPA Innovation in Teaching Award. She received an Outstanding Teaching Award from Lipscomb University and Outstanding Teaching Award from the Jack C. Massey College of Business at Belmont University. Named multiple times as the Most Inspirational Professor of The Jack C. Massey Graduate School of Business and the Faculty Member of the Year by the Beta Alpha Psi chapter in the Jack C. Massey College of Business, Dr. Young was presented with Belmont's highest faculty honor, The Chaney Distinguished Professor Award, in 2005.

Margaret is an "almost native" of Tennessee having moved to Nashville in 1974 when her father (Dr. John S. Johnson) came to take over her grandfather's private practice (Dr. Hollis E. Johnson) and practice medicine alongside his identical twin brother (Dr. Robert M. Johnson). Margaret obtained her undergraduate degree from Southern Methodist University (1984) and a graduate degree from Vanderbilt University (1989). Her love of medicine from growing up a doctor's daughter coupled with the task of creating an insurance program for older adults at St Thomas Hospital led to the creation of her health care benefits management and consulting company, Medical Accounts Management, in 1990.

The genesis of her business was helping individual clients navigate the confusing territory of health insurance benefits, health insurance carriers, healthcare providers, and Medicare. With the enactment of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in 1996, Margaret saw an opportunity to assist employers in the management of their healthcare benefits and expanded her business model to include employer contracts. Some of her employer clients include LBMC, Athens Distributing, Health Services Management, and CoreCivic. Margaret is married to Doug Smith, CEO of Hutson-Wood, and has three grown children, two daughters-in-law, three grand dogs, one amazing grandson and another grandchild on the way.

Jeff is the Managing Director, Tax Policy, Washington National Tax with Deloitte. He has over 25 years of experience in the tax policy arena and is currently responsible for communicating emerging tax developments in the U.S. Congress, the Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department, and the federal courts to the Firm and its clients. Jeff oversees the content development of Tax News & Views as well as thought leadership publications on issues such as the U.S. deficit and fundamental tax reform.

His Capitol Hill experience includes working on tax and budget issues for former U.S. Senator and Senate Finance Committee member Steve Symms, R-Idaho.

Jeff holds a BS in Political Science from the University of Idaho and an MBA from Johns Hopkins University.

Scott is the leader of Frost Brown Todd's tax planning team and co-chair of the firm's private equity industry team. The scope of Scott's tax practice encompasses tax planning for business formations, ownership arrangements, LLC agreements and M&A transactions. Scott's corporate practice extends to handling M&A transactions, equity compensation arrangements and general corporate law matters.

Scott is recognized for his tax planning work with founders, investors, and businesses with respect to their qualified small business stock (QSBS) issues. Scott has written numerous articles addressing QSBS planning issues, and he has developed a national practice handling Section 1202 and 1045 issues. Scott's focus is on securing and maximizing Section 1202's generous tax benefits for his clients.

Scott has represented companies, founders, investors, management teams, executives, PE sponsors, family offices and individuals across a wide variety of industries, including healthcare, direct marketing, gaming, industrial and commercial real estate development, distributorship, software and hospitality. Scott applies his expertise and experience to assist clients in achieving their business objectives, whether that means limiting an exposure to contingent liabilities or finding the most tax efficient structure for a business transaction.

John Rose is the National Tax Director with Aprio Advisory Group. He has extensive experience providing technical tax consulting and compliance services to multinational businesses, individual taxpayers and tiered partnership structures. His experience includes tax research, tax conflict resolution and tax practice management. John conducts advanced research and constantly monitors tax guidance to address both clients’ and team members’ tax questions. He provides guidance on creating structures to limit and defer tax liabilities, including the use of offshore operations, and help clients understand the impact that emerging tax codes will have on their business and personal finances.

Mark Patterson, a member (owner) with KraftCPAs and co- practice leader of the KraftCPAs manufacturing, wholesale, distribution (MWD) industry team, has been working in public accounting since 1985. Prior to joining KraftCPAs, he worked with local and national public accounting firms. Mark's responsibilities include tax research and planning, reviewing income tax returns and supervising tax professionals. He provides tax compliance and planning for middle- market companies and their owners.

Mark has experience with the manufacturing, transportation and service industries including tax consulting and compliance for American subsidiaries of foreign owned companies. His expertise has helped numerous clients reduce their tax burden through the identification of various state and federal tax credits, deductions and other incentives, including but not limited to the Tennessee Jobs Tax Credit, the federal research and development (R&D) credit, IC-DISC for exporters, the domestic manufacturing deduction and cost segregation studies.

CJ Blankenship is the Managing Partner at the firm and consults with clients and the BCPAG team on the most challenging tax, accounting, management and financial matters. He is a National Merit Scholar and received his Bachelor of Business Administration with honors in Accounting from Belmont University.

He has over twenty years of management experience in a variety of industries and service sectors and had worked at Crowe Chizek (currently Crowe Horwath, LLP) and RSM McGladrey, Inc. prior to joining the firm in 2007. CJ was admitted as a partner in the firm in February of 2009 and has served as the managing partner since.

Over his career, CJ has performed a variety of consulting services for hundreds of clients, including serving in an outsourced CFO capacity for an international manufacturing and distribution company with operations and customers around the globe.

CJ spends his workdays on mergers and acquisitions, not-for-profit consulting and compliance matters, planning (particularly with tax favored investment strategy), management consulting, tax compliance, accounting systems and matters for businesses, not-for-profits and individuals, and manages the day to day processes and strategic direction of the firm.

