2025 Tennessee Federal Tax Conference Bundle

Since 2001, Michael has worked in the financial services industry with a focus on helping employers, participants and financial advisors with their qualified plan needs. From working with some of the countries leading record keepers to becoming a partner of Acuff & Associates serving as a third party retirement plan administrator, he has experience with almost all aspects of qualified retirement plans. Currently, Michael serves as a Regional Sales Director for JULY Business Services, a full service retirement plan provider. Michael graduated from Tennessee Technological University with both his BS degree as well as his MBA. When not talking about 401(k) plans, Michael enjoys spending time with his wife Kristin and his 2 daughters, Harper & Avery.

Cass is a shareholder at Carlton Fields in Atlanta. He focuses on tax law and business transactions, with deep experience in the intersection of tax-exempt organizations and for-profit enterprises. Before joining the firm, he was a professor of law at Georgia State University College of Law, teaching courses on federal income taxation, nonprofit organizations, and business taxation, including corporate and partnership tax. His research and speaking engagements have centered on federal income taxation and social enterprise law.

Cass has played a significant role in shaping nonprofit and business law in Georgia. He co-founded the Nonprofit Law Section of the State Bar of Georgia and helped modernize Georgia's Nonprofit Corporations Code. He was also involved in drafting Georgia's Limited Liability Company Act, Limited Liability Partnership Act, and the state's benefit corporation legislation.

A fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel, Cass previously served as a partner and practice leader in the tax group at Morris, Manning & Martin LLP, in Atlanta. His background in both academia and legal practice gives him a unique perspective in advising clients on complex tax and business matters.

John Bunge is a tax and private wealth services attorney in Holland & Knight's Nashville office. Mr. Bunge helps clients navigate the confluence of tax planning, business succession planning and estate planning, and seeks to find the most elegant solutions possible to reach their goals.

Mr. Bunge's wealth preservation experience includes income, gift, estate and generation-skipping transfer tax minimization, through the use of irrevocable trusts, sales and gifts to trusts, charitable-interest trusts and grantor-retained annuity trusts, among other sophisticated wealth planning strategies. He also advises families on the formation of investment entities, such as family limited partnerships and family LLCs.

Mr. Bunge helps clients reach their charitable goals, using charitable giving techniques to minimize income, estate and gift taxes, and advising clients on the formation and operation of tax-exempt organizations, including private foundations.

He also counsels families regarding the formation, structuring and operation of family offices and private trust companies.

Additionally, Mr. Bunge helps clients minimize income taxes through individual, partnership and corporate tax planning. He also has experience assisting taxpayers through IRS audits, appeals and U.S. Tax Court litigation.

Bergin is a Principal at Elliott Davis Advisory. He is a licensed attorney with extensive experience in tax law, planning, consulting, and transaction services. As the firm's National Tax Practice Leader, he steers the firm's strategic tax thought-leadership and serves as a firm-wide resource and subject matter expert. Bergin's experience includes consulting and advisory services for customers of various industry sectors, utilizing his legal and consulting background to advise customers of all types and sizes on issues of domestic and cross-border restructuring, acquisitions, credits and incentives, spin-offs and other divestitures, and other tax advisory needs.

Bergin is also the firm's pioneering Sustainability & ESG Practice Leader. He and his team offer comprehensive services to enhance companies' environmental needs, such as conducting readiness assessments, including greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions accounting, reporting, and preparing effective responses to customer or vendor data requests. The practice also develops and implements sustainability improvement strategies tailored to the organization's needs.

Prior to Elliott Davis, he served as in-house counsel to a global non-profit in the higher education industry and with two global Big-Four firms.

David Frederick is a Senior Manager of Taxation in the Private Client Group of LBMC, PC. David is an attorney by background and his practice at LBMC is focused on advising high net worth individuals on matters of estate planning, business succession planning, and tax mitigation. In this advisory role, David guides his clients through the structures and strategies that will maximize their control, minimize their tax, and allow them to more fully reap the benefits of their lifetimes of hard work. These structures and strategies commonly include sophisticated estate planning trusts, advanced tax-exempt and charitable systems, family business transfer designs, gifting and timing options, real estate ownership systems, and numerous other wealth transfer frameworks.

Before coming to LBMC, David worked as a transaction attorney for several law firms of various sizes. More recently, he has served as a Director of Wealth Strategy and Trust Counsel for prominent banks and trust companies in the Midwest. Additionally, David is a trained economist and held the position of Adjunct Professor of Economics at Washington University in St. Louis for fifteen years. With this broad background in law and economics, David can provide his clients with insights and perspectives on legal, economic, and market conditions that may affect their estate plans, investments, business structures, or other important plans for the future.

David has authored and published several academic articles on income taxation, estate taxation, charitable strategies, business succession, public policy, economics, history, and estate planning.

Jeff is the Managing Director, Tax Policy, Washington National Tax with Deloitte. He has over 25 years of experience in the tax policy arena and is currently responsible for communicating emerging tax developments in the U.S. Congress, the Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department, and the federal courts to the Firm and its clients. Jeff oversees the content development of Tax News & Views as well as thought leadership publications on issues such as the U.S. deficit and fundamental tax reform.

