Roy E. Crawford, III

Counsel
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Roy E. Crawford is counsel in the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery LLP and is based in the Firm's Silicon Valley office.  He focuses his practice on corporate franchise and income taxation, personal income taxation, and sales and use taxation.

Prior to joining McDermott, Roy was special counsel in the tax practice group at a prominent international law firm.  Roy represents taxpayers in disputes and tax planning in many jurisdictions, with an emphasis in states that have adopted the Uniform Division of Income for Tax Purposes Act.  Roy was counsel in Crocker Equipment Leasing v. Oregon Dep’t of Rev., in which the Oregon Tax Court and Oregon Supreme Court upheld the right of a taxpayer to modify the statutory apportionment formula to include intangible personal property in the property factor.  He was state tax and constitutional law counsel in Alabama v. Credit Card Companies, where tax jurisdiction  asserted over out-of-state banks that had neither property nor employees in the state was denied on the basis that the Alabama Legislature had not imposed a tax on out-of-state banks.

Roy is a former Chair of the State and Local Tax Committee of the ABA Tax Section.  Additionally, he is a member of the State Tax Advisory Board of Tax Management Multi-state Tax Portfolios, and of the Board of Advisors,Journal of Taxation and Regulation of Financial Institutions.He has worked with the Multistate Tax Commission in drafting uniform regulations and was co-chair of Task Force B of the Public Participation Working Group organized to draft a uniform definition of unitary business.  He has extensive experience in working with the California Franchise Tax Board, the State Board of Equalization, and the California Legislature on tax policy matters.

Roy has participated in tax policy conferences with the Multistate Tax Commission, state revenue departments, the American Bar Association and the California Bar Association.   He has lectured at many national tax conferences including NYU, Georgetown, USC, California FTB Tax Policy Conference, annual meetings of the Multistate Tax Commission and ALI/ABA national conferences.  Roy has been listed for many years in Best Lawyers in America, as well as The Legal 500 United States.  He was awarded the Benjamin F. Miller award in 2012 by the Taxation Section of the California State Bar Association for outstanding achievement and excellence in the field of state and local taxation.

Education:
LL.B., Stanford Law School (1963)
B.S., University of Pennsylvania (1960)

Bloomberg BNA Tax Management Portfolios: 
1140 T.M., Income Taxes: The Distinction Between Business and Nonbusiness Income (co-author)
California Corporate Income Tax
California Pass-Through Entity Navigator
California Sales & Use Tax Navigator

Roy E. Crawford III is a member of the Bloomberg BNA Tax Management State Tax Advisory Board.