Howell chairs the firm’s Corporate, E-Business and General Business and Taxation Groups. On the tax side, Howell gets involved in the more complex tax problems associated with mergers and acquisitions, S corporations, partnership transactions, real estate transactions, workouts and bankruptcy, international transactions, and estate planning. Howell is also a frequent lecturer before professional groups on the subject of tax planning and related issues. Click at Attorney News for items of news for Howell published on our web site. Click at Speaking Engagements for a recent partial list of some of Howell’s speaking engagements before various professional groups.

Areas of Experience:

•	Sophisticated Tax Planning for Individual and Corporations
•	Estate Planning
•	Corporate Transactions
•	Planned Giving
•	IRS Audits

•	Howell recently handled a sale of a privately held corporation to a New York Stock Exchange corporation for a purchase price of over $18 Million. The transaction was structured as a tax-free merger and the consideration was paid half in cash and half in stock of the purchaser.
•	Another recent transaction was the sale of a privately held corporation on the installment basis for a purchase price of $1.8 Million.
•	Over the last few years, Howell represented a NASDAQ corporation in a number of acquisitions where the purchase price ranged from $2 Million to $12 Million. Some of these were for cash, and others were for a combination of cash and stock.
Tax Litigation and Settlements
•	Challenge of Beneficiary Designation – Qualified Plan - Lefkowitz v. The Bank of New York as Preliminary Executor of Estate of Irene B. Marsh et al., 996 F.2d 600 (2d Cir. 1993) (successfully represented a surviving spouse’s estate and successfully persuaded the court to invalidate a beneficiary designation on a qualified plan for the decedent’s child (to the exclusion of the decedent’s spouse) on the grounds that the beneficiary designation violated the spousal consent rules under ERISA)
Real Estate Transactions
•	Howell recently structured the sale of a 90-acre "tree farm" in a like-kind transaction whereby the client deferred a portion of the gain on the sale by reinvesting part of the proceeds in several other pieces of real estate. The total consideration was approximately $4 Million.
•	Over the years, Howell has been involved in structuring a number of real estate syndications involving shopping centers, office buildings and apartment buildings.

•	Member, Tax Section of New York State Bar Association
•	Chair, Tax Section, Westchester County Bar Association
•	President, Estate Planning Council of Westchester County (2000)
•	Vice President, Estate Planning Council of Westchester County (1999)
•	Executive Committee, Benjamin Cardozo Society

•	L.L.M., Taxation, New York University, 1980
•	J.D., New York University, 1976
•	B.A., with honors, University of Pennsylvania, 1972

• Proposed Regulations Provide Operating Rules for Bankruptcy Exception to Ownership Change Limits (The Journal of Taxation, March, 1992)

•Tax Consequences of Cancellation of Nonrecourse Debt Remain Unsettled (The Journal of Taxation, August, 1990)

• Are Takeover Costs Deductible After National Starch? (The Journal of Taxation, December, 1989)
Trusts as beneficiaries of IRAs (individual retirement accounts)(The CPA Journal, April, 1991)

• Tax Law Changes Affecting Estate Planning (Legal Notes, Spring 1998)

• Waiver of Notification Rights (Legal Notes, Winter 1996)

• New York Enacts Limited Liability Company Law (Legal Notes, Winter, 1994)

• The Rebirth of Real Estate Investment Trusts (Legal Notes, Spring, 1994)

• New Compliance Rules Concerning Charitable Contributions (Legal Notes, Spring, 1994)

• Clinton's Tax Act (Legal Notes, Fall 1993)

• Distributions from Individual Retirement Accounts (Legal Notes, Summer, 1993)

• New Legislation Affects Spouse's Right of Election in New York State (Legal Notes, Fall 1992)

• Estate Planning Strategies in Light of the Revenue Reconciliation Act of 1990 (Legal Notes, Spring, 1992)

• Proposed Regulations Provide Operating Rules for Bankruptcy (Legal Notes, Spring, 1992)

• Taxes and Takeovers (Legal Notes, Spring, 1990)

• Cancellation of Non-Recourse Debt: Tax Consequences (Legal Notes, Spring, 1991)

•	New York
•	Florida
•	Connecticut
•	United States Tax Court