Melaine Brandt

Partner

Melaine Brandt has over 26 years of experience guiding her clients through various phases of their business and family life cycles, providing confidence that they are not paying too much or too little in taxes.  Her primary area of expertise is financial institutions, but she also works with real estate and financial services firms, as well as high net worth individuals.

Leveraging her extensive tax background, Melaine has authored articles for industry publications, as well as technical publications such as The Tax Advisor.  She is also a frequent and well-versed speaker on tax topics.  Melaine has spoken at the WICPA Financial Institutions Conference.  She has also presented to the DFI Bank Examiners and the Community Bankers of Wisconsin (CBW).

A strong advocate for financial institutions in Wisconsin, Melaine has assisted the CBW in lobbying efforts to defeat combined reporting in 1999.  She helped shape a palatable industry settlement offer with the state in 2004, which has been preferable to litigating for over 90 percent of the banks with investment subsidiaries.  She drafted the Taxpayers Position for a few clients under IRS audits for the interest expense disallowance (TEFRA) issue for C corporations, which she shared with the attorney litigating the issue on behalf of the industry.  She convinced Professor Ron Blasi, the author of The Bank Tax Guide, to change his position on the TEFRA issue for S corporations.  He was originally advising the IRS on this issue and now has helped draft the ABA position and an article titled, “Regulations Overstep Authority,” for a technical publication.

Many of Melaine’s clients benefit from her extensive knowledge surrounding S corporations.  Examples of her expertise in this area include obtaining a favorable IRS ruling on a reorganization issue.  This decision allowed certain assets to be protected from liabilities without being distributed.  She also structured win-win situations for buyers and sellers under asset sale elections.  In addition, she has helped real estate clients avoid corporate-level tax concerns by proving the lack of accumulated earnings and profits.