Overview

Stephanie Searles Vogel is a Partner in the Tax, Employee Benefits, and Trusts & Estates Departments. She represents individuals in the U.S. and abroad, businesses, and tax-exempt entities in a wide range of tax areas, including tax planning and tax controversy, and public charity and private foundation formation, termination, and governance issues. Mrs. Vogel regularly advises her private, public, and municipal clients on various employee benefits matters, ERISA compliance issues, and executive compensation structuring. She has served as an expert witness in multiple tax cases and she has the unique perspective of having prepared thousands of federal and state tax returns for her clients including personal income, fiduciary income, and partnership returns as well as Form 5500s.

Mrs. Vogel previously served as a Senior Associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Philadelphia, where she worked in the Mergers and Acquisitions tax group with large, multinational, corporate clients. Her legal pro bono experience includes working on various tax law cases for low-income clients. She has worked on cases with Philadelphia VIP, PVLA, and Pennsylvania SeniorLAW Helpline.

Mrs. Vogel is a graduate of Villanova University School of Law, where she received the Dean’s Merit Scholarship and the Dorothy Day Award for Pro Bono Service and served as President of the Tax Law Society. During law school, she externed for Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Hey of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Mrs. Vogel received her LL.M. in Taxation from Villanova University School of Law in 2015. She is an Adjunct Law Faculty at Temple University and teaches Qualified Employee Benefit Plans and Executive Compensation through the Graduate Tax Program at Temple.

Representative Experience

  • Successful completion of IRS VCP and DOL VFCP filings to correct significant qualified plan failures.
  • Successful submission of IRS Foreign and Domestic Streamlined Procedures for U.S. citizens living abroad.
  • Assisted in forming, funding, and administering family limited partnerships and family limited liability companies.
  • Assisted in structuring and consulting on various multi-million and billion-dollar acquisitions for small, large, and Fortune 500 companies on both seller and buyer sides.
  • Assisted in structuring and consulting on Section 355 Spin-Offs and Split-Offs for Fortune 500 companies.
  • Assisted in the formations and liquidations of various business entities including LLCs, C Corporations, S Corporations, and Partnerships.
  • Assisted large tax-exempt boards on managing compliance issues, structuring, and best practices.
  • Represented and assisted individuals in a variety of tax matters including refund claims, offers in compromise, and defenses of audits and examinations.

Professional & Community Activities

  • Board Member, Philadelphia VIP
  • Board Member, Moonstone Preschool
  • Member, Union League of Philadelphia
  • Member, Germantown Cricket Club
  • Member, Tax Council, Philadelphia Bar Association
  • Co-Chair, Employee Benefits Committee, Philadelphia Bar Association
  • Member, J. Willard O’Brien Villanova School of Law Inn of Court
  • Member, Forum of Executive Women
  • Counsel, Penn Alumni Club of Philadelphia

Speeches & Presentations

  • Presenter – “ERISA at 50: A Golden Anniversary Update for Litigators,” Philadelphia Bar Association in Atlantic City, NJ, September 20, 2024
  • Presenter – “Hot Topics in Payroll tax,” Philadelphia Bar Association, April 29, 2024.
  • Presenter – “Issues with a Tax-Exempt Entity’s Private Inurement and Excess Compensation,” Philadelphia Bar Association, June 8, 2023
  • Presenter – “What Every Attorney Needs to Know about Non-Qualified Deferred Compensation,” Philadelphia Bar Associations, May 10, 2022
  • Presenter – “2021 Employee Benefits Update – What Every Attorney Needs to Know,” Philadelphia Bar Associations, May 25, 2021
  • Presenter – “Information Session on Small Business Relief Programs,” hosted by Congressman Dwight Evans, January 19, 2021
  • Presenter, “What Employers Need to Know,” breakfast seminar presented with other Dilworth Paxson LLP attorneys in conjunction with Univest Insurance, Inc. regarding 2018 employment law and benefits updates for employers, November 7 – 9, 2017.
  • Co-presenter, “What You Need to Know About ACA Reporting and Related Compliance Issues,” July 21, 2015.
  • Presenter, Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Plan Options for Small-and Medium-Sized Law, American Law Institute’s CLE Seminar “Implementing the Best Retirement Plans for Your Attorneys: What Law Firms Should Know & Do,” May 11, 2015.

Professional Recognition

  • Pennsylvania Super Lawyers Rising Star, 2016 – Present

Further information on methodologies is available via these links.

Publications

Representative Experience

  • Successful completion of IRS VCP and DOL VFCP filings to correct significant qualified plan failures.
  • Successful submission of IRS Foreign and Domestic Streamlined Procedures for U.S. citizens living abroad.
  • Assisted in forming, funding, and administering family limited partnerships and family limited liability companies.
  • Assisted in structuring and consulting on various multi-million and billion-dollar acquisitions for small, large, and Fortune 500 companies on both seller and buyer sides.
  • Assisted in structuring and consulting on Section 355 Spin-Offs and Split-Offs for Fortune 500 companies.
  • Assisted in the formations and liquidations of various business entities including LLCs, C Corporations, S Corporations, and Partnerships.
  • Assisted large tax-exempt boards on managing compliance issues, structuring, and best practices.
  • Represented and assisted individuals in a variety of tax matters including refund claims, offers in compromise, and defenses of audits and examinations.

Insights