Of Counsel, Morrison & Foerster; and Associate, Morrison & Foerster, respectively
Carley A. Roberts is Of Counsel in the firm’s Sacramento office. She joined Morrison & Foerster’s State and Local Tax Group in 1999. Ms. Roberts’s practice focuses on the resolution of state and local tax controversies through negotiation and litigation. In addition, she advises clients on the state and local tax ramifications of various business transactions. She has represented individuals as well as multistate and multinational businesses in various state and local tax jurisdictions throughout the United States at all levels of administrative review and before trial and appellate courts.
Ms. Roberts has extensive experience involving income and franchise taxes, sales and use taxes, gross receipts taxes, employment taxes, and local taxes, with an emphasis on California Franchise Tax Board and California State Board of Equalization matters. She regularly litigates constitutional issues such as apportionment, nexus, and discrimination against interstate commerce; unitary combination issues; complex statutory issues; issues arising from transactions involving intangible property; complex sales and use tax exemption issues; and residency issues. She also advises nonprofit organizations regarding various tax matters and assists new nonprofits with the incorporation and tax-exemption processes.
Ms. Roberts was named a recommended attorney for State & Local Tax in the 2007 and 2008 Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business guides. She is also currently serving a three-year appointment as an Executive Committee member of the Taxation Section of the California State Bar. In that position, Ms. Roberts has served as Chair of the California Tax Policy Conference, one of the premier and leading annual state tax events nationwide. Ms. Roberts is also former Chair of the State and Local Tax Committee of the Taxation Section of the California State Bar. She is also former Chair of the Taxation Section of the Sacramento County Bar. Ms. Roberts has also served as a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the ABA’s The State and Local Tax Lawyer.
Ms. Roberts has authored or co-authored articles on a variety of state and local tax issues for publications such as Tax Analysts’ State Tax Notes, the ABA’s The State and Local Tax Lawyer, and BNA’s Tax Management Weekly State Tax Report, and regularly contributes to the firm’s State & Local Tax Insights newsletter. Ms. Roberts is admitted to practice in California and is a member of the Taxation Sections of the American Bar Association, the State Bar of California, and the Sacramento County Bar Association.
Ms. Roberts was born in Redlands, California, in 1974. She received her B.S. degree in business from Brigham Young University in 1996, with honors, and her J.D. degree from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, in 1999, with honors. While at McGeorge, she served as the Associate Editor to the Transnational Lawyer.
Access Carley A. Roberts Martindale-Hubbell profile on martindale.com.
Tim Gustafson is an associate in the State and Local Tax Group of Morrison & Foerster’s Sacramento office. His practice focuses on state and local tax controversies at the audit, administrative, and judicial level.
Prior to joining Morrison & Foerster, Mr. Gustafson served for three years in the United States Army’s Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps at the Netherlands Law Center. As an Army JAG, Mr. Gustafson assisted individual soldiers with estate planning, family law and income tax problems, advised local commands on fiscal, administrative and international issues, and represented the U.S. Government at military Courts-Martial and various administrative hearings.
Mr. Gustafson received his B.A. in English and History from Case Western Reserve University, where he was named an Academic All-American in football. He earned his J.D. from Stanford Law School.