Experience at Work
Laura Al-Shathir serves as tax and corporate counsel to businesses in a variety of industries. Her clients range from multi-national corporations to small businesses, and include limited liability companies, S corporations, and non-profits.
Laura provides business planning advice in a wide variety of corporate transactions, focusing on the associated federal income tax issues. She negotiates, structures, and assists with the implementation of a variety of commercial transactions, including mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures; tax-free reorganizations; debt restructurings; financing transactions; tax-deferred like-kind exchanges; various types of contracts and agreements; and executive compensation plans.
As special tax counsel, Laura represents clients in income tax and in sales and use tax controversies throughout the United States. She assists corporations, partnerships, and individuals in resolving complex tax controversy matters at the examination level, in IRS appeals, in the U.S. Tax Court, and in making voluntary disclosures.
With a background in international tax, she represents clients in resolving tax compliance issues related to foreign income and assets.
She is a Vice Chair of the S Corporation Committee of the American Bar Association (ABA) Tax Section and is a frequent speaker at national ABA Tax Section conferences, speaking on changes in tax law, choice of entity, and a variety of topics pertinent to S Corporations. She is a co-columnist in the Tax Controversy Corner of the Journal of Passthrough Entities.
Laura has served as a standing guest lecturer for Corporate Tax at the Washington University School of Law LL.M. in Taxation Program, and she is an adjunct professor of law at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law, teaching Basic Business Principles for Lawyers.
A widely respected member of the tax community, Laura is an elected Fellow of both the American College of Tax Counsel and the American Bar Foundation. She has been honored with several awards from Missouri Lawyers Weekly, including the 2018 Women’s Justice Award–General Practitioner Honoree and the 2014 Up and Coming Lawyer. In addition, she is recognized in The Best Lawyers in America © list for Tax Law.
In the Community
Laura is devoted to a variety of non-profit and pro bono work through St. Louis Volunteer Lawyers and Accountants for the Arts and Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, helping non-profit corporations obtain and maintain their tax-exempt status.
She is a member of the Board of Directors and Board Secretary for the non-profit organization, Girls in the Know. She also serves on the Advisory Board for the University of Missouri–Columbia Tax and Transactional Law Society. She is the past-chair of the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis (BAMSL) Tax Section, and she is the current chair of the BAMSL Audit Committee.