Eugene G. Sayre
425 W. Capitol Ave.
Suite 3400
Little Rock, AR 72201-3472
Phone: 501.375.1122
Fax: 501.375.1027
Direct Dial: 501.707.5523
Click here to email Gene
Position in the Firm: Of Counsel
Admissions: Texas, 1968; Arkansas, 1975; U.S. District Court, Eastern and Western Districts of Arkansas; U.S. Tax Court; U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit; U.S. Claims Court; U.S. Court of Federal Claims; and United States Supreme Court.
Practice Areas: State and Federal Tax Litigation; Commercial Litigation; and Corporate Law.
Legal Associations/Professional Memberships: Pulaski County, Arkansas; Arkansas Bar Association (Section of Taxation); American Bar Association (Section of Taxation, Committee on State and Local Taxes); former President of the Central Arkansas Estate Council; former Chairman of the Section of Taxation of the Arkansas Bar Association; a former Member of various Subcommittees on Tax Reform of the Arkansas General Assembly; and the former Chairman of the IRS-Bar Association Liaison Committee for the Southwest Region.
Education: University of Kentucky, B.Ed., 1964; SMU School of Law, J.D., 1968.
Biography:
Eugene G. Sayre has recently completed twenty years of being “of counsel” with the firm of Jack Nelson Jones Fink Jiles & Gregory, P.A., formerly Jack, Lyon & Jones, P. A., in the firm’s Little Rock, Arkansas office. The focus of his practice is representing corporate and individual clients in tax controversy matters before the Internal Revenue Service and the Arkansas Department of Finance & Administration, in the context of both civil and criminal matters.
Mr. Sayre was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on January 19, 1942, and grew up in northern Kentucky. He graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1964, married and moved to Dallas, Texas. While in Dallas, he taught Junior High School and completed his Juris Doctorate degree in 1968 at the School of Law at Southern Methodist University, where he served as the Leading Articles Editor of the Journal of Air Law & Commerce.
From 1968 to 1975, Mr. Sayre was a Trial Attorney with the Tax Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, stationed in Washington, D.C., as well as Ft. Worth and Dallas, Texas. During this seven-year period of time, Mr. Sayre represented the IRS in numerous trials in the southwest United States, especially in Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas.
In late 1975, Mr. Sayre relocated to Little Rock, Arkansas, and entered private practice where he began representing corporate and individual taxpayers involved in controversies with the IRS and the Arkansas DF&A. The boutique tax firm that Mr. Sayre joined in 1975 merged with a larger firm in 1980.
During the early 1980s, Mr. Sayre became involved as counsel for the plaintiff-class in a number of class action “illegal exaction” cases filed against the State of Arkansas and several of its counties and municipalities. The most prominent among these cases were:
- The challenge brought on behalf of the American Trucking Associations, Inc. against the State of Arkansas regarding a particularly onerous tax imposed upon the owners and operators of heavy transport vehicles. This matter was before United States Supreme Court on three separate occasions before it was eventually settled by the parties.
- The challenge to the State of Arkansas’ imposition of its state and local sales taxes upon the charges made by cable television operators in supplying cable services to subscribers, where satellite television services, newspapers and most magazines were not subjected to the same sales taxes. This case was also decided by the United States Supreme Court in 1991.
Mr. Sayre has also been counsel of record for numerous taxpayers in Appellate decisions rendered by both the Arkansas Supreme Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He has also had various publications and has been a speaker at various professional meetings for legal and accounting professions.
Mr. Sayre is married to the former Marie D. VanHoose, and they have two adult children and three grandchildren.