Carlos Gonzalez is the president of BenefitsPuertoRico.com LLC. He has over twenty years’ experience as a tax, employee benefits, and executive compensation attorney both in Puerto Rico and the United States, and was previously The Home Depot’s in-house counsel for tax, benefits & compensation at the company’s headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.
During his many years in the industry, Carlos has actively dealt with a wide array of issues regarding the evaluation, implementation, operation, and termination of comp & ben programs, including the qualification of retirement plans with the Puerto Rico Department of the Treasury (Hacienda) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), ERISA fiduciary compliance, governmental audits, cost control strategies, risk management analysis, vendor selection and monitoring, participant enrolment and dependent eligibility audits, Puerto Rico and United States taxation of retirement income and other benefits, transfers of assets and liabilities from United States plans to Puerto Rico plans pursuant to Rev. Rul. 2008-40, COBRA administration, officer pay, equity-based compensation arrangements, and international benefits.
Carlos has published numerous articles on the subject of employee benefits in Puerto Rico on several of the main United States benefits journals, including the Benefits Law Journal, Tax Management Journal of Pension Planning and Compliance, Bloomberg BNA Tax & Accounting Insights & Commentaries, Journal of Pension Benefits, and The ASPPA Journal. Carlos currently serves as a Special Consultant on Puerto Rico benefits matters to Bloomberg BNA’s Tax Management.
Between 2003 and 2004, Carlos served as an advisor to the United States Department of the Treasury and the IRS on their 2004 Puerto Rico Plans Initiative. Between 2010 and 2011, Carlos assisted Hacienda with the evaluation and drafting the retirement plan sections of the Puerto Rico Internal Revenue Code of 2011 (PRIRC). And since 2011, Carlos has assisted Hacienda with the drafting of the enacting regulations under the PRIRC. Carlos has also served as an adjunct professor of employee benefits and executive compensation at the University of Puerto Rico Law School.
Education:
LL.M. (Taxation), Georgetown University Law Center
J.D., University of Puerto Rico Law School
Bloomberg BNA Tax Management Portfolios:
324 T.M., International Pension Planning — Puerto Rico (author)