Jere D. McGaffey is a retired partner in Foley & Lardner's Milwaukee office, and former chair of the firm's Finance Committee. He was a member and past chair of the Tax and Individual Planning Department. While counseling on varied and numerous corporate and institutional tax matters, his practice was primarily focused on the tax aspects of acquisitions and other corporate transactions and survivorship and estate planning for wealthy individuals.
His more than 40 years of experience include structuring tax-free reorganizations involving multiple classes of stock, the uses of net operating losses in acquisitions and in bankruptcy, the formation and organization of S corporations, and tax-reducing like-kind exchanges in acquisitions. He has extensive experience in executive compensation, including stock-based compensation, golden parachutes, split dollar insurance and insurance as a private pension.
Mr. McGaffey is a former chair of the American Bar Association Section on Taxation (membership 27,000), former chair of the American College of Tax Counsel (the top 500 tax attorneys in the United States), a regent of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, and was selected as the Wisconsin Outstanding Tax Professional in 1989. He is a former member of the Advisory Board of CCH Tax Transactions Library, Merten's Law of Taxation, and listed in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in American Law, and The Best Lawyers in America.
Mr. McGaffey is author of a six-volume treatise on taxation, Tax Analysis and Forms, Business Transactions and Estate Planning (West Group), a book on acquisitions, and numerous journal articles. He lectures to national audiences at professional tax and tax law institutes and universities.
Mr. McGaffey is a director of Smith Investment Company (owner of the A.O. Smith Corporation), Northwestern Mutual Trust Company, Lord Baltimore Capital Corporation and several closely held corporations. He is a former director of WICOR (parent company to Wisconsin Gas Corporation and others). He chairs the Metropolitan Association of Commerce Tax Committee and is its vice chair for legislation. He is a former chairman of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance and a member of the advisory group to the Wisconsin Commissioner of Securities on Takeover Legislation.
Mr. McGaffey received his law degree, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he was on the law review, and received both a B.A. and B.S. in accountancy from the University of Nebraska, where he was first in his class. He is a Certified Public Accountant.