Marc E. Thomas

I have extensive experience in litigation and tax controversies having tried over thirty cases to a verdict in state and federal courts. In addition, I hold an advanced law degree (LL.M.) in Taxation and have handled hundreds of tax audits and controversies, including tax debt resolutions, both administratively against the Internal Revenue Service and the Michigan Department of Treasury, as well as in federal courts and Tax Court. I think that experience trying cases in court is unique and aids my representation of clients in audits and tax debt workouts before government tax collectors.

Q: Do I charge for an initial consultation? A: No, never, the initial consultation is free of charge and clients have no obligation to pay any fee until a written retainer agreement is signed by both of us.
Q: Do I take cases on a contingent fee basis? A: Yes, but it depends on the case. Tax cases rarely qualify for contingent fee consideration unless it is a suit for a refund in a federal district court or the Court of Claims. That can be discussed in our initial consultation. Other commercial and related litigation can lend itself more often to consideration of a contingent fee.
Q: Do you charge flat fees? A: Yes, flat fees are often appropriate in tax debt resolution cases and some audits.

I represented a client with an almost all-cash business whose garden variety income tax audit all of a sudden turned into a criminal tax investigation of his alleged skimming from the business. He was indicted for tax fraud and, being a family man, it turned his life upside down. As you can imagine, the stress on anyone would be tremendous, but, for my client, who was never charged with any crime and never received anything more than a speeding ticket in his entire life, it was unbearable. At least a year prior to being indicted, fortunately, he had changed CPAs and gone completely tax compliant. No more skimming. Everything was by the book, i.e., the Internal Revenue Code! He said that, henceforth, if he picked-up a quarter off the floor, he reported it. After charges were filed, it turned out that his business was somewhat unusual and not all that well understood by the civil tax auditors. Initially, he was facing, based on tax losses to the government for similar cases, at least 18 months in a federal prison camp---away from his family and business. But, because of the unique nature of his business and his complete compliance turnaround before the indictment, I was able to convince the US Attorney and the CID agents that my client's cooperation in the form of any number of interviews necessary and complete disclosure of his "second set" of books would be of value to all the civil Revenue Agents in auditing businesses of the kind my client owned and ran. Most importantly, his disclosures would allow the Revenue Agents out in "the field" to quickly determine likely skimming efforts in these similar businesses. The information proved so thorough and helpful, instead of 18 months in federal prison, he was offered and accepted a plea and agreed, with glee, to six months on a tether allowing him to, basically, go about his business and come home to his family every night.

Another case of note for me that resolved last year is less dramatic, but still provides an important illustration about how filing a tax return even though you cannot pay the tax due, is a net benefit over sticking your head in the sand and not filing thinking the IRS wouldn't notice. My client, a professional, only paid about 5-10% of the tax due for over 14 years, but he still filed his income tax returns for all those years. As a result, two things happened that he was unaware would accrue to his benefit. The first was that he avoided the penalty for failing to file a tax return (5% for each month up to a maximum of 25% of the tax due---very stiff). The second was that the statute of limitations to collect tax (which is 10 years (from the date of assessment, a date usually within weeks of the date the return was filed) started to run. The first four years of my client's failure to pay his taxes had completely run out on the IRS. I was able to flag the fourth year, which hadn't run when he initially consulted me. So, the strategy was to wait for 8-months to let that fourth year's limitation period run. It worked, as the IRS never sought to obtain a judgment for any of those four years. With interest and penalties, the amount he saved by eliminating those four years for my client, a professional, was in excess of $400,000. After the fact, it some telephone conferences with a Revenue Agent to convince him and his supervisor that the statute of limitations had closed collection on those years, but that was accomplished. He entered into an installment agreement for the balance due that was not extinguished by the running of the statute and, needless to say, was pretty pleased.