Meet the Acta Team

James Whitmire

Managing Director

What can be said about James Whitmire that hasn’t already been said? Legendary tax practitioner, author, speaker, and educator, James is the tax advisor other tax advisors call when they can’t figure out a solution. 

After graduating from the University of Virginia School of Law, James began his career on the mean streets of Washington DC working for EY’s National Tax Practice, before moving to Denver.  The practice of tax in Denver afforded James the opportunity to be a tax generalist, working in diverse areas from tax credit monetization transactions to charitable remainder trust structures, to tax shelter litigation. This broad background allows James to see all sides of a transaction and the opportunities and pitfalls that may result from structural options.  

James has advised on thousands of merger and acquisition transactions for companies engaged in a variety of industries, including energy, real estate, consumer products, technology, manufacturing, retail, services, health care, chemical, logistics, and the food industry. He has advised private start-ups, public companies, private equity firms, and venture capital firms on many tax issues ranging from tax structuring, executive compensation structuring, as well as on many additional transaction tax issues. He has also assisted numerous clients with fund formation issues in the partnership context, assisting with structuring complex waterfalls and analyzing IRC Section 704(c) allocation tiers and methodology choices.

James formed Acta in order to train the next generation of tax advisors to deliver creative and efficient tax solutions to clients.  Acta’s practitioners are singularly focused on practical solutions to tax problems that arise in the context of M&A transactions.  

James is a co-author of the 4th Edition of the leading treatise on partnership taxation: Federal Taxation of Partnerships and Partners, as well as the author of the Partnership Formation volume of Thomson Reuters’ Tax Advisors Planning System, and a contributing author of Bittker & Eustice’s Federal Taxation of Corporations and Shareholders. James has also served as an adjunct professor for the University of Denver’s Graduate Tax Program, where he taught Partnership Taxation.