His Capitol Hill experience includes working on tax and budget issues for former U.S. Senator and Senate Finance Committee member Steve Symms, R-Idaho.

Jeff holds a BS in Political Science from the University of Idaho and an MBA from Johns Hopkins University.

Joseph serves in the Private Enterprise Tax practice of KPMG. Based in Atlanta, Joseph works to build and expand the practice and serve clients throughout the Southeast and nationally.

Joseph is an accomplished corporate finance tax leader with experience in multiple industries at both Fortune Five and closely held private companies. He is a skilled executive with the ability to understand complex business situations, apply technical expertise, develop relationships to communicate collaborative solutions and bring value to an organization and its shareholders.

Joseph joined KPMG from Georgia Pacific LLC (a wholly owned subsidiary of Koch Industries, Inc.) where he served as a Senior Tax Director. Joseph’s responsibilities included federal, international, and state reporting, compliance and tax planning for corporations and partnerships in business, corporate, and foundation operations. Among Joseph’s talents is his ability to partner with key stakeholders - legal, treasury, accounting, technology and business leadership to create meaningful outcomes.

Prior to joining Georgia Pacific LLC, Joseph was the state tax counsel at GE Energy, a subsidiary of General Electric Company. Joseph started his career with KPMG working in the Financial Institutions and State & Local Tax practices.

John Rose is the National Tax Director with Aprio Advisory Group. He has extensive experience providing technical tax consulting and compliance services to multinational businesses, individual taxpayers and tiered partnership structures. His experience includes tax research, tax conflict resolution and tax practice management. John conducts advanced research and constantly monitors tax guidance to address both clients’ and team members’ tax questions. He provides guidance on creating structures to limit and defer tax liabilities, including the use of offshore operations, and help clients understand the impact that emerging tax codes will have on their business and personal finances.

Hale Sheppard is a partner with Eversheds Sutherland. With more than two decades of experience, Hale defends clients in tax audits, appeals, and Tax Court litigation, with a focus on tax disputes, international tax, employee retention credits, qualified opportunity zones, conservation easements, and captive insurance.

Hale has a proven track record of success in the courtroom, with extensive experience litigating cases before the Tax Court, District Courts, and Federal Courts of Appeal. His deep understanding of tax law enables him to secure favorable rulings from the IRS National Office for his clients. When a private letter ruling is not required, Hale skillfully navigates other administrative remedies to achieve optimal tax outcomes.

As a prolific tax writer, Hale has authored over 300 major articles in leading law reviews and tax journals. His work is frequently cited by peers in prestigious journals, legal briefs, and books, underscoring his authority in the field.

In addition to his writing, Hale is a sought-after speaker, regularly lecturing at regional and national organizations on a wide array of tax topics.

Margaret is an "almost native" of Tennessee having moved to Nashville in 1974 when her father (Dr. John S. Johnson) came to take over her grandfather's private practice (Dr. Hollis E. Johnson) and practice medicine alongside his identical twin brother (Dr. Robert M. Johnson). Margaret obtained her undergraduate degree from Southern Methodist University (1984) and a graduate degree from Vanderbilt University (1989). Her love of medicine from growing up a doctor's daughter coupled with the task of creating an insurance program for older adults at St Thomas Hospital led to the creation of her health care benefits management and consulting company, Medical Accounts Management, in 1990.

The genesis of her business was helping individual clients navigate the confusing territory of health insurance benefits, health insurance carriers, healthcare providers, and Medicare. With the enactment of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in 1996, Margaret saw an opportunity to assist employers in the management of their healthcare benefits and expanded her business model to include employer contracts. Some of her employer clients include LBMC, Athens Distributing, Health Services Management, and CoreCivic. Margaret is married to Doug Smith, CEO of Hutson-Wood, and has three grown children, two daughters-in-law, three grand dogs, one amazing grandson and another grandchild on the way.

Managing Director, Portage Point Partners, Palm Beach, FL
Retired Principal, former Ernst & Young LLP National State and Local Tax Policy Leader for Americas Tax Policy.

Steve Wlodychak is a Managing Director with the Transaction Advisory Services practice of Portage Point Partners, LLC, a state and local tax columnist for Tax Analysts, Adjunct Professor for the Graduate Tax Program at Villanova University's School of Law and a retired principal and the former State and Local Tax Policy Leader for EY's Americas Tax Policy in Washington, DC. Previously, Steve worked in EY's Los Angeles and New York offices, was a state and local tax attorney for an international insurance company and an associate attorney with a major New Jersey regional law firm. In addition, he worked in state government in New Jersey, including for the governor of the state. A frequent speaker and writer on state and local tax developments, EY awarded Steve its first ever lifetime achievement award as tax educator of the year in 2017. He also was a guest lecturer on state and local tax matters for the LL.M. in taxation program at the Georgetown University School of Law.

Steve holds degrees from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, Seton Hall University’s School of Law and a master's degree in tax law from New York University's School of Law.