Edward J. Rappaport

Biography

Ed is a seasoned tax attorney advising a broad array of clients on various tax and legal issues. He has extensive experience representing high net worth individuals, including NFL and NBA athletes, corporate executives with some of Atlanta’s largest firms, and closely-held private businesses. Ed has significant tax controversy engagements in both state and federal tax matters, working with revenue agents, appeals officers and counsel. Ed also represents clients to recover from promoters of failed conservation easement deals.

Ed has particular expertise representing professional athletes in a variety of legal matters. His representation covers all facets of the career of a professional athlete, including issues arising from relocation during the athlete’s career and subsequent transition to retirement.

Ed has extensive experience representing clients victimized in fraudulent or failed tax shelter transactions. In particular, Ed assists clients in syndicated conservation easement deals that have been disallowed by the IRS. These matters are complex and require an attorney with expertise in tax shelter litigation.

Ed represents a number of plaintiffs in the newly filed class action suit Lechter et. al v. Aprio et. al. A link to the complaint is attached:

https://assetprotectionbook.com/casedocs/conservation_easements/Aprio_Class_Action_Complaint_200326.pdf

The plaintiffs allege that a group of law firms and accounting firms conspired to defraud participants that believed they were receiving legitimate tax deductions because Code Section 170(h) allows deductions for conservation easements.  Ed’s co-counsel, David Deary, was quoted in a Bloomberg Law article stating “This is the exact kind of conduct that the civil RICO statute was designed to remedy, where you have a bunch of professional advisors that put together a scheme in secret manipulating a bunch of technical rules that layman don’t understand to deprive people of their money.”

Bloomberg Law News published an article about this lawsuit on July 6, 2020. You can read the full article here.

Forbes also published an article on July 14, 2020. You can read the full article here.

If you need representation in connection with a failed or problem tax shelter, he is here to help.

Representation of Professional Athletes

The lawyers at the Saylor Law Firm are oriented towards tax and estate planning, but have years of experience handling the legal needs of professional athletes. While intelligent tax planning is essential for the financial well being of a professional athlete, that is not the entirety of the services that professional athletes require to maintain order in their personal and financial lives.
Our lawyers have the experience and expertise to act as general legal counsel for professional athletes. As public figures, professional athletes have legal needs unique to them that other affluent clients generally don’t have.

Tax planning – we frequently tell our clients, “Be focused on how much you keep, not how much you make”. An athlete has a limited number of years to earn substantial sums of money, so thoughtful tax planning is critical to helping the client build an estate that they’ll need to generate capital for their needs once their playing career is over. We help our clients avoid costly mistakes.

Family law issues – we have experience in facilitating with local family law counsel or all family law issues – child support, divorce and premarital planning.

Charitable planning – we can advise our clients on intelligently using their celebrity and personal resources to make a difference in the community.

General legal advice specific to athletes – As public figures, athletes are vulnerable to being victimized and preyed upon. Our experience helps us to anticipate potential trouble and help our clients steer clear of danger. When one of our clients finds himself at risk, we are skilled in crisis management and navigating our clients out of difficult waters.

Post career planning – We represent multiple retired athletes enjoying successful business careers after their playing days have ended. This transition period is fraught with danger and we have the ability to assist in the transition away from a playing career.