Brian Dethrow

Clients who count on Brian for their transactional and tax planning include some of the largest private enterprises in the country. Brian also represents many of the wealthiest individuals in the country – and their Family Offices — on tax planning; succession planning; charitable giving, through the use of private foundations and public charities. Clients regularly seek Brian’s advice and help to:

• Create innovative Family Office structures for maximizing investment expense deductibility and generational transfer of wealth and control
• Develop an innovative qualified opportunity zone (QOZ) practice as a first adopter counsel
• Extensive work in renewable energy / tax credit space (wind, solar, carbon sequestration (43, 45Q))
• Frontier development of double- and triple-qualifying tax-motivated funds—QOZ, carbon sequestration/45Q, and 1202/Qualified Small Business Stock
• Multi-billion dollar combinations/dispositions of family-owned businesses
• Offshore tax restructuring of billion-dollar medical technology company, patent box, licensing arrangements
• Create numerous private equity fund structures, tax planning for their founders, tax planning for acquisitions/dispositions of their portfolio companies
• Develop complex offshore structure for largest equipment distributor in the U.S.
• Multi-jurisdiction Family Office work for international tax driven changes to tax jurisdictions
• Develop U.S. tax credit investment program for private multi-billion dollar international bank client and Fortune 500 company

• Develop U.S. tax credit investment program for private multi-billion dollar international bank client and Fortune 500 company
• Extensive tax credit work, both in the renewables and the oil and gas space (e.g., carbon sequestration)
• Income and estate/gift tax planning for multi-billion dollar private companies and their owners
• Income tax planning for Family Office tax reduction, qualified opportunity zone gain rollover
• Create and structure funds used in real estate and private equity space
• Business and succession planning, transfer of wealth and control
• Tax controversy work for large privately held business and their families
• Charitable giving, through the use of private foundations and public charities
• Complete restructuring of multi-billion dollar family holdings in line with succession, asset and matrimonial protection and wealth generation for G4
• Develop Multi-Family Office investment structure used in deals involving billions of value, in many industries, onshore and offshore
• Facilitate the tax-free transfer of billions of value in private companies among generations of family owners
• Create tax-advantaged generational transfer of intellectual property for $500 million family
• Develop Mexican / US cross-border entry point for billionaire foreign nationals in their estate planning
• Complete restructuring of large multi-generation Family Office and its oil, real estate, and equities holdings

• The Best Lawyers in America (Woodward/White Inc.), Tax Law, 2011-2023
• “Best Lawyers in Dallas” List, D Magazine, 2009, 2011-2012, 2014-2016, 2018-2023
• Texas Super Lawyer, Super Lawyers by Thomson Reuters, 2011-2012, 2020-2022
• Rated AV Preeminent, Martindale-Hubbell

Publications

• Co-Author, “Tax Benefits of Investing in QOFs: A New Tax Shelter Approved by Congress!” (February 2019)
• Co-Author, “Treasury Releases Qualified Opportunity Fund (QOF) Guidance” (October 25, 2018)
• Author, “Qualified Opportunity Zones” (July 2018)

Speaking Engagements

• “ACPEN Signature: 2020 Real Estate Taxation after Tax Reform,” The Accounting Continuing Professional Education Network (ACPEN) (June 2020)
• “QOZ Update—COVID Disaster Declarations Make QOZ Even More Taxpayer Friendly,” American Academy of Attorney-CPAs (May 5, 2020)
• “Qualified Opportunity Zones: The “Dirt” on Tax-Driven Real Estate Development,” UT Law’s 23rd Annual Land Use Conference (April 2019)

In the News

• “Multifamily project with QOZ bend headed to The Cedars,” Dallas Business Journal (February 16, 2022)
• “Remember the Trump tax cut? Here’s how it might benefit low-income areas in Dallas,” Dallas News (September 20, 2018)
• “Q&A With Jackson Walker’s Brian Dethrow,” Law360 (December 10, 2013)

Professional

• American Bar Association
• Texas Bar Association
• Dallas Bar Association

Civic and Philanthropic

• Texas Federal Tax Institute, Board
• Harvard Club of Dallas – VP Schools, Co-Chair, Schools Committee
• UT Southwestern, Presidents Research Council
• Dallas Foundation, Advisory Council
• Southwestern Medical Foundation, Advisory Board