Skadden Arps snags top IRS attorney

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom has snagged a senior IRS attorney for their global tax group, the law firm said Thursday.

{mosads}William Alexander will leave the tax agency after a quarter century in the IRS’s chief counsel office; he most recently serving as associate chief corporate counsel.

“Bill’s 25 years of service and leadership with the IRS will further strengthen our transactional tax practice and enhance our ability to help resolve clients’ tax issues creatively and efficiently,” said Matthew A. Rosen, the co-leader of Skadden’s tax group.   

According to Skadden, Alexander will be based in Washington and advise clients on a range of complex matters, including restructurings, spin-offs and cross-border mergers. Alexander has been concentrating on those matters as a top lawyer in the IRS chief counsel’s office.

Top tax writers on Capitol Hill spent much of 2014 concentrating on one kind of cross-border merger — so-called corporate inversions. In an inversion, U.S. corporations generally merge with a smaller foreign competitor and shift their headquarters abroad, lowering their tax bill in the process.