Past Speaking Events

This session presents interactive ideas to help you and your team enhance effectiveness by incorporating ideas from two of Mike’s books, The Servant Manager: 203 tips from the best places to work in America and Peaceful Resolutions.   After discussing some lessons learned from neuroscience on how our brains work, tips are presented that explore what it means to serve over self-interest, invest in each other, bring the right attitude, and to apply the habits of successful people to help you improve as well.   Specific tips are presented to

In this session Mike takes his 28 years of IRS technical and management experience and provides participants with what they need to know regarding best practices with IRS examiners.  After two initial examples, Mike offers some insights from neuroscience given his emphasis on CONFLICT RESOLUTION, and then explains how to work with the key players on any examination.  An example with an estate or gift tax return is chosen given its narrower focus, but the implications can be applied to any type of return and any issue.  At the end of the session Mike offers to share additional information to

We lose our tempers. We work with those that lose their tempers.

IRS  fair market value interests are explored relating to both technical business valuation topics and administrative steps that can be taken to reduce the probability of an audit and what to do if audited by the IRS. 

In this session Mike ties together the IRS Job Aid on S corporations and updates based on his book, How the IRS Values Non-Controlling Interests in S- Corps with Job Aid  Commentary by the Original IRS Champion, and two more recently updated models.

Drawing on research in the field of neuroscience, Mike will provide practitioners with insights into how conflicts may be resolved including with the IRS. After an introduction with two examples, Mike provide background on certain aspects of neuroscience that may be helpful in conflict resolution.

A brief background on the IRS organization as it relates to Estate and Gift tax issues is presented to provide the participant with insight into the various silos and different cultures associated with business appraisal issues.  The process of both the national and local classification process in Estate and Gift tax is presented and issues related to an examination explored to provide insight of what to do to avoid an audit and what to do if audited.

A full day of CPE will cover four topics for two hours each.  These are "How to Work with the IRS", "Valuing Non-Controlling Interests in S-Corps", "Reasonable Compensation and the IRS" and "Discount for Lack of Marketability and the IRS".  Mike has written 10 books and takes elements from eight of these books with current updates to address the issues technically and overcome conflicts with IRS personnel related to these topics.

From Mike’s books on How to Work with IRS: Second Edition (June 2014), Peaceful Resolutions (April 2016) and his experiences both at the IRS (28 year career) and in the private sector (5 years) Mike presents insights on how to resolve conflict  with business valuation issues.   Ten examples are presented covering topics such as S-Corps, Discounts for Lack of Marketability, and Reasonable Compensation.  Mike presents steps you can take when working with the IRS agents, estate and gift tax attorneys, and valuation specialists and in other situations with experts to a

In this session Mike provides the current status of conflict resolution, mediation and virtual mediation related to conflic resolution nationally with a specific emphasis on Minnesota.