Profile:

Mr. Cohen is a partner and one of the founders of Levun, Goodman & Cohen, LLP. He has been practicing law since 1981, and from 1975-1978 practiced in public accounting. Mr. Cohen’s focus is on a business and tax practice, concentrating on the representation of closely held businesses and wealthy individuals, business structuring and estate planning.

Mr. Cohen has been providing business and tax advice to closely held businesses for his entire career. Being both an attorney and a certified public accountant, and having practiced in public accounting, Mr. Cohen is well-positioned to provide business and financial advice to business owners and wealthy individuals. Over his four decades of professional practice, he has counseled numerous large (some having sales in excess of $500 million) and small closely held businesses in LLC/partnership, S corporation and C corporation format in connection with their ownership structures, sale, merger, or restructuring to achieve more efficient ownership and tax results, including restructuring of S corporations to achieve more efficient flow-through taxation, restructuring of C corporations to obtain full or partial flow-through taxation, and providing ownership to key employees in a non-taxable manner. He has also provided sophisticated estate planning advice to business owners with net worth ranging from less than $1 million to in excess of $1 billion.

A major part of Mr. Cohen’s practice also involves educating other business and tax professionals. He was the co-author of the monthly “Partner’s Perspective” column that accompanied the CCH Partnership Tax Planning and Practice Guide for its entire term of publication (1987-2020) and was the Associate Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Passthrough Entities for the entire term of its publication (1998-2019). In addition, since its inception in 1987, Mr. Cohen has been the co-creator and a faculty member of the annual Partnership, LLC & S Corporation Tax Planning Forum, co-sponsored by the Illinois CPA Society. The Forum is an intensive tax planning seminar for professionals, offered both virtually and in person. Forum participants engage in in-depth discussion with the presenters about recent developments and strategies and leave with up-to-date knowledge of cutting-edge tax and business planning techniques. And since its inception in 1996, Mr. Cohen also has been the co-creator and a faculty member of the annual “Fundamentals of Flow-Through” Partnership, LLC & S Corporation Tax Seminar, also co-sponsored by the Illinois CPA Society. This seminar also is presented both virtually and in person and is designed for professionals who would like a solid grounding in these essential topics or who just want to brush up on their existing knowledge of these fundamentals. Through the Forum and the “Fundamentals of Flow-Through” Tax Seminar, Mr. Cohen has also developed a nationwide business and tax consulting practice.

Mr. Cohen received an LLM in taxation (1984) and a JD with highest honors (1981) from the Illinois Institute of Technology/Chicago Kent College of Law. He also has an MBA in Finance (1981) from DePaul University, and received a BS in Economics (1975) from the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce at the University of Pennsylvania.