Vicky Tsilas focuses on the tax aspects of tax-exempt and tax-credit bond transactions and issues related to tax exempt organizations. She represents nonprofit organizations as borrowers and state and local governments as bond counsel in tax-exempt bond financings. She also has extensive experience representing clients in IRS audits of tax-exempt bond financings involving hospital systems, universities, and solid-waste and sewage facilities. In addition to her private practice experience, Vicky has served in the highest legal positions overseeing tax-exempt bonds at the U.S. Treasury Department and IRS. Vicky also has been in involved in New Market Tax Credit financings representing different parties in the transactions.
Vicky advises a wide range of nonprofit clients including colleges, universities, hospitals, and foundations, as well as various public charities, on tax exempt organization issues ranging from unrelated business income to joint ventures between nonprofit and for-profit entities and post-issuance compliance responsibilities. She is a frequent contributor to "The Exempt Organization Tax Review" and has been a speaker at the Georgetown University Exempt Organization Conference.
Before rejoining Ballard Spahr as a partner in 2018, Vicky was Branch Chief of the Tax-Exempt Bond Branch for Financial Institutions and Products at the IRS, where she supervised the team of attorneys who provide regulatory guidance—including issue price and public approval regulations—and private letter rulings.
