Mark Baumann
Of Counsel
Overview
Mark Baumann's practice is primarily tax-related, including employee benefits, executive compensation (current and deferred), equity-based incentive plans, tax planning and tax disputes, partnerships, joint ventures, limited liability companies, other closely held businesses, professional firms, and tax-exempt organizations. He has extensive experience advising publicly held companies how to comply with Section 409A when designing executive deferred compensation and incentive plans. Mark has submitted to the IRS voluntary correction applications for retirement plans that have had operational or document errors.
Mark also advises our mergers & acquisitions team on the tax and employee benefits issues that arise in business sales, corporate mergers, and spin-offs of subsidiaries.
Mark has designed many retirement plans that maximize tax-deferred benefits for executives and business owners, and he works closely with actuarial consultants to attain those results. Mark has also drafted flexible benefit plan documents and related employee summaries that combine all of an employer's health and welfare and "cafeteria" programs into a single plan for reporting and disclosure under ERISA. He has extensive experience in drafting documents for complex financial transactions such as joint ventures, as well as "plain language" documents such as benefit plan summaries. Mark's ability to work with financial concepts is based partly on his business experience. Before joining Maslon, he was Manager of Tax, Risk and Insurance at Fingerhut Corporation and worked as an actuarial trainee computing rates for a large life insurance company.
Experience
- Designed several "cash balance" pension plans for professional firms, and dozens of other retirement plans for large and small employers; negotiated and settled a multimillion-dollar corporate income tax case, and many smaller Federal and State tax disputes.
- Provided employee benefits counsel for Best Buy Co., Inc.; G&K Services, Inc.; the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System; The Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Fish & Richardson P.C. (a national law firm); and many smaller businesses and professional firms.
- Handled complex tax and employee benefits issues in the tax-free "spin-off" of Lakes Entertainment, Inc.; the merger of Grand Casinos, Inc. into Park Place Entertainment, Inc.; and many other business acquisitions.
- Negotiated and drafted complex and tax-sensitive joint venture documents for Lakes Entertainment, Inc., to facilitate Native American casino development projects and the redevelopment of a significant block of land on the Las Vegas "Strip."
- Served as counsel to Liberty Share Draft & Check Printers, Inc. when it established the first S corporation Employee Stock Ownership Plan in the United States; and represented a manufacturer in the leveraged sale of all of its outstanding stock to its Employee Stock Ownership Plan.
Honors
Selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America®, 2007-2024
Recognized as a Top Lawyer, Minnesota Monthly, 2022-2023 (The research for the Top Lawyers list, created by Professional Research Services, is based on an online peer-review survey sent to all attorneys in Minnesota.)
Named a "Twin Cities 2010 FIVE STAR Wealth Manager," Twin Cities Business, January 2010
AV Preeminent, Martindale-Hubbell®