Stephen B. Kass

Stephen B. Kass is a New York tax attorney and Certified Public Accountant with an LL.M. in Taxation from New York University School of Law. For more than 31 years he has represented businesses and individuals facing complex IRS and New York State tax problems, with a particular focus on substantial New York sales tax liabilities, offers in compromise, and matters involving tax debt exceeding $100,000.

NEW YORK STATE SALES TAX
The firm concentrates on complex, high-balance New York sales tax matters, especially for restaurants and other NYC businesses. Work includes sales tax audit defense, Department of Taxation and Finance offers in compromise, sales tax warrants, responsible-person assessments, and payment arrangements. The firm currently represents clients in NYS sales tax matters with aggregate liabilities at issue, including tax, penalties, and interest, exceeding $22 million.

IRS AND NYS TAX DEBT
For clients with six- and seven-figure balances, Mr. Kass handles IRS and NYS offers in compromise, partial pay installment agreements, currently not collectible status, penalty abatement, levy and lien release, audits, and U.S. Tax Court cases. He also represents clients facing federal passport certification for seriously delinquent tax debt and New York driver’s license suspension for unpaid state tax.

TAX LITIGATION IN BANKRUPTCY
Much of Mr. Kass’s Chapter 11 practice has been driven by tax. He has litigated and settled tax claims in Chapter 11 and Chapter 7 cases against the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York and the U.S. Department of Justice Tax Division, representing IRS Insolvency, and against New York State Assistant Attorneys General and Department of Taxation and Finance counsel. These matters included Chapter 11 plans and claim settlements on terms more favorable than the Bankruptcy Code otherwise requires for priority tax claims. They also included Chapter 7 tax discharges obtained through adversary proceedings against the United States.

BACKGROUND
Mr. Kass began his career in the tax practices of Deloitte & Touche and Bernstein & Pinchuk (now part of Marcum). He served as a legal extern to the Hon. Dorothy T. Eisenberg, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Eastern District of New York. He was Co-Chair of the Consumer Bankruptcy Committee of the New York County Lawyers Association from 1999 to 2021, and presented NYCLA continuing legal education programs on tax issues in bankruptcy. He is co-author of “Discharge of Unfiled Taxes under BAPCPA: No More Super Discharge?” in the American Bankruptcy Institute Journal.

He earned his J.D. from the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University, with University Honors in Taxation, and his LL.M. in Taxation from NYU School of Law. He holds a B.B.A. in Public Accounting, cum laude, from Hofstra University. He is admitted in New York and New Jersey and before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Tax Court, the U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.