Kathleen M. Nilles is a Partner in the Washington office of Holland & Knight. She focuses her practice on resolving critical tax and business organizational issues for tax-exempt and governmental entities. She also handles federal tax policy and legislative issues for a wide spectrum of organizations, companies and governmental units.
Ms. Nilles has almost 20 years of experience advising Indian tribal governments and tax-exempt hospitals on tax issues. Representative projects she has handled include:
- structuring affiliated business enterprises of non-profit and government entities in a tax-efficient manner
- designing various types of compensation and retirement savings programs for directors, officers, members and employees of such entities
- advising on the appropriate conduct of particular activities (e.g., political, lobbying and insurance activities) that could otherwise jeopardize an organization's tax-free status.
Ms. Nilles also handles Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audits and tax controversies for tax-exempt and governmental entities.
As a former Tax Counsel to the House Ways & Means Committee, Ms. Nilles is well positioned to help clients navigate key Committees of the United States Congress as well as the Treasury Department and IRS. In the legislative area, some of her more recent accomplishments in that arena include:
- obtaining federal excise tax relief for medical inhalers
- resolving a cooperative tax issue for a national hospital group purchasing organization
- securing a special exemption from the federal unemployment tax for Indian tribal governments
- defending tribal governments against the imposition of a UBIT-style tax on their gaming and economic development activities