Jason Kohout

Jason J. Kohout is a partner and business lawyer practicing with Foley & Lardner LLP in its Estates & Trusts Practice. He advises individuals and closely-held businesses with regard to estate planning and related issues. He focuses his practice on closely-held business planning, estate and income tax planning, and trust administration.

A significant amount of his practice is related to planning complex charitable gifts, and he works for both individual donors and local and national organizations in this area.

Mr. Kohout advises individuals and families relating to all aspects of estate planning. He has experience working with high net worth individuals and families to plan and implement complex estate planning techniques. He also works with planning surrounding qualified and non-qualified retirement plans, including IRAs and 401(k)s, and other compensation items.

Mr. Kohout focuses on all aspects of owning a closely-held business, including on-going income tax planning, governance and management issues, business succession planning, estate planning, and the sale process.

Mr. Kohout’s background in income tax (and state income tax issues) is helpful in juggling the many issues inherent in family ownership.Mr. Kohout serves on the firm’s Trust Investment Committee, which provides advice to the firm’s fiduciaries regarding investment decisions.

He also works with a variety of investment managers and provides insight into clients’ non-public investments. He has also provided assistance to a number of family offices.

In addition to his work with individuals, Mr. Kohout advises a variety of tax-exempt organizations in all aspects of formation and on-going operations, including charitable fundraising. He currently assists a large membership organization with unrelated business income tax issues related to licensing activities.

He advises a number of organizations regarding political and lobbying activities. Recently, he formed two organizations to operate national donor-advised funds. In all, he has organized about 100 different organizations.

Education :

Mr. Kohout received his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2007. While in law school, he organized the Harvard Law School’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program. Mr. Kohout also won the HLS Sidney I. Roberts Award for the best paper on the subject of taxation.

He graduated, magna cum laude, from Harvard College, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and received a Hoopes Prize for his thesis work on Wisconsin school finance. Mr. Kohout was previously a research consultant for the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, a Wisconsin think-tank.

Admissions : Mr. Kohout is admitted to practice in Wisconsin.

Representative Matters :

• Foley represented Milwaukee Bucks President and Owner Herbert Kohl in the sale of the basketball franchise to New York investment firm executives Marc Lasry and Wesley Edens. The deal, announced on April 16, 2014, is valued at approximately $550 million.
• Consistent with his commitment to the Bucks and Milwaukee, Kohl, a former U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, has pledged a $100 million gift for the development of a new arena for the team. In addition to honoring Kohl’s requirement that the team be kept in Milwaukee, the prospective new owners have committed to contribute at least an additional $100 million towards the development of a new arena in the city.
• The Foley team was led by Partners Patrick Quick and Kevin Schulz, and also included Spencer Moats, Tyler Parramore, Tim Voigtman, Jason Kohout, George Dionisopoulos, Corey Sheahan, Garrett Bishop, Trish Lane, Nick Faleris, Belinda Morgan, Holden Brooks, and Irwin Raij, among others.
• Created a series of investments partnerships for a large family office and advised the family office on the income and excise tax issues and compliance with Dodd-Frank rules applicable to family offices.
• Guided a national membership organization in favorably resolving its unrelated business income tax issues (UBIT). Foley assisted the organization in protecting its extremely valuable royalty and licensing UBIT exemptions.
• We obtained a private letter ruling for the client related to its licensing issues and we continue to assist with ongoing compliance and other issues related to the organization’s for-profit subsidiary.