Todd Mardis: Walt Dallas is an attorney with a special degree in LL.M in Tax that he received from SMU (Southern Methodist University). That in itself is a fairly special designation that a lot of attorneys don’t have that are even practicing in the field of tax.
Walt is one of those individuals that have a very unique mindset. Walt thinks a lot, he is very slow to speak sometimes because he is very careful and thoughtful before he gives an answer. Walt is very much an attorney who is going to study the facts, read, not only the legislation but also read all the case notes and statutes that come or are attached to the legislation or the tax code.
That makes Walt unique and that he doesn’t into situations with preconceived ideas. He really takes the time to read all the parts of the Tax Codes, statutes and regs (regulations) and formulates his ideas based on those, not what other people are saying. He is open-minded, he is not aggressive; many people would consider anyone who does income tax planning as aggressive, Walt is probably anything but aggressive.
The other thing that really makes Walt such a powerful asset to us and our clients is that he is so well-rounded. Walt has as much experience in the asset protection field, estate tax planning arena as he does in income tax planning.
Walt probably did as many state tax cases or plans back in the 90s and early 2000s, back when, if you hadn’t stayed over $2.5 million, you are in a State Tax problem.
And so, Walt has been doing this type of plans for years and years and years. He started doing income tax planning using a lot of the same techniques we use today. About 30 years ago, when he was involved in a group over in Dallas, kind of a forward-thinking group of attorneys and CPAs, and they were looking at ways to legally reduce taxes 30 years ago.
