John W. Porter JD

John Porter is a senior partner in the law firm of Baker Botts. He is the go to person in the country for handling sophisticated estate and gift tax controversy matters, including audits, IRS appeals, and litigation.

John has served as lead counsel for the taxpayer in some of the most significant published transfer tax decisions in the last twenty years, including Petter, Christiansen, McCord, and Hendrix (upholding formula clauses used to transfer hard to value assets), Bongard, Stone, Murphy, Black, and Schutt (rejecting the IRS's attempt to apply 2036 to family entities), Jelke, Dunn, Kerr, Jameson, Davis and Richmond (applying the built in capital gains discount when valuing stock), Steinberg (approving the net-net gift discount), and Litman/Diener (involving the valuation of restricted stock and the reasonable reliance defense to IRS penalties).

John is a fellow of both the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel and the American College of Tax Counsel. He is also a board certified specialist in probate, trust and estate law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization.