Melissa Gierach

Melissa Gierach joined DLA Piper in 2017 and is the Managing Director for tax policy overseeing technical and political advisement in all aspects of tax policy spanning both federal legislative and regulatory action with tax implications.

Prior to joining DLA Piper, she served as a senior advisor of tax and economic policy within the U.S. Congress for nearly ten years, having worked for multiple senior Members of Congress seated on top-tier committees of jurisdiction within the House of Representatives. Additionally, Melissa spent the latter years of her tenure on Capitol Hill advising the House Ways and Means Committee Tax Policy Subcommittee Chairman.

While working on Capitol Hill, Melissa was focused on comprehensive tax reform efforts, with a more granular focus on the international tax space impacting multinational business. She developed, drafted and introduced more than a dozen pieces of stand-alone legislation in the tax space, as well as the intersection of tax and health care, as well as enactment of tax legislation into law. She developed bipartisan legislation known as Innovation Box highlighted early in the 114th Congress by the Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committee, as well as House and Senate Leadership, as a more focused alternative to comprehensive tax reform.

Most recently, Melissa has focused her practice on advising clients with respect to areas of concern following passage of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, COVID-19 Pandemic tax and economic relief provisions, as well as assessment and substantiation of the Employee Retention Tax Credit across businesses of all sizes and industries.