Daniel S. Heller is a senior tax attorney at McCauley Law Offices, where he represents individuals and businesses in high-stakes disputes with the Internal Revenue Service and state taxing authorities. His practice spans the full life cycle of a federal tax matter — from audit defense and administrative appeals through collection alternatives, penalty litigation, and, where necessary, criminal tax defense. With an LL.M. in Taxation from Temple University Beasley School of Law and more than a decade of focused tax controversy experience, Daniel brings both technical depth and courtroom credibility to every engagement.
Daniel earned his Bachelor's Degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his Juris Doctor, cum laude, from Widener University School of Law, where he served on the Widener Law Review. During law school, he interned with the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office and clerked for the Honorable Rayford A. Means — formative experiences that sharpened both his trial instincts and his respect for the procedural discipline a federal tax case demands. He went on to earn his LL.M. in Taxation from Temple Law in 2015.
He began his career at McCauley Law Office, where he learned tax controversy from the ground up under Gregory McCauley's mentorship. He then spent more than ten years at a respected Maryland tax controversy firm, handling civil and criminal federal tax matters, multi-jurisdictional state tax disputes, and complex collection cases involving Revenue Officers across the country. He returned to McCauley Law Office to bring that experience back to the firm's clients, particularly those facing the most serious examinations, large-dollar collection cases, and parallel civil-and-criminal exposure.
His substantive work includes representing taxpayers under IRS examination at the agent, Appeals, and post-Appeals mