After nearly six years of writing policy guidelines and rules for tax-exempt bonds at the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service, Bruce Serchuk plans to leave the federal government for private practice.
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Serchuk, 37, will join Nixon Peabody LLP as a partner in its New York office in August, the law firm announced yesterday.
"The significant increase in IRS audits and Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement of tax-exempt bonds has created a growing number of clients needing the firm's expertise," said Arthur McMahon Jr., Nixon Peabody's public finance group leader. "Having another tax lawyer with IRS and Treasury experience, along with Mary Jo Kelly's SEC experience, has put the firm in a unique position."
Kelly, formerly Mary Jo White, was a lawyer in the SEC's office of municipal securities.
Serchuk said yesterday that he plans to leave his current position as attorney advisor at Treasury's office of tax policy near the end of June, which coincides with the end of Treasury's work plan year. He moved to that position in February 2003 on a temporary detail from the IRS, where he had worked as a senior technician reviewer since 1998. His move was part of an effort by Treasury to speed up guidance for the tax-exempt bond community. A Treasury spokeswoman said it was unclear whether he would be replaced.
In both of his federal positions, Serchuk participated in a range of guidance and policy projects, from private- letter rulings and regulations to enforcement matters. "I think that broad exposure has helped me tremendously in understanding how the IRS and Treasury operate," Serchuk said.
At Treasury, Serchuk helped draft rules that redefined the treatment of solid-waste bonds, eased single-family mortgage guarantee fee requirements, and permitted tax-exempt bonds to be issued for the prepayments of natural gas and electricity contracts without violating arbitrage rules.
While at the IRS, Serchuk assisted in drafting both output and refunding regulations as well as the hospital acquisition finance rules. He wrote several key technical advice memorandums and private-letter rulings, including one to a city that said naming rights for a stadium qualified as private use. Serchuk also participated in the global yield burning investigations that, in 2000, resulted in the IRS' single largest settlement in the tax-exempt bond area.
Treasury and IRS officials yesterday praised Serchuk's ability to apply practical guidance to tax-exempt bonds. "His approach is to see what he can do to make the desired transactions structured in such a way that complies with the spirit and rule of the law," said Rebecca Harrigal, a branch chief in the IRS' office of chief counsel's tax-exempt bond branch.
Treasury acting assistant secretary for tax policy Greg Jenner said Serchuk was a "valuable member of the Treasury team. He did great work, and will be sorely missed."
Members of the public finance community attributed Serchuk's understanding of technical issues in part to the six years he spent as an attorney in the Washington, D.C., office of Kutak Rock, LLP.
"Sometimes you can write the perfect tax rule, but it doesn't work in the real world," said Linda Schakel, president of the National Association of Bond Lawyers and a tax partner with Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll LLP here. "Because he had the outside experience, he was able to bring to the table what things would and would not work in a practicable manner."
Susan Gaffney, the Public Finance Network's coordinator and the Government Finance Officers Association's federal liaison director, said Serchuk has been approachable.
"He has a constant open door policy," she said. "He will sit in the office and have a conversation in real English. I think his real life street experience helped him a lot."
David Caprera, a tax partner in Kutak Rock's Denver office, said he hopes Treasury continues to have two attorney advisers. "I think that it would be valuable, if and when they do replace him, to get someone from the private sector who has a good idea of what it is like to practice law and give opinions and who appreciates the problems with ambiguity, the lack of clarity, and the lack of guidance in the tax-exempt bond area," Caprera said.
