Bryan C. Skarlatos

For more than thirty-five  years, Bryan C. Skarlatos has represented corporations and individuals in sensitive matters, many of which involve negotiation or litigation with government agencies. He has significant experience in federal and state tax audits, appeals and litigation, criminal tax investigations and white collar criminal prosecutions. Mr. Skarlatos also has an active practice providing tax and estate planning advice.

Mr. Skarlatos is nationally and internationally recognized for his work representing taxpayers in civil audits, criminal investigations and voluntary disclosures.  He has handled hundreds of voluntary disclosures involving both domestic income and foreign assets and he counsels corporations and individuals from around the world on how to come into compliance with U.S. tax law.

Mr. Skarlatos has been an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law for nearly twenty years where he teaches a class on Tax Penalties, Prosecutions and Procedures. He has developed an expertise in handling high stakes tax cases that could involve penalties or other sensitive issues. He is often retained by corporate taxpayers to evaluate the strength of tax positions for tax and financial reporting purpose and to advise on potential remedial actions, including corporate voluntary disclosures.

Mr. Skarlatos has been recognized by Super Lawyers as one of the Top 100 Lawyers in New York and in Best Lawyers in America where he was named “Lawyer of the Year” (Tax Litigation, New York) in 2014 and 2017.  He is also ranked Band One of Chambers USA: Americas Leading Lawyers for Business, which has described him as having a “smart reassuring presence with insight into the government…extremely knowledgeable and very well connected to the various tax authorities…Clients applaud him as being exceptionally brilliant at coming up with great outcomes.”

Mr. Skarlatos is often retained as an expert in tax reporting standards and tax penalties by professionals, firms, and taxpayers accused of violating those standards. Mr. Skarlatos has been hired as an expert on criminal tax issues by a state prosecutor’s office and a foreign government. He has also testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee as an expert on tax penalties.

Mr. Skarlatos is also very experienced in tax whistleblower matters and represents both taxpayers accused of wrongdoing by whistleblowers as well as whistleblowers themselves in claims before federal and state tax authorities. Mr. Skarlatos testified before the Internal Revenue Service regarding the IRS whistleblower law and was retained by Senator Charles Grassley, the drafter of the IRS whistleblower law, to write an amicus brief on behalf of the Senator in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Professional Activities

Mr. Skarlatos created and co-chairs the annual New York University Tax Controversy Forum.  He also is co-chair of the Compliance Practice and Procedure Committee of the New York State Bar Association Tax Section and he is a former chair of the Civil and Criminal Tax Penalties Committee of the American Bar Association, the Personal Income Tax Committee of the New York City Bar Association and the Tax Committee of the New York County Lawyer’s Association.  Mr. Skarlatos is on the board of directors of the annual New York University Graduate Tax Institute, where he chairs a program on Ethics in Tax Practice, and he has been nominated to serve on several bar association task forces, including the New York State Bar Association task force on Attorney Client Privilege and the American Bar Association task forces on Tax Shelters, Circular 230, and Ethics 2000.

Mr. Skarlatos is on the Advisory Board of the Journal of Tax Practice and Procedure for which he writes a regular column on Tax Penalties and he is on the board of editors of the Practical Tax Lawyer.  He frequently speaks on topics related to civil and criminal tax controversies, including lectures for the IRS,  New York University Institute on Federal Taxation, the American Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association, the New York Country Lawyer’s Association, the Connecticut State Bar Association, the Tax Executives Institute, the Practicing Law Institute, the Bureau of National Affairs, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants.  Mr. Skarlatos has written several articles for various law reviews and journals and he was co-author of a regular column in the New York Law Journal entitled, “Tax Litigation Issues.”