The New Proposed 162(m) Regulations - What You Need to Know and Do!

Professor Tackney is currently serving on a temporary detail with the Benefits Tax Counsel at the U.S. Treasury Department, assisting with executive compensation issues related to the TARP legislation.

Prior to beginning the detail, Professor Tackney served as a senior counsel in the Executive Compensation Branch in the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division, Office of Chief Counsel, IRS. In that position, Professor Tackney served as primary author of all the interpretive guidance related to section 409A of the Internal Revenue Code governing the taxation of nonqualified deferred compensation plans, as well as recent guidance on the taxation of compensatory partnership interests.

Prior to joining the Office of Chief Counsel in 2000, Professor Tackney was an associate at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Ivins, Phillips & Barker. Mr. Tackney is a frequent speaker on topics related to the taxation of executive compensation.

Amber Salotto is an Attorney Advisor at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

I advise clients on all U.S. federal tax aspects of executive compensation, tax-favored retirement plans, health and welfare plans, fringe benefits, and employee wages. Clients include entities of all types and sizes across all industries, as well as certain high net worth individuals. I have spent most of my career in the national tax departments of Big 4 accounting firms.

I also spent a few years in the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Benefits Tax Counsel, where I served as Treasury’s principal tax specialist on executive compensation, employment taxes, fringe benefits, HSAs, ESOPs, and various qualified retirement plan issues. My work at Treasury included rulemaking under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, especially sections 162(m), 4960, and 83(i).

Ilya Enkishev is an attorney at the Internal Revenue Service.

Rob Neis advises clients on executive compensation and employee benefits. His practice centers largely on the design, implementation and operation of various types of executive compensation arrangements, including nonqualified deferred compensation plans, incentive plans, employment agreements and equity compensation arrangements. His experience includes working with clients on issues involving their in-house executive compensation arrangements and nonqualified plan products offered to third parties. Rob also has extensive experience working with clients on retirement plans, including qualified retirement plans, section 403(b) plans and 457(b) plans, and on health and welfare plans.

Before joining Eversheds Sutherland, Rob spent six years with the US Treasury Department as the Benefits Tax Counsel and Deputy Benefits Tax Counsel. As the Benefits Tax Counsel, Rob managed the Office of the Benefits Tax Counsel and was the principal legal advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury and the Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy on employee benefits matters. During his time at the Treasury Department, Rob was a key player in many of the most important and cutting-edge benefits developments over the last six years, including the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the publication of extensive regulations on deferred compensation, and the development of the Treasury Department’s position on various health care issues, such as health reimbursement arrangements and health savings accounts. He also regularly advised Treasury Department officials on the formulation of employee benefits tax policy and coordinated with leadership and staff of the Internal Revenue Service, Department of Labor, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, Department of Health and Human Services, National Economic Council, Domestic Policy Counsel and other federal agencies on guidance related to employee benefit plans and the ACA. Rob also represented the United States at the Working Party on Private Pensions of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris and has been deeply involved in many of the cross-border issues facing globally mobile employees and their employers.

Rob has represented a wide range of clients, including publicly traded Fortune 100 multinational corporations, major tax-exempt organizations, start-up companies, and individual executives. Before concentrating his practice on the tax and labor law aspects of employee benefits and executive compensation, Rob was a litigator focusing primarily on insurance and ERISA matters. He continues to provide advice in litigation involving employee benefits issues.