Mark Baumann is a partner in Maslon's Business & Securities Group. His practice is primarily tax-related, including employee benefits, executive compensation, tax planning and tax disputes, partnerships, joint ventures, limited liability companies, other closely held businesses, professional firms and tax-exempt organizations.Mark has designed many retirement plans that maximize tax-deferred benefits for executives and business owners, and works closely with actuarial consultants to attain those results.He has extensive experience in drafting documents for complex financial transactions such as joint ventures, as well as "plain language" documents such as benefit plan summaries.Mark's ability to work with financial concepts is based partly on his business experience.Before joining the Maslon firm, he was Manager of Tax, Risk and Insurance at Fingerhut Corporation, and worked as an actuarial trainee computing rates for a large life insurance company.
Provided employee benefits counsel for Best Buy Co., Inc., G&K Services, Inc., the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Fish & Richardson P.C. (a national law firm), and many smaller businesses and professional firms.
Handled complex tax and employee benefits issues in the tax-free "spin-off" of Lakes Entertainment, Inc., the merger of Grand Casinos, Inc. into Park Place Entertainment, Inc., and many other business acquisitions.
Designed several "cash balance" pension plans for banking and professional firms, and dozens of other retirement plans for large and small employers; negotiated and settled a multi-million dollar corporate income tax case, and many smaller Federal and State tax disputes.
Negotiated and drafted complex and tax sensitive joint venture documents for Lakes Entertainment, Inc. to facilitate Native American casino development projects and the re-development of a significant block of land on the Las Vegas "Strip."
