T. Scott Tufts

Mr. Tufts is a tax and business law attorney with over 29 years of experience taking on complex business and tax matters, often of a forensic nature.Mr. Tufts is a Board Certified Tax Lawyer of the Florida Bar, achieving this recognition in 1999.Mr. Tufts comes to CPLS, P.A. after over 14 years of running his own law firm.

Mr. Tufts’ practice areas stretch beyond IRS disputes, extending into complex areas such as employee vs. independent contractor disputes, IRS and related whistleblowing, abusive tax shelter and scheme analysis, LLC, LLP, and LLLP disputes, and probate and trust estate litigation, with an emphasis on the exploitation of the elderly claims impacting estates.

Mr. Tufts’ first decade of large firm transactional practice dealt with the areas of probate, tax, business entities, and accounting. Mr. Tufts expressed concerns for an assembly line mentality that he felt was ill-suited for the complexities of the products and transactions being structured. When the country became aware of the schemes that came from Enron, Worldcom, Adelphia, and the KPMG disputes, Mr. Tufts opened up his own firm in 2004.The focus had turned to abusive tax shelters and schemes, and the complex layers or structures used.A forensic approach was often needed.Over the years, Mr. Tufts’ has used his unique talents to untangle complex situations and structures that involve a combined analysis of fraud, tax, business entities, real estate, accounting, and litigation issues concerning multiparty litigation.As such, Mr. Tufts brings a unique perspective and talent to these multifaceted disputes that typically cannot be addressed by one lawyer. 

Mr. Tufts’ advises on a national level, assisting on the unique issues that arise as part of his practice areas, whether it is IRS Forms Analysis and Review (focusing on Forms 8886, 8082, K-1, SS-8, Form 211, Form 911, and many others), Tax Shelter Analysis, or Partners in Peril, or IRS Whistleblower Claims.Mr. Tufts advises many practitioners and individuals on the volatile nature of complex LLCs and partnership structures that further involve interconnected K-1 activities. With the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (“BBA”), the IRS has repealed TEFRA, effective in 2018.A new set of rules now govern how the IRS will perform income tax audits of entities taxed as partnerships under the Federal tax law.Underpayments will be assessed at the entity level; no longer will the IRS be required to chase down “indirect” partners.The concept of a “Tax Matters Partner” is gone, replaced with a Partnership Representative.Mr. Tufts’ forensic abilities have enabled clients to get to the bottom of complex structures that are engaged in aggressive if not illegal financial or similar fraud.