Private wealth tax planning in an uncertain tax rate environment

Wendy Diamond

Wendy Diamond is the Chicago Office Tax Managing Partner (OTMP). She is responsible for leading our tax professionals in this market. She works with our teams and other leaders to understand our client's needs and help them achieve their near- and long-term business goals. Wendy also serves as Deloitte Private's US Family Enterprise leader—helping multi-generational businesses navigate the unique considerations associated with family-owned enterprises. For the past 25 years, it has been her passion and purpose to strategically advise private companies and their owners.  Wendy's broad range of experience includes income tax and succession planning for privately owned businesses and single-family offices and their owners. She advises on topics ranging from family office structuring and process and technology transformation to transfer pricing, trust, and gift and estate planning. Wendy's experience has equipped her with deep knowledge to help clients identify and address issues and opportunities, including assessing capital needs, preparing for leadership transitions, and establishing philanthropic and community relations strategies.  All her work is supported by the organization's talented professionals who deliver holistic capabilities, including consulting, audit, advisory, and tax services.

Jeff Kummer

Jeff specializes in US tax policy. He oversees a team of tax policy professionals who monitor US tax legislative and regulatory developments to develop articles for Deloitte Tax’s weekly newsletter, Tax News & Views, and in-depth publications on issues such as the US deficit and US tax reform. He also provides insights on these same developments to tax leaders throughout the US. His Capitol Hill experience includes working on tax and budget issues for former US Senator and Senate Finance Committee member Steve Symms, R-Idaho. Jeff is a frequent speaker at Deloitte-sponsored tax and industry events, as well as events sponsored by industry groups such as Tax Executive Institute, American Petroleum Institute, and Financial Executives International. Jeff holds a BS in political science from University of Idaho and an MBA from Johns Hopkins University.

Eddie Gershman

Eddie specializes in tax and financial planning for high net worth individuals, family offices, and C-suite executives. He is the Individual Income Tax Competency technical leader and serves clients in the Private Wealth sector of the Investment Management industry practice. He works closely with Deloitte tax specialists worldwide to track and analyze technical developments and help clients understand and plan for them. Eddie is a frequent speaker at events sponsored by Deloitte and other organizations including the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) and Money Management Institute. He is a member of the AICPA Individual and Self-employed Technical Resource Panel through which he regularly contributes to The Tax Adviser. He also leads the team that produces the chapters on individual taxation in Deloitte Tax’s annual Essential tax and wealth planning guide. In addition to his tax endeavors, Eddie is active in his community where he has held multiple leadership positions on the Near North Montessori School board of directors and was previously a board member of the Center for Economic Progress. Eddie holds a BS in accounting from Indiana University.

Jim Calzaretta

Jim specializes in tax consulting and compliance for partnerships and S corporations. He has been very active in restructuring projects that include preparing a partnership for a public offering. He regularly consults on various acquisitions, including asset-versus-equity transactions and joint venture arrangements, profit and loss allocations, cash flow modeling, and tax deferral planning, choice of entity including conversions between C corporation and S corporation, and S corporation sale transactions. In addition to his client service role, Jim is the operations leader for Washington National Tax, the technical leader of Deloitte Tax’s Pass throughs competency group and has held several additional firm leadership roles, including Deloitte Tax Diversity and Inclusion leader for the Midwest region, and inaugural dean of Deloitte Tax’s innovative Dbriefs U, a program designed to provide supplemental tax and career learning to students at top-ranked universities. Jim is a past chair of the American Institute of CPAs task force on Trust Accounting Income and a frequent lecturer on partnership taxation matters at national programs such as those sponsored by Tax Executives Institute and Internal Revenue Service National Forum. He is an active member of National Association for Real Estate Investment Trusts and is a past board member for Special Olympics Illinois. Jim earned a BS in accounting and finance from University of Illinois at Urbana and an MS in taxation from DePaul University.