Robert B. Martin Jr. is a tax attorney with The Waage Law Firm, a Professional Corporation, and a Certified Specialist in Taxation Law, The State Bar of California, Board of Legal Specialization Mr. Martin has more than 35 years of professional experience, specializing in business organizations, real estate taxation, sophisticated estate and asset protection planning for high net worth individuals and the representation of taxpayers in civil controversies with the Internal Revenue Service and California State taxing authorities,
Mr. Martin holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kent State University and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Southern California School of Law, where he was an editor of the Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif. Following law school, Mr. Martin practiced a number of law firms in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas, including Meserve, Mumper & Hughes, where he was head of the tax department, and several firms of which he was the principal named partner.
Mr. Martin has authored more than 25 published articles on various aspects of taxation and has lectured extensively before professional organizations throughout the West Coast.
A significant portion of Mr. Martin’s practice involves federal and state tax planning for business and investment transactions, including the organization and operation of limited liability companies, corporations and partnerships. He focuses particularly in the area of real estate and investment taxation and also devotes a substantial portion of his practice to estate and asset protection planning for high net worth individuals. Over the years he has advised clients with respect to the creation of wills, trusts, including life insurance trusts and discretionary foreign trusts, family limited liability companies and estate planning techniques such as installment sales to grantor trusts. He also has extensive experience in charitable giving and exempt organizations, including the creation of charitable remainder trusts, and the formation, recognition of exemption and operation of tax-exempt entities,
During his career, Mr. Martin has served a wide range of individual and business clients, including 20 years as a director and later general counsel to a mutual fund, tax counsel to a major real estate developer involved in more than $500 million in real estate transactions, general counsel to a privately owned real estate corporation that accumulated a real estate portfolio of over $150 million, and counsel to a private real estate investment advisor with $4.0 billion of assets under management with responsibility for the organization and maintenance of over 120 title holding entities and their taxation in over 20 states.
Mr. Martin’s tax planning approach is tempered by his extensive experience in the representation of taxpayers in civil controversies. During the past 35 years has represented taxpayers in over 1,000 cases involving tax disputes. Although as a matter of professional responsibility he never guarantees results, he reports that in all but a small handful of cases he has been successful in obtaining a significant reduction or elimination of the deficiency and/or penalties proposed. In nearly every case the result was obtained at a cost to the taxpayer in legal fees that was substantially less than the savings obtained.
It is Mr. Martin’s strategy in cases involving tax controversies to fully develop cases and to deal with Government counsel in a forthright manner with a view toward settlement of the case based on its merits. He has been successful in negotiating settlements in 99% of the cases he has handled. Where necessary, however, he has been willing and able to try such cases in court.
On a personal level, Mr. Martin is a nationally recognized rosarian with a long-term record of service to the American Rose Society, including service as the Pacific Southwest District Director and on many national level committees including six years as Chairman of the American Rose Society National Horticultural Exhibitors’ Committee. He is the author of the standard reference book, Showing Good Roses, and maintains a website on the results of U.S. rose shows at www.roseshow.com. He is a Master Consulting Rosarian, and an accredited horticultural and arrangements judge. He and his wife Dona, also a noted rosarian, maintain a rose garden of more than 400 roses at their personal residence.
