Hone Maxwell LLP

Aubrey Hone and Josh Maxwell were classmates at the University of San Diego School of Law and founded Hone Maxwell LLP 10 years ago.

"Aubrey started the firm in 2009 and I joined her three years later," Maxwell said. The managing partner of the San Diego­ based law firm. Maxwell also happens to be a Certified Public Accountant. They discover new clients everywhere they go.

"I was actually at a restaurant in Rosarito, Mexico explaining the amnesty programs to a potential client over lunch when a woman at the table next to us got up and introduced herself," Maxwell said. "She politely apologized for interrupting but said that, after hearing me discuss the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program, she was not sure she was getting the best legal advice from her attorney. I gave her a business card and we later talked about her situation."

Maxwell said he and his team saved that client nearly $400.000 from a half-million dollar penalty.

"Her attorney was going to settle with the IRS and signed her up for a program to have her pay the $500.000 penalty. which is kind of what we run into quite often," Maxwell explained. "When we looked at it, we said you don't have to pay that. There's a much better option for you. And so we removed her from the program that he put her into and then we got her penalty down to $140, 000."

"I think that's really our best service when we're helping these people with unreported foreign assets or even just with international consulting in general," he said. "There's two parts to this type of practice. There's the legal advice, and compliance advice, but at the end of the day all this must be on a tax return and that's the piece a lot of law firms don't address, or they don't understand the forms."

Although the firm has always offered a broad range of tax law services to Californians, its emphasis on international tax law has increased dramatically in the past decade. Maxwell is the go-to expert on international tax difficulties in Asia, Mexico, and elsewhere. particularly those resulting from the implementation of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act in 2010.

Maxwell frequently travels to Asia and has already made two trips there this year. He also keeps expanding his global network of businesspeople and organizations.

In the meantime, Hone established her reputation through high-profile and significant legal proceedings, such as the crucial 2015 ruling of Voss v. Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Voss v. Commissioner, No. 12-73257 (9th Cir. 2015, filed Aug. 7, 2015).

She represented the plaintiffs in this landmark decision, which reversed a lower court's ruling and found that unmarried co-owners of a home could each deduct home mortgage interest on their separate tax returns. The outcome of this case has a profound impact on both LGBTQ couples and domestic partners who own a home together.

"When I'm talking to clients. I tell them. you know, when we write memos, the end of our memo will always list all the forms you have to file because then you can take that back to your CPA and then they have the blueprint right in front of them," Maxwell said.

Nearly everyone at the firm is bilingual in Spanish or Mandarin and the firm enjoys strong cross-border relationships forged through frequent travel and. recently, the opening of an office in Tijuana."