 James S. Kaplan
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Address: |
Herzfeld & Rubin, P.C.
125 Broad Street, New York, NY, 10004 |
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Phone: |
(212) 471-8546 (Direct
Dial) |
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Fax: |
(212) 344-3333 |
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E-mail: |
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Business Card:
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Jim is the head of the Firm’s tax, estates and employee benefits department.
Since he joined the Firm as a member in 1997, he has had a diversified
international practice representing individuals, closely held companies,
governments and not for profit entites in tax, estate and employee benefit
matters. In estate matters, he has successfully implemented estate plans for a
number of major real estate entrepreneurs using family partnerships, GRATS and
intentional defective trusts to save millions of dollars in estate taxes, and
has drafted more than a hundred wills and trusts for both large and small
clients. He has also handled numerous probates of estates, including a number
involving significant properties in France, Germany and Israel which raised
difficult questions of the interplay between U.S and foreign law, and a number
of estates involving difficult intrafamily personal relationships. He also has
been involved significantly in contested probate and accounting proceedings in
the Surrogate’s Courts.. In the tax area, he has structured the acquisition of a
number of major properties in Manhattan and Brooklyn for foreign clients,
represented clients in controversies with the IRS, sought rulings on significant
international transactions. and obtained exemptions for not for profit
organizations under Section 501©(3). In addition he has represented the City of
New York and the New York City Deferred Compensation plans in various tax and
employee benefit matters. In this connection he was instrumental in obtaining
the initial rulings permitting New York City employees to contribute to a
Section 401 (k) plan, and in negotiating on behalf of the New York City Pension
systems, two Closing agreements with the IRS dealing with difficult tax issues
affecting the City pension plans.
For twelve and a half years prior to joining the firm (1985-1997), he held a
part-time position as Consulting Special Tax Counsel to the New York City Law
Department, in which position he was in effect the City's chief in house tax
counsel on federal matters. His duties included advising on more than $20
billion of real estate projects in which the City was involved and $30 billion
of municipal financings, and directing the City’s lobbying on the 1986 tax act
(in which he obtained more than $2 billion of transition rules). He also was the
chief advisor on federal tax matters to the New York City payroll systems, and
was responsible for originating and filing claims for refunds of social security
taxes that recovered more than $750 million to the City and its employees.
Simultaneously in this period he was counsel to various small law firms (Ashinoff,
Ross & Goldman, 1985-1990); Siller Wilk (1990-1993); Spector Scher and Feldman
(1993-1996) and ultimately his own firm Gordon & Kaplan (1996-1997). As counsel
to these firms, he structured a number of major corporate acquisitions,
including the purchase by Bond Corporation (then Australia’s largest
corporation) of G.Heilman Brewing Company, St. Joe Gold Corporation, and
Pittsburg Brewing Company. Prior to 1985, he was a tax partner at the firm of
Demov Morris & Hammerling and before that a tax associate at Stroock & Stroock &
Lavan; and Cahill Gordon & Reindel. He also for a year and a half in the early
1980’s practiced law in Miami, Florida as a tax and estate associate at a Miami
law firm.
He has been listed in Super Lawyers for the past five years and has written
numerous articles on tax and estate matters, and lectured and chaired panels on
real estate and corporate tax matters sponsored by the New York State Bar
Association and the New York City Bar Association. In addition in line with his
interests in New York City, he has over the last 25 years been an active walking
tour historian for various not for profit museums such as the Fraunces Tavern
Museum and the Museum of American Financial History, and has written on subjects
relating to New York history for such diverse publications as the Wall Street
Journal, Last Exit Magazine, and Talking Turkey. For the past 13 years he has
led an all night walking tour of Lower Manhattan on July 4 for the Fraunces
Tavern Museum, which regulars draws more than 100 people at 2A.M., and for the
past 20 years a tour of the financial district on the Great Crashes of Wall
Street which is now sponsored by the American Museum of Financial History.
He is a cum laude graduate of Yale College (1971), has a J.D. from Columbia Law
School (1974), where he was on the Law Review, and an LLM in taxation from N.Y.U.
(1979)
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