Bio

Eliot Kaplan has served as a trusted advisor on corporate and tax matters for more than 30 years. Eliot assists clients with private placements and private equity transactions; mergers and acquisitions (M&A); partnerships; limited liability companies and joint ventures including programmatic joint ventures; entity planning and structuring; entity formation and dissolution; corporate governance; fund formation; and business reorganizations and restructurings. Eliot also provides guidance with respect to minimizing the potential and related tax liabilities triggered by complex transactions and entity structures. Eliot advises and represents clients operating in several industries including real estate, healthcare, hospitality and leisure, recreation, homebuilding, construction, packaging, consumer goods, manufacturing, and franchising. An active member of the American Bar Association (ABA), Eliot is a former member of its Corporate Laws Committee, a former chair of the Real Estate Committee of the Section of Taxation, a former member of its Sponsorship Committee, and a member of its Real Estate and Partnership and LLC Committees. He is a fellow in the American College of Tax Counsel and the immediate past chair of the Tax Council of the State Bar of Arizona. Eliot also serves on the Tax Law Advisory Commission of the Arizona bar. Engaged in professional and community associations, Eliot is council president of the Desert Southwest Chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF). He also serves on the board of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council (GPEC) and as an ambassador for the regional economic development organization. Most recently he served on the board of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix; he is the former chair of its Business & Professionals Group, in which he remains active. Eliot is the past president of the board of directors of the Southwest Human Development Corporation. Eliot is a former lawyer in the national office of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). While in private practice, he was appointed to and served on the IRS Advisory Council, which advises the IRS commissioner and other IRS officials on tax policy and administration issues. Eliot lectures widely on corporate and tax issues before audiences such as the ABA, the New York University Institute, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the Texas Annual Tax Institute, and the California CPA Society. As an adjunct law professor at the University of Missouri at Kansas City School of Law, he taught courses on the taxation of business organizations and partnerships.