Charitable Giving

Philanthropy

Tax-Exempt Organizations

Private Foundations

Trusts and Estates: Charitable and Tax Planning

Richard L. Fox, Esq

Richard L. Fox is a nationally recognized attorney and the founding partner of the Law Offices of Richard L. Fox, LLC. He is the author of the leading two-volume treatise Charitable Giving: Taxation, Planning and Strategies (Thomson Reuters/Warren, Gorham & Lamont) and Bloomberg Tax Management Portfolio 452, Tax-Exempt Organizations: Reporting, Disclosure and Other Procedural Aspects. He earned his LL.M. in Taxation from New York University School of Law. Before establishing his own firm, Richard practiced for many years with both a national law firm and a prominent regional firm with offices in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Delaware, where he gained extensive experience advising high-net-worth clients, foundations, and nonprofit organizations on complex tax and philanthropic matters.

Richard maintains a national practice, advising individuals, families, foundations, and nonprofit organizations across the country. He focuses on the design and implementation of sophisticated philanthropic strategies, with an emphasis on private foundations, donor-advised funds, charitable trusts, and other vehicles that integrate with estate, gift, and trust structures to achieve both tax efficiency and philanthropic impact.

Alongside his writing, Richard has spoken widely across the country to professional, academic, and philanthropic audiences on charitable planning and nonprofit tax law. He serves on the editorial board of the Estate Planning Journal and is a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC). He previously headed the Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy (CAP®) program at The American College, holding the Sallie B. and William B. Wallace Chair in Philanthropy.

Recognized by Worth magazine as one of America’s Top 100 Attorneys representing affluent families, Richard has also been named a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer and selected for inclusion in Best Lawyers in America.

Representative Matters

  • Creation of the legal structure for a new tax-exempt institute for journalism to which one of America’s largest for-profit local newspapers was transferred by one of the nation’s leading philanthropists.

  • Assisting an individual donor with the contribution of a major art collection to one of the country’s leading art museums.

  • Advising a client on a multi-million dollar contribution of real estate limited partnership interests to a university to establish a center for civic engagement.

  • Creation of a performing arts center as a functionally integrated supporting organization to a city.

  • Formation of Type III supporting organizations to support schools of communication at two of the country’s leading universities.

  • Creating a charitable trust structured as a private operating foundation to preserve a historic estate, visitors’ center, and gardens, and to host events for world leaders.

  • Establishing and obtaining tax exemption for a newly formed private operating foundation owning significant real estate holdings and operating in Texas and Virginia.

  • Advising private foundations on joint ventures, program-related investments, set-asides, foreign grants, grants to for-profit entities, and compensation issues.