CJ has a heart for Christian ministries and is the Founder and President of Christian Recovery Houses, Inc., and consults with several not for profit boards. He has also served the TSCPA Nashville Board and Federal Tax Committee, and has served as the Treasurer at the Tennessee Christian Chamber of Commerce. He used to spend a lot of hours with the guitar and Christian song-writing, playing golf, camping, hunting, fishing, writing and exercising. Now, he is blessed to have married up to his lovely wife Amanda, and spends most of his free time as a father of two wonderful sons and a sweet little girl to round out the brood.

Brian is a member of the Tax Practice Group at Frost Brown Todd. He concentrates his practice on tax planning and tax controversies, mergers and acquisitions, and joint ventures. In addition, Brian has recently focused a significant amount of his practice on advising clients with respect to establishing Opportunity Zone Funds and Qualified Opportunity Zone Businesses.

Bruce McGovern is a tenured member of the faculty at South Texas College of Law Houston, where he also serves as Director of the school's Low Income Taxpayer Clinic. Previously, he served for many years as the school's Vice President and Associate Dean for Academic Administration. He received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University and his law degree from Fordham University School of Law. After law school, he served as a judicial clerk for Judge Thomas Meskill on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York. He then practiced law with the law firm of Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C. He subsequently earned an LL.M. in Taxation from the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where he taught as a visiting faculty member before joining the faculty at South Texas College of Law Houston.

Professor McGovern teaches and writes in the areas of business organizations and taxation. His courses include Federal Income Taxation, U.S. Taxation of International Transactions, Partnership and Subchapter S Taxation, and Federal Tax Procedure. He frequently speaks on recent developments in federal income taxation. Professor McGovern is a member of the Council of the State Bar of Texas Tax Section, a former Chair of the Houston Bar Association Section of Taxation, and a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel.

Chris Wilson is a tax attorney in Holland & Knight's Nashville office. Mr. Wilson helps nonprofit organizations and companies in a wide range of industries such as manufacturing, retail, cable television, real estate, professional services, waste management and software, with a range of state tax planning and state tax litigation matters in both administrative and judicial forums.

Dr. Chris Kuehl is a Managing Director of Armada Corporate Intelligence. He provides forecasts and strategic guidance for a wide variety of corporate clients around the world. He is the chief economist for several national and international organizations, Fabricators and Manufacturers Association, National Association of Credit Management, Finance, Credit and International Business and the Business Information Industry Association. He is also the economic analyst for several state accounting societies – Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and Kansas.

Prior to starting Armada in 1999 he was a professor of economics and finance for 15 years – teaching in the US, Hungary, Russia, Estonia, Singapore and Taiwan. He holds advanced degrees in economics, Soviet studies and East Asian studies.

Chris is the author of Business Intelligence Briefs and Executive Intelligence Briefs - both publications from Armada. He is also responsible for the Credit Manager's Index from NACM and Fabrinomics from the FMA.

Steve Jasper is a member at Bass, Berry & Sims in its Nashville office. He advises clients in a wide range of tax disputes regarding Tennessee's sales and use tax, franchise and excise taxes, business tax, and property taxes. Steve represents his clients in negotiations with taxing authorities and, as necessary, guides businesses through administrative proceedings or trials. As a reflection of his experience in state tax matters, on multiple occasions Steve has been selected by the Tennessee Department of Revenue to help draft major rewrites to significant portions of Tennessee's tax statutes. Steve also assists expanding or relocating businesses in Tennessee achieve the maximum value they can through state tax incentives, payments-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) agreements and state grant programs to help grow the state's overall economic base.

Steve is a graduate of the University of Missouri where he received a law degree and bachelor's degree. Prior to joining Bass, Berry & Sims, Steve produced the evening newscast for local ABC affiliate in Columbia, Missouri, KMIZ-ABC 17.

Cassady V. "Cass" Brewer, associate professor of law, teaches Basic Federal Income Taxation, Nonprofit Organizations, Taxation of Business Organizations, Corporate Taxation, Partnership Taxation, and the Law of Social Enterprise. His research primarily focuses upon the legal and tax aspects of the intersection of tax-exempt, nonprofit organizations with for-profit enterprises and commercial activity. In particular, Brewer writes and speaks extensively on recent federal income tax developments and the legal and tax aspects of the emerging "hybrid" business forms such as the benefit corporation and the low-profit limited liability company.

Brewer received his LL.M. (Taxation) from New York University, where he served as graduate editor of the Tax Law Review. He is a graduate of the University of Arkansas School of Law, where he was editor-in-chief of the Arkansas Law Review. He received his undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University.

He co-founded the Nonprofit Law Section of the State Bar of Georgia, and he is a past co-chair of the Section. Brewer also has participated in drafting and amending the Georgia Limited Liability Company and Limited Liability Partnership Acts and continues to serve as a member of the Partnerships and LLCs Subcommittee of the Business Law Section of the State Bar of Georgia.

Brewer previously was a partner in the Tax Group of Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP and remains Of Counsel with the firm.

Retired Principal, former Ernst & Young LLP National State and Local Tax Policy Leader for Americas Tax Policy.

Steve Wlodychak is a state and local tax columnist for Tax Analysts and a retired principal and the former State and Local Tax Policy Leader for EY's Americas Tax Policy in Washington, DC. Previously, Steve worked in EY's Los Angeles and New York offices, was a state and local tax attorney for an international insurance company and an associate attorney with a major regional law firm. In addition, he worked in state government in New Jersey, including for the governor of the state. A frequent speaker and writer on state and local tax developments, EY awarded Steve its first ever lifetime achievement award as tax educator of the year in 2017. He also was a guest lecturer on state and local tax matters for the LL.M. in taxation program at the Georgetown University School of Law.

Steve holds degrees from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, Seton Hall University’s School of Law and a master's degree in tax law from New York University's School of Law.