Clifton B. Cates, Attorney

Mr. Cates is of counsel to Ivins, Phillips & Barker. Mr. Cates is an experienced tax litigator, having served as senior trial attorney with Chief Counsel's Office of the Internal Revenue Service. He has tried numerous cases in Tax Court involving such diverse issues as Section 482, arbitrage bonds, inventory accounting, pension plan prohibited transactions, qualified terminable interest property, and fraudulent omission of income, both for the IRS and for Ivins, Phillips & Barker. In addition to litigation, Mr. Cates has worked extensively with agents of the Examination and EP/EO Divisions during taxpayers' audits. In this role, Mr. Cates both provided substantive legal advice and assisted agents in extracting the necessary information from taxpayers', frequently by way of administrative summonses for testimony. He now represents clients during audit and defends them against such tactics.

Before he joined Chief Counsel's Office, Mr. Cates was engaged in private tax practice in Los Angeles , where he concentrated in real estate, partnership, and international tax law. He thus brings to the firm, a combination of experience both as a substantive tax lawyer and as a tax litigator.

Mr. Cates graduated from Harvard Law School with honors in 1975. He was elected Phi Beta Kappa at Yale College and graduated in 1968. He speaks frequently at the UCLA Tax Controversy and USC Tax Institutes and has written numerous articles in the field of taxation. Mr. Cates is also a former Chairman of the California State Bar Tax Section.