Common Law PC

Focus and practice areas

Tax law is the single focus of this Salt Lake City firm. It lists eight practice areas on its website: tax audits, tax penalties, tax collections, appeals, tax litigation, tax planning, tax debt resolution, and business tax law. Its pages also point to IRS disputes, payroll taxes, and wage garnishment as part of the work.

Those areas cover both sides of a tax problem. Some deal with money a tax agency says a taxpayer owes, such as collections, penalties, and debt resolution. Others handle the work that comes earlier, such as tax planning and business tax law. The mix suggests the firm takes clients at different stages. A taxpayer might arrive with a first audit letter. Another might come in with a balance already in collection.

Audits and collections often run together in practice. An audit reviews what a taxpayer reported. Collections follow when an assessed amount goes unpaid. Common Law PC handles both, along with the appeals that sit between them when a taxpayer disputes a finding.

What the eight areas involve

Penalties and debt resolution point to the money side of tax trouble. A penalty gets added when a return is late or a payment falls short, and part of tax practice is asking an agency to reduce or remove one. Debt resolution covers the ways a taxpayer settles a balance over time or for less than the full figure. Tax planning works ahead of all that, shaping how income and a business are structured before a return is filed. The named areas reach both individual taxpayers and businesses.

The attorney who runs the firm

Common Law PC was started by Mike Black, who practices as its attorney at law. He founded the firm after leaving a large Salt Lake firm, and he has practiced law for more than twenty years. In my opinion, the depth of his schooling in tax is the clearest signal on the site.

Black holds an LLM in Taxation from Georgetown University, earned in 2002. He took his J.D. at the University of Utah in 2001. Before law school he completed an M.S. in Accounting and Taxation and a B.S. in Accounting, both at the University of Utah. That accounting background carries weight in tax work, where the numbers and the law meet.

An LLM in Taxation is a graduate law degree taken after the J.D., focused only on tax. Paired with an accounting master's, it points to training in both the reporting rules and the statutes that govern them. Black's move to open his own firm put that training under his own name.

Bar admissions

Black joined the Utah State Bar in 2001. He was admitted to the United States Tax Court in 2005 and to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2009. In 2018 he was admitted to the United States Supreme Court. He is also admitted before all Utah state courts and the U.S. District Court for Utah.

What the courtroom record shows

Black has appeared in a wide set of venues. He has litigated before city, county, and state tax agencies. He has handled matters at all IRS administrative levels. At the trial level, he has appeared in Utah state and federal courts, in courts of other states, and in the United States Tax Court.

IRS administrative levels start with the auditor who opens a case and continue up to appeals officers inside the agency. Reaching all of them, as the site states, means a matter can be argued before it ever needs a courtroom. The United States Tax Court hears many disputes before the taxpayer pays the contested amount, which is one reason tax lawyers value admission there.

His appellate work reaches the Utah Court of Appeals and the Tenth Circuit. For a tax matter, the choice of court shapes how the whole case runs. As a reviewer, I read that spread of venues as a sign the firm can follow a dispute wherever it lands.

How a tax dispute usually moves

Tax problems tend to follow a set path, and the firm's practice areas track that path. Most cases begin with an audit or a notice from a tax agency. The taxpayer answers with records and an explanation. If the two sides still disagree, the matter can go to an appeal inside the agency before it reaches a court.

Collections work starts later, once a balance is fixed and unpaid. The tools at that stage include payment plans, liens, and wage garnishment. A firm that names both audits and collections can meet a client at whichever point the trouble begins. Tax litigation and appeals come in when the numbers stay contested after those earlier steps.

Business tax law covers how a company is set up and how it reports. Those questions come up before any audit. Planning of this kind aims to keep a later fight from starting. The firm lists it next to the dispute areas, which points to work on both prevention and defense.

When a dispute reaches a court

Appeals and litigation are where a tax case turns formal. An administrative appeal keeps the matter inside the agency, with an officer who did not run the first review. Tax litigation moves the fight to a court, where rules of evidence and filing deadlines apply. The firm lists both, which covers a taxpayer who wants to press a disagreement past the agency's own desk.

Where the firm reaches

Common Law PC keeps its office in Salt Lake City. The firm says it also serves clients in Park City, Provo, Ogden, and St. George. Park City and Ogden sit near Salt Lake City, while Provo lies to the south. St. George is in the far southwest of the state. Those four cities, with Salt Lake City, take in a large share of Utah's residents.

The site does not list a founding year, so the firm's exact age is not stated. In my opinion, the plainest strength on these pages is concentration: the firm works in tax law and builds every listed service around that subject. Its attorney has practiced for more than twenty years and holds an LLM in Taxation from Georgetown.