Benefits & Payroll Tax
Morgan Lewis lawyers bring “inside the Beltway” experience to payroll tax, employee/executive fringe benefit, and contingent workforce issues. With an emphasis on planning and controversy work, we help clients develop tax minimization plans, conduct compliance reviews, and settle tax audits. A number of our team members have prior regulatory and litigation experience with the US Department of the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service. Our tax litigators have tried several cases of first impression involving these areas.
Our clients range from startups to Fortune 500 companies. The American Payroll Association and various US federal agencies also call on us to assist with payroll tax and fringe benefit issues—matters that affect both rank-and-file employees and senior executives. Considering recent legislative initiatives, developments within the Treasury Department, and the IRS’s increasing audit activity, we closely monitor and respond to fringe benefit, payroll tax, and contingent workforce issues that may impact our clients.
As part of our comprehensive client service, we conduct compliance checks that aim to minimize the effect of IRS audits and increase reliance on statutory and regulatory relief provisions. Our lawyers work to decrease tax exposure while limiting our clients’ costs and administrative efforts.
In our compliance checks and audit defense work, we often spot payroll tax refunds that companies were not aware they could recoup. We have successfully obtained numerous multimillion-dollar refund claims for Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax overpayments.