Eugene Cowan

Eugene G. Cowan is a transactional tax attorney and a founding partner in Bocarsly Emden Cowan Esmail & Arndt LLP.

Mr. Cowan has substantial experience in real estate, joint ventures and other partnership syndications, as well as income tax planning and litigation. He also has extensive experience in creative tax planning for business and investment transactions, including mergers and acquisitions of private and public companies. Mr. Cowan is nationally known for his knowledge of tax issues relating to residential and community economic development using low-income tax credits, historic rehabilitation tax credits, new markets tax credits and energy tax credits. He has advised on tax issues relating to Normont Terrace, the largest low-income housing tax credit project developed in the U.S., and on large-scale mergers and acquisitions.

Mr. Cowan is also a former faculty member of the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law and at the University of San Diego School of Law. He has taught and lectured on affordable housing, historic rehabilitation and tax-exempt matters before the American Bar Association and other bar associations and at various business organizations.

Mr. Cowan was formerly a partner with Bingham McCutchen LLP and Riordan & McKinzie.

Mr. Cowan received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Biochemistry from the University of California, San Diego in 1977, his Master of Arts in Teaching in 1978 from Northwestern University, his Juris Doctorate degree in 1981 from University of California Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) and his LLM in Taxation in 1983 from New York University School of Law.

Publications

• “Tax Exempt General Partners and the IRS: Defenestrating the Myth of Private Inurement and Public Benefit,” Journal of Affordable Housing and Community Development Law, Vol. 7, No. 1, Fall 1997

Memberships

• Past Chair, American Bar Association Forum on Affordable Housing and Community Development Law, Syndication Division
• Past Chair, Los Angeles County Bar Association Real Estate Taxation Committee
• Member, American Bar Association, Taxation Section
• Member, Los Angeles County Bar Association, Taxation Section

Admissions and Courts

• Admitted to practice in California

Practices

• Financial Institutions
• Affordable Housing & Community Development
• Tax