Richard W. Skillman is a member in Caplin & Drysdale's Washington, D.C. office. He rejoined the firm in May 2002 after serving first as Deputy Chief Counsel and most recently as Acting Chief Counsel of the Internal Revenue Service.
As Acting Chief Counsel, Mr. Skillman was the chief legal official of the IRS having final authority for all legal and litigating positions of the IRS and management responsibility for approximately 2500 Chief Counsel employees in more than 50 offices nationwide. As Deputy Chief Counsel, he oversaw all technical divisions in the Office of Chief Counsel and had primary IRS responsibility for all tax regulations and other published guidance. During Mr. Skillman's period of government service, he was centrally involved in all significant legal developments in the IRS, including the development of regulations and other administrative actions relating to corporate tax shelters.
Prior to his government experience, Mr. Skillman practiced tax law for 27 years at Caplin & Drysdale. His practice covered a broad cross-section of domestic and international tax issues and involved both tax planning and representation in tax controversies. His areas of tax concentration included executive compensation and other employee benefit matters, insurance companies and products, corporate tax, tax accounting, and international tax.
Mr. Skillman is a member of the Tax Sections of the ABA and of the D.C. Bar. He formerly taught Corporate Tax as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center and has lectured and written articles on a broad range of tax subjects.
Mr. Skillman holds a B.A. from Amherst College and a J.D. from New York University Law School, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the N.Y.U. Law Review. After law school, he served as law clerk to Judge Gibbons of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and to Chief Justice Burger of the U.S. Supreme Court.