Estate & Trust Conference - Portland

John Hawkins, CPA, JD, is originally from Tennessee. In 1984, he received a Bachelor of Business Administration from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. During the time he attended Belmont, John met and married Mary Rowell, who was a native of Salem Oregon. After receiving his accounting degree, John wanted to go to law school. Mary wanted to go back home. Willamette University was the solution. He began working at Grove, Mueller & Swank (now REDW LLC) in 1986, after his second year of law school. John received his law degree from Willamette University College of Law in 1987. He took and passed the bar exam, the CPA exam and became a dad all within 10 weeks during the summer of 1987.

He is a member of the American Institute of CPAs, Oregon Society of CPAs, and the Oregon State Bar. He is active with the Oregon Department of Revenue / OSB Tax / OSCPA Liaison Committee and the OSCPA's Estate Planning Committee. John is currently the vice chair of the board for the OSCPA and will be chair of the board for OSCPA effective April 1, 2024. He is a past president of the Willamette Valley Estate Planning Council.

John is currently a member on the Governor's Council of Revenue Forecast Advisors, which assists Oregon's State Economist in developing tax revenue projections. He has also been an adjunct professor at Willamette University, teaching a tax class in the MBA program at the Atkinson Graduate School of Management (1991 to 2003).

(1/31/24)

Steven Bell is an attorney at Dunn Carney, LLP, and he focuses his practice on the creation and administration of complex trusts to meet business succession planning, tax planning, and family needs, and in navigating the complexities of charitable gift planning for both individual donors and for tax-exempt entities. Steve helps clients navigate the complexities of trust and estate administration, seeking solutions to practical and tax planning considerations. Steve received his J.D. from the University of North Carolina, and his B.A. from Elon University.

edited 10-18-24

Steven Siegel, LLM (Taxation), JD is president of The Siegel Group, which provides consulting services to attorneys, accountants, business owners, family offices and financial planners. Based in Morristown, New Jersey, the Group provides services throughout the United States.

Mr. Siegel is the author of many books, including: The Grantor Trust Answer Book (2018 CCH); The Adviser’s Guide to Financial and Estate Planning (AICPA 2020); Federal Fiduciary Income Taxation (Foxmoor 2019); Federal Estate and Gift Tax (Foxmoor 2016)). He is co-author of Income Taxation of Trusts and Estates, (Carolina Press 2020). He is the co-author with Richard Oshins, Esq. of The Anatomy of the Perfect Modern Trust, Estate Planning Magazine, January and February 2016.

In conjunction with numerous tax planning lectures he has delivered for the National Law Foundation, Mr. Siegel has prepared extensive lecture materials on the following subjects: Planning for An Aging Population; Business Entities: Start to Finish; Preparing the Audit-Proof Federal Estate Tax Return; Business Acquisitions: Representing Buyers and Sellers in the Sale of a Business; Dynasty Trusts; Planning with Intentionally-Defective Grantor Trusts, Introduction to Estate Planning; Intermediate-Sized Estate Planning; Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid: Explanation and Planning Strategies; Subchapter S Corporations: Using Trusts as Shareholders; Divorce and Separation: Important Tax Planning Issues; The Portability Election; and many other titles.

Mr. Siegel has delivered hundreds of lectures to thousands of attendees in live venues and via webinars throughout the United States on tax, business and estate planning topics on behalf of numerous organizations, including The Heckerling Institute on Tax Planning, Notre Dame Tax and Estate Planning Institute, CCH, National Law Foundation, AICPA, The Kansas City Estate Planning Symposium, Yale School of Management; U. of Chicago Business School, Western CPE, the National Society of Accountants, Cohn-Reznick, Foxmoor Education, many State Accounting Societies and Estate Planning Councils (including: The California CPA Society, The Southern Nevada Estate Planning Council; the Oregon CPA Society; the Southern Arizona Estate Planning Council; the Georgia CPA Society) as well as on behalf of many private companies.

He is presently serving as an adjunct professor of law in the Graduate Tax Program (LLM) of the University of Alabama (teaching Income Taxation of Trusts and Estates), and has served as an adjunct professor of law at Seton Hall and Rutgers University law schools.
Mr. Siegel holds a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University (magna cum laude, phi beta kappa), a juris doctor from Harvard Law School and an LLM in Taxation from New York University Law School.

(3/10/22)