Yosef Ziffer

Partner
Ziffer Yosef

Yossi Ziffer focuses his practice on the full array of tax, corporate, governance, and strategic needs of tax-exempt organizations. Yossi’s clients include public charities, family foundations, company foundations, community foundations, private operating foundations, private schools, universities, museums, and others. He also works with individuals and business entities on various tax planning matters, including transfers of business interests, succession planning, and tax audits.

With private foundation clients, Yossi has extensive experience addressing complex matters to ensure compliance with rules pertaining to self-dealing, excess business holdings, program-related investments, and expenditure responsibility. Yossi also works with several foundations that maintain international grantmaking programs.

In the area of charitable giving, Yossi has assisted numerous organizations and donors with respect to charitable gifts of complex assets. These transactions often involve detailed grant agreements, compliance with the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act (UPMIFA), and gift acceptance policies. Yossi has also worked with organizations and donors on gifts of conservation easements.

Yossi has worked with many nonprofit organizations undergoing significant corporate restructurings or other extraordinary transactions, including mergers, spin-offs, and joint ventures with for-profit businesses or other private interests. In addition to negotiating the terms for such transactions, Yossi has represented organizations in obtaining approvals for such transactions from state attorneys general and from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Yossi regularly assists clients seeking to form new nonprofit organizations and obtain recognition of tax-exempt status from the IRS. These new organizations include grantmakers, private operating foundations, museums, scholarship programs, supporting organizations, and many others.

In addition to his work with nonprofit organizations, Yossi has worked with numerous entrepreneurs and high-net-worth individuals on business restructuring and estate freeze plans.

Insights

Credentials
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Education

  • J.D. cum laude New York University School of Law 2005
  • B.A. summa cum laude Yeshiva University 1998

Bar Admissions

  • Maryland

Professional Memberships and Activities

  • Member, American Bar Association
  • Member, Maryland State Bar Association

Languages

  • Hebrew

Recognition
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  • The Best Lawyers in America, Tax Law, 2023 – 2025
  • Legal 500, Tax - Not-For-Profit (nonprofit and tax exempt organizations), 2019 – 2024

Community
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Volunteerism

  • Serves as a member on several committees of THE ASSOCIATED: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore

Personal Activities

  • Organizes and coaches in a local program that promotes volunteerism among community youth