AMERICAS | USA 61 TAXATION AWARDS 2021 Janette began her education at William Jewell College (“WJC”), where she graduated in 1977 with a B.A., summa cum laude, in Political Science, earned her J.D. from Saint Louis University School of Law (“SLU Law”) in 1981, earned her M.B.A. from SLU Cook School of Business in 1982, and her LL.M. in Taxation from Washington University Law School (“WashU Law”) in 1985. Janette became a CPA in 1982. In 1995, WJC conferred upon her its highest alumni honor, the Citation for Achievement, and in 2007, the AICPA and MSCPA named Janette a “Woman to Watch”. Janette served as a tax intern during law school and, between 1985 and 1987, as a Tax Manager for Touche Ross & Co. (“TR&Co”). In 1986, Janette was awarded the TR&Co St. Louis Office prize for Teamwork & Leadership for her innovations in streamlining the Firm’s billing processes and the use of computers to automate formerly manual tax return schedules. In 1987, Janette joined McDonnell Douglas Corporation (“MDC”) where, over the next 6 years, Janette advanced from Senior CorporateAttorney, to Corporate Counsel, to Director of Tax Planning and Assistant General Counsel. While at MDC, Janette was lead in-house counsel for the divestiture of MDC’s European information systems (“IT”) businesses. Over a 4-month period, Janette negotiated the sales of MDC’s IT solutions and related businesses in several European countries, which resulted in securing a $250 million price for discontinued operations. Prior to leaving MDC, Janette was awarded an Aerospace Leadership Award. The Accidental Bureaucrat Governor Mel Carnahan appointed Janette to serve as the first female Director of the Missouri Department of Revenue (“DOR”) where she served from April 1993 through December 1997. Janette supervised 5 divisions that collected $18+ billion annual revenues, licensed over 4 million drivers, and titled over 6 million motor vehicles. Under her leadership, the DOR automated the driver licensing system, and introduced one of the first state electronic filing systems for income tax returns. Janette directed the consolidation of the state’s 5 collection systems into one system, which increased bad debt collections by $100+ million in its first year. Janette also served on the boards of the Multistate Tax Commission, the Federation of Tax Administrators, and the Missouri State Employees Retirement System, the latter of which, at the time, managed over $4 billion in retirement assets. During her tenure as Director, the DOR was awarded eight MO Governor’s Awards for Quality and Productivity for its innovative modernization projects. The Accidental Practitioner From 1998 through the present date, Janette has represented local companies nationally and national companies locally, dividing her time between credits and incentives work and her SALT litigation and controversy practice. For the last 18 of those years, she has been a partner at Thompson Coburn LLP. Missouri was the first state to provide viable transferable state tax credit programs. While serving as Director of the DOR, Janette assisted in drafting the legislation that implemented these very successful programs. In 1998, one of the U.S.’s largest financial institutions retained Janette to, not only help monetize its excess Missouri tax credits, but also to take the credit transferability concept to other states. Two decades later, Janette remains lead state tax credit counsel for her client, which is now the nation’s largest investor in state lowincome housing, historic renovation, Brownfield remediation, and other credit programs. Janette has assisted in drafting and lobbying for legislation to implement similar transferable tax credit provisions in other states, and she has helped design the structures and sales of billions of dollars of state tax credits in dozens of states. This activity has helped fund a variety of meaningful projects, including historic restoration, the remediation of Brownfield/Grayfield areas, business expansions promoting economic development, and low-income and affordable housing construction. Janette has also performed expansion/ relocation incentives negotiations for other clients for multi-million dollar property tax abatements, jobs credits, and other financial incentives for electricity generating facilities, headquarters locations, and cement and other manufacturing facilities. The rest of Janette’s time is spent in the SALT controversy, and litigation area representing clients ranging from privately owned businesses to Fortune 100 conglomerates. Janette has prepared multiple multi-state voluntary disclosure projects to eliminate contingent and actual SALT liabilities for retailers, wholesalers, truck lines and other industries. She has prepared many multi-state analyses for large businesses to determine potential sales/use tax liability for interstate activities, obtained favorable private letter rulings to resolve the consequences of transactions prior ABOUT JANETTE M. LOHMAN “Janette directed the consolidation of the state’s 5 collection systems into one system, which increased bad debt collections by $100+ million in its first year.”
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