Gene Chianelli has more than fifteen years of experience in taxation and business law, assisting private and public entities on state and federal tax policy, planning, and compliance. He has an extensive background advising in corporate and partnership taxation, estate and gift taxation, state income, franchise, and sales and use tax and general business law.
Gene has advised corporate stakeholders and business management as well as state legislative leadership, policy makers, and interest groups on all matters of tax policy. He has led and assisted in corporate and financial transactions, including taxable and tax-free mergers and acquisitions, buy-outs, leasing transactions, joint ventures, entity selection and formation, buy-sell and other stakeholder agreements, capital structuring, corporate governance, and reorganizations and restructurings. In addition to his private law practice, Gene has served as Finance Counsel to the Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives (now U.S. Senator) Thom Tillis, where he advised leaders at the highest levels of state government on state and federal taxation law and policy.
With experience in both the public and private sectors, Gene can assist business principals in compliance and best practices as they undertake complex corporate transactions. He can also negotiate on behalf of clients in tax controversy matters before the Internal Revenue Service and the North Carolina Department of Revenue, including management of the examination and appeals processes, responses to information document requests, conferences with examination and appeals personnel, and negotiation of settlement agreements. Tax-exempt clients can rely on him for help in matters related to formation, governance, structuring of business transactions, all aspects of the Internal Revenue Service exemption process, prohibited transaction rules and avoidance of excise taxes.
Gene also serves as an Adjunct Professor in Campbell University’s Lundy-Fetterman School of Business. There, he teaches a course in advanced income taxation to law and graduate business students in the school’s Master of Trust and Wealth Management program.
Gene currently serves as Chair of the Tax Section of the North Carolina Bar Association and has served on its Council since 2006. He holds a Master of Laws in Taxation from the Washington University School of Law and a J.D. from the Saint Louis University School of Law, where he served as Staff Member and Articles Editor for the Saint Louis University Law Journal. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Political Science from James Madison University.
