Paul Rafelson

Presenting: A Non-US Sellers Guide to Doing Business in the US

Paul Rafelson is a founding partner with the law firm of Francissen Rafeslon Schick, LLP, a first of its kind law firm made up of Amazon sellers, including verified million-dollar sellers.

In his practice, Paul specializes in Tax, Litigation, Corporate, Mergers & Acquisitions, Asset Protection and Trust & Estate law matters. Recognizing early on all ways the law impacts Amazon sellers differently than a typical small business, Paul was the first to acknowledge the changing legal landscape resulting from the new Phenomena of “Global Small Businesses” that Amazon has created.

Prior to advising sellers, Paul has spent almost 15 years defending some of the largest companies in the world from some of the most complex corporate tax matters, in almost every state as well as with the IRS, spending the majority of his career as in-house tax litigation counsel for some of the world’s largest companies; Microsoft, Walmart and General Electric, defending them in multi-billion dollar tax matters.

Paul holds an undergraduate degree in Accounting from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, a Law Degree and M.B.A. from Villanova University, and he holds a masters of tax law (LL.M.) from New York University (NYU). Paul is also an adjunct professor at Pace Law School in New York, where he teaches a constitutional law course on state and local taxation.

Fighting for Sellers

In addition to his law practice, Paul is the founder of the Online Merchants Guild (“OMG”), where he volunteers his time as the organization’s Executive Director. As Executive Director of OMG Paul fights to make sure sellers have a voice by taking legal action to protect sellers or lobbying on sellers’ behalves to ensure seller interests are represented when future eCommerce laws are drafted.

Through OMG Paul has written and submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, taken legal action against the CDTFA for unconstitutionally pursuing sellers for back taxes and has successfully lobbied in California to ensure sellers aren’t responsible for sales taxes going forward, and is currently fighting to protect sellers from back tax burdens.

Paul works closely with key people in Government to make sure sellers voices are heard on all issues, not just tax, as he fights to make sure that Amazon sellers won’t have their window of opportunity closed by politicians who don’t understand what it means to sell on Amazon.