James Kleier

Mr. Kleier is a graduate of Thomas More College (B.A. 1976) and the University of Kentucky College of Law (J.D. 1979). He was Survey and Comments Editor of the Kentucky Law Journal and a member of the Order of the Coif.

Mr. Kleier is active in local and national bar activities. He was previously the American Bar Association Section of Taxation's Chair of the Special Project Task Force of the Administrative Practice Committee and is also past Chair of the San Francisco Bar Association's Barristers Club Tax Section. He has taught California State Taxation at Golden Gate University and is a regular lecturer on criminal tax at the University of California's Hasting College of the Law. He has written and lectured extensively on state and local taxation and on federal tax controversies, including “Sales and Use Tax Consequences of Mergers and Acquisitions” for the center for State and Local Taxation at the University of California (Davis). “Prospectivity of Decisions Invalidating State Tax Laws” for the Federation of Tax Administrators, “State Tax Procedural Tips and Traps” for the Committee On State Taxation, “Current State Tax Issues” for the Continental Association of Certified Public Accountants, and “Sales and Use Tax Exemptions” (with James B. Ellis) for the Matthew Bender treatise California Taxation. He has also written articles on tax indemnity clauses and purchase price allocations for Taxation for Lawyers, and has written articles on various aspects of state taxation for Interstate Tax Insights and International Tax Review.

Mr. Kleier specializes in tax litigation and the administrative resolution of tax controversies in the United States Supreme Court, the United States Tax Court, and other federal and California courts, as well as handling controversies at the administrative level before the Internal Revenue Service, in California, and in nearly a dozen others states. He represented Colgate–Palmolive Co. in its constitutional challenge to worldwide combined reporting in the United States Supreme Court.