- Will Seippel
William H. Seippel is a successful business executive and philanthropist. Seippel is famous for the 2004 IRS tax shelter controversy and subsequent case "Seippel v.
Jenkens & Gilchrist " against theSidley Austin Brown & Wood law firm. [cite web
url=http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1090180460397
title=Law.com - Suit Against Sidley Austin Over Tax Plan Proceeds
publisher=www.law.com
accessdate=2008-06-15
last=Lin
first=Anthony] Seippel alleged that the defendants misrepresented the nature of the tax product and sold him the Cobra tax strategy in 1999 in full knowledge that theInternal Revenue Service would reject it. Seippel and his wife later paid $5m in additional taxes, penalties and fees in self amended tax returns. The IRS gave up on additional interest and penalties that they tried to access the day before Seippel filed a suit against the IRS.Meanwhile, top IRS officials went public blaming Seippel and other individuals involved in using tax shelters and began a crackdown. [cite web
url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4050425|title=IRS Cracks Down on Tax Shelters : NPR|publisher=www.npr.org|accessdate=2008-06-15] Seippel is said to have felt targeted as a public figure by the IRS and in fact claims he brought the tax shelter issue to the IRS to begin with.The IRS during this period lost a series of tax shelter cases, although it scored a triumph.
Seippel has more than 25 years of experience in negotiating mergers and acquisitions and turning around operations in troubled companies. In addition to managing the restructuring of billions of dollars in troubled assets, Seippel has also engineered the reorganization of a number of both public and closely held private companies. He has been involved in the successful negotiating of over 20 acquisitions in his career and has played a leading role in structuring complex transactions that have raised $5 billion in capital. Two of Seippel’s transactions received the prestigious Institutional Investor Deal of the Year Award. [http://som.gmu.edu/web.asp?Partners/AdvisoryBoard&boardid=14 Dead link|date=June 2008]
In January 2007 Seippel left MIVA Media, a $200M provider in Internet advertising and content, to start WorthPoint. Worthpoint is Seippel's first startup, and looks to "organize the world's collectibles space". At MIVA he was responsible for traditional financial areas as well as the managing and programming of a worldwide network that processed 38,000 transactions a second. Prior to MIVA, he was at AirGate PCS, an Affiliate of Sprint, as its vice president and Chief Financial Officer.
Footnotes
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