Experience

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  John A. Townsend, Attorney

  • 2340 Albans Rd., Houston, TX

  • Sole Practitioner

    • Jun 2018 - Present
    • 2340 Albans Rd., Houston, TX

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  Townsend & Jones, LLP

  • Attorney

    • Jan 1990 - May 2018

    Practice tax controversy law - civil and criminal.

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  University of Houston Law Center

  • Adjunct Professor

    • 1982 - Dec 2015

    I have taught a course in Tax Procedure (Fall semester each year) and in Tax Fraud and Money Laundering (Spring semester every other year) for many years now. For a very long time (many years), I had my own text books for each class which are distributed in pdf format. As a by-product of teaching, I and several colleagues have published a Tax Crimes textbook in the Lexis-Nexis graduate tax series. I have recently authored the chapter on Tax Crimes in the Saltzman magnum opus on Tax Procedure, so have given up trying to re-publish annually the Federal Tax Crimes book. Accordingly, beginning in 2014, I am just re-publishing the Federal Tax Procedure book which I provide free on SSRN. The version of the book without footnotes is used in my UH Law class and in certain other law schools.

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  KPMG Individual Defendants Group

  • Attorneys Came from All Over the Country, but the Case was in SDNY

  • One of the Crowd of Lawyers In the Multi-Defendant (19 originally) Criminal Tax Case in SDNY

    • 2005 - 2008
    • Attorneys Came from All Over the Country, but the Case was in SDNY

    Tried to rise above the din. But it was a great experience for me (not for my client, although my client was dismissed along with 12 other defendants pursuant to a precedent setting opinion justifying the dismissal because USAO SDNY had forced KPMG to quit paying those defendants' attorneys fees and then had been economical with the truth about doing so.

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  U.S. Department of Justice

  • United States
  • Law Enforcement
  • 700 & Above Employee

  • Trial Attorney, Refund Section 2

    • Mar 1974 - Mar 1977

    Tried tax refund cases, principally in SC and ND GA.

  • Trial Attorney, Tax Division Appellate Section

    • Jul 1969 - Mar 1974

    Handled appeals from Tax Court and U.S. District Courts.

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  Department of Justice Tax Division Refund Trial Section 2

  • Washington D.C. Metro Area

  • Trial Attorney

    • Mar 1974 - Mar 1977
    • Washington D.C. Metro Area

    After doing appellate work in the US Courts of Appeals for 4+ years, I moved to the refund trial section. Although working in DC, I handled cases principally in the Northern District of Georgia and South Carolina, I also handled cases in the other districts of Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, North Carolina and Texas. It was fun. Trial practice is a lot different than appellate practice. I could play out ;some war stories, particularly about jury trials in ND Georgia and South Carolina and some other brushes I had with the judges most of whom I like to think liked me (one did not because I had to take his deposition as a sitting federal judge twice in circumstances where his pre-judge conduct was in issue). Other stories - I never lost a jury trial. Did get a hung jury once, but on questioning the jurors (6 man jury), there was a lone jury holdout against the Government. Fun stuff. Makes me want to try one more jury case as I write this (9'​/9/15), but it probably won't happen.

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  Townsend, Brodsky, etc.

  • Partner

    • 1974 - 1977

  • Partner

    • 1974 - 1977

  • Partner

    • 1974 - 1977

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  U.S. Army

  • Ft. Jackson

  • Private

    • Jun 1960 - Dec 1960
    • Ft. Jackson

    Basic Training C-5-5 (with 12 other grunts from my home town, Greenwood, SC; Advanced Infantry Training with those same grunts, In AIT was in the Heavy Weapons Platoon.(with 2 other grunts from my hometown), training on mortars and 106 (really 105) mm recoilless rifle; one of the hometown grunts was acting platoon leader and the other two were acting squad leaders (I was one); so the hometown boys had some influence in the platoon (at least the other two did, I was the youngest of the bunch and hardly a leader until it was thrust on me because I figured out a way to zero in the mortar via a trick).