Scott Burkholder

Scott Burkholder is a tax attorney at Holtz, Slavett & Drabkin, A Professional Law Corporation.  Scott practices all aspects of civil tax litigation including tax audit defense, collection defense and the judicial representation of taxpayers suing the IRS.  He appears frequently before the United States Tax Court and Internal Revenue Service, and represents California taxpayers before the Franchise Tax Board, the State Board of Equalization and the Employment Development Department.  Scott has represented taxpayers in cases involving income tax, estate tax, employment tax, excise tax, sales tax, as well as defense against state and federal tax penalties, including failure to file, failure to pay, negligence and fraud.

Scott was an Honors Hire to the Los Angeles Office of Chief Counsel of the Internal Revenue Service, and became a Senior Litigation Attorney.  He successfully represented the IRS in litigation before the United States Tax Court, and provided legal advice and training to Los Angeles area IRS Revenue Agents and Revenue Officers, with a special emphasis on taxpayer fraud.  He was a member of the national IRS cadre on insurance based defined benefit plans, and worked extensively on issues of alimony, innocent spouse, deductibility of real estate loss, and the taxability of service-connected disability pensions.  He advised the Department of Justice and United States Attorney’s Office on many issues, including the government’s right to redemption, alter-ego, nominee and transfer liability, seizures, reducing liens to judgment, and Court of Civil Claims refund suits.

Scott graduated in the top five percent of his class, cum laude, from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.  He was awarded the Gregory W. Goff Award, as the top tax law student in his graduating class, as well as Order of the Coif.  While in law school, Scott was an editor for the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, was named a Sayre MacNeil Scholar, received an Ahmanson Scholarship, and was inducted into the St. Thomas More Honors Society.  Scott is member of the California State Bar.

Originally from Tucson, Arizona, Scott received his undergraduate degree from Brown University with honors in theatre history and dramatic literature.

Scott was lead counsel on the following Tax Court decisions: Sewards v. Commissioner, 138 T.C. 320 (2012); Rooney v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2011-14; Sarkissian v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2012-278; Bennett v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2012-193; Guerrero v. Commissioner, 2009-164; Ibrahim v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2011-215;Brunsell v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2008-248.