Experience

Becky Farr Seidel is an attorney focusing on taxation, corporate and charitable giving matters that impact nonprofit organizations. Becky joined Leaffer Law Group in March 2009, and has experience in the following areas:

• Application for tax-exempt status and requests for expedited review
• Reclassification of public charity status
• Endowment fund requirements under UPMIFA and related accounting standards
• Corporate governance for nonprofits, including policies such as gift acceptance, investment, travel, whistleblower, and conflict of interest
• Classification of individuals as employees or independent contractors
• Scholarship program requirements
• Private foundation issues including self-dealing, expenditure responsibility, grants to individuals and termination of private foundation status
• Federal energy tax credits and the recent grant program under the stimulus bill
• Colorado tax credits, including the child care contribution credit and the enterprise zone credit
• Program-related investments and proposed L3C legislation
• Fundraising and state raffle laws
• State laws relating to investment of public funds
• Transition from a membership organization to non-membership form
• Dissolution of a nonprofit organization
• Division of a private foundation
• Charitable pledge work-outs
• Donor-advised fund regulation and material restrictions
• Lobbying by 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(6) organizations
• Charitable giving techniques

Becky is a contributing author of A Guide for Colorado Nonprofit Organizations (revised edition 2011), and has presented on topics such program-related investments and investment and management of endowment funds. Becky received her Master of Laws in Taxation in 2008 from New York University, where she focused her studies on issues surrounding estate planning and charitable giving. While studying at the University of Colorado School of Law, Becky worked as a research assistant for an estate planning professor, and she was a Casenote and Comment Editor on the Journal on Telecommunications and High Technology Law. She interned at the U.S. Attorney’s Office and for a Federal District Judge, and worked as a law clerk at a private law firm. Prior to law school, Becky worked as a copy editor and designer for the Daily Camera, a mid-sized daily newspaper in Boulder, Colorado.

Community Service

• Friends of Levitt Pavilion Denver, Board of Directors (present)

Bar Admissions

• Colorado

Publications

• Co-Author of three sections in the National Scholarship Providers Association Toolkit (2011)
  1. Donor-Advised Scholarship Funds
  2. Student Information: Record Retention, Access, Security and Destruction
  3. Tax Reporting and Withholding of Scholarships by Scholarship Providers
• Author of chapter entitled “Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act”
  A Guide for Colorado Nonprofit Organizations (revised edition 2010)

Presentations

• Forming a Nonprofit: The Process Essentials
  Colorado Bar Association, Young Lawyers Division Download PowerPoint.
• Charitable Solicitations and Gaming
  University of Colorado School of Law, Nonprofit Law Class
• Getting Schooled on Scholarships: Taxation and Reporting Issues
  National Scholarship Providers Association Download PowerPoint.
• The Big Picture: Legal Considerations for Scholarship Providers
  National Scholarship Providers Association Download PowerPoint.
• Options for Social Enterprise: Using Nonprofit/For-profit combinations to Drive Mission
  BKD Not-for-Profit Seminar Download PowerPoint.
• Donor-Advised Scholarship Funds: The Rhythm and Harmony of Donor Participation
  National Scholarship Providers Association Conference Download PowerPoint.
• The Ins and Outs of UPMIFA: Investing, Spending and More
  Colorado Bar Association (2010) Download PowerPoint.
• Program-Related Investments and the L3C Connection
  Colorado Association of Corporate Counsel (April 2010) Download PowerPoint.