Related Practices
»
Seminars & Events
Advisory Sign Up
CLICK HERE and register
to receive insight on
legal developments
from Troutman Sanders.
|
Energy and Utility Tax
The Troutman Sanders Tax Practice Group is comprised of attorneys who are experienced in representing clients whose activities require consideration of international, federal, state, or local tax matters. The group includes attorneys with prior experience in the Office of Chief Counsel for the Internal Revenue Service and most of the group's attorneys have advanced degrees in tax law. Troutman Sanders tax attorneys provide clients with sophisticated analysis and risk assessment, and regularly render tax advice on proposed transactions and return positions. The group also handles tax controversies in all administrative and judicial forums, from initial investigation through trial, and has extensive experience in dealing with tax authorities at the federal, state, and local levels including obtaining rulings from the IRS. Energy and Utility Tax Troutman Sanders has one of the pre-eminent energy practices in the world, and the firm’s Tax Practice Group is considered to be the preeminent energy and utilities tax group in the nation. The group addresses IRS audit and appeals issues, secures private letter rulings, technical advice memoranda and permission to change methods of accounting from the national office of the Internal Revenue Service, and participates in tax litigation, tax planning, and the structuring and evaluation of proposed transactions to a large number of utility clients. Group attorneys conduct substantive tax reviews of the tax returns of a number of electric utilities and conduct a series of seminars every spring on the tax issues related to the tax returns of electric utilities. Attorneys have also served as an expert witness on tax matters in utility rate cases. The group's energy clients include numerous domestic and international electric and gas utilities, natural gas pipelines, independent power producers, electric transmission companies, developers and owners of wind power and other renewable energy sources, construction, engineering and environmental firms, companies trading electricity and natural gas, and financial institutions providing debt and equity capital and related services to these industries. Recent or noteworthy experience in representing energy clients includes: - Seeking rulings from the IRS on tax recovery of certain costs in developing nuclear power plants.
- Obtaining a ruling from the IRS on gain recognition in the sale of an electric generating station.
- Advising energy market participants on tax aspects of a wide range of innovative asset finance, including project finance, leveraged leasing, and securitization.
- Assisting in the securitization of energy contracts, transition costs, and other regulatory assets.
- Advising utilities and other market participants on financing structures for investment in renewable energy projects to take advantage of investment tax credits for solar and fuel cells, the production tax credits for wind, geothermal, and biomass projects and accelerated depreciation and amortization.
- Advising utilities on domestic and international tax issues arising from the purchase and sale of renewable energy credits and certificates (RECs) in the United States and emissions trading credits under the Kyoto Protocol.
- Addressing utility specific industry tax issues such as contributions in aid of construction, related indemnity issues with interconnection and other agreements, normalization issues, energy and alternative fuel tax credits, nuclear decommissioning trust funds, and military distribution plant privatizations.
- Providing advice on the rate regulatory issues and strategies associated with the reflection of taxes in the setting of rates, including application of the tax normalization rules.
- Providing advice and analysis on operational contracts, partnering, and the realignment of contractual relationships.
- Assisting clients with maintaining and protecting tax attributes such as NOLs, deferred inter-company gains and losses, and tax credits.
- Tax counsel in a variety of settings, including IRS national office submissions, IRS audits, IRS appeals process, Tax Court litigation, federal district courts, as well as state and local tax examinations and judicial forums.
- Tax court litigation representation over numerous industry issues including nuclear fuel placed in service date, ITC grandfather rules, ownership issues involving capacity buybacks, and issues involving the claim of right doctrine and excess deferred taxes.
- Counsel through an audit and litigation involving sale-in, lease-out transactions.
- Representing a major utility in a property tax dispute involving a fundamental challenge to the central assessment system.
- Tax planning and implementation of corporate mergers, acquisitions, divestitures,
spin-offs, and like-kind exchanges. - Structuring and tax planning for partnerships, limited liability companies, and joint ventures.
Legislative The Tax Practice Group advises clients on legislative and regulatory tax matters. The group regularly advises the Edison Electric Institute (the trade association of investor-owned electric utilities) and other electric utilities on legislative tax issues relevant to the electric industry. Tax attorneys are very comfortable in drafting legislation, developing and reviewing legislative proposals, and negotiating legislative issues with the tax-writing staffs of the House and Senate. Tax Newsletter The Tax Practice Group has developed and continues to publish an innovative Washington Developments Tax Service, where they provide advice to clients from all segments of the electric utility industry on emerging legislative, administrative and judicial tax developments of particular relevance to their companies. For more information regarding the tax newsletter please contact Howard Cooper.
|
|