Michael A. Zimmerman

Michael is an of counsel in Michael Best's Wealth Planning group. He joined Michael Best with the New York team of Kane Kessler, P.C. where he chaired the Trusts, Estates and Taxation Practice Group.

Michael began his legal career in 1974 as a tax and trial attorney in the Honors Program at the Office of Chief Counsel of the Internal Revenue Service in Washington, D.C. He represents a broad range of individuals and corporations in matters that include individual and corporate tax planning and sophisticated estate planning for large estates, and he drafts wills, trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts, qualified personal residence trusts and comparable estate planning instruments.

Michael also appears on behalf of individuals and corporations before the United States Tax Court, the Internal Revenue Service, the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, Surrogate's Courts, and other courts and governmental agencies. He is additionally involved in Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP) transactions, in which business owners sell interests in their closely held businesses to an ESOP in order to obtain liquidity for closely held stock, partnership or LLC interests.

A substantial part of Michael's work lies in international taxation, including the creation of domestic and offshore asset protection trusts designed to safeguard an individual's assets. He also handles foreign and international tax planning for United States citizens in numerous jurisdictions abroad, and represents foreign individuals and citizens engaged in business in the United States.

While at the University of South Carolina Law School, Michael was admitted to the Honorary Order of Wig and Robe in recognition of scholastic excellence and served as a member of the South Carolina Law Review. He was a tax and trial attorney with the office of chief counsel of the Internal Revenue Service from 1974 to 1977, and holds a Master of Laws in Taxation from New York University School of Law. In 2014 he was appointed an Associate Village Justice in Kings Point, Great Neck, New York.