Hollis Hyans's practice focuses on state and local tax litigation and planning. She has extensive experience in general commercial litigation and has handled a wide range of state and local tax controversies, litigating or resolving state tax disputes across the nation, in courts and in administrative tribunals. She advises clients on matters arising in all of the states and localities, at all stages from the earliest responses to initial audit inquiries, to dealing with audit disputes, to filing administrative protests and handling them from beginning to end. She is familiar with and has handled disputes in courts in nearly every state, dealing with discovery issues, witness preparation, depositions, pre-trial proceedings, trials, and appeals. She has experience in just about every area of state and local tax and related matters, including corporate income and franchise taxes, sales and use taxes, personal income tax, utility taxes, state unemployment taxes, and unclaimed property. She also advises on the state and local tax ramifications of various business transactions, and on tactics for reducing state tax problems before they become large and expensive.
Ms. Hyans has written extensively on state and local tax issues, authoring numerous articles in State Tax Notes, State & Local Taxes Weekly, the firm's newsletter, State & Local Tax Insights, and the New York Law Journal, as well as many other publications, and co-authoring a chapter in Transfer Pricing Handbook. She is the co-editor of New York Tax Insights, the firm’s monthly publication covering developments in New York State and New York City tax issues. She is a frequent speaker on state and local tax issues, and has appeared before such groups as the Tax Executives Institute, the Council on State Taxation, the Institute for Professionals in Taxation, the Georgetown Advanced State and Local Tax Institute, and the New York State Bar Association. Ms. Hyans has served as a member of the Executive Committee of the Tax Section of the New York State Bar Association and as co-chair of the Association's Subcommittee on New York State Sales & Miscellaneous Taxes. In addition, she is a member of the Advisory Board of the Hartman State and Local Tax Forum at Vanderbilt University Law School.
While earning her degree at New York University Law School, Ms. Hyans was elected to the Order of the Coif and was a staff member of the New York University Law Review. She earned her undergraduate degree, Phi Beta Kappa, from Brooklyn College of the City of New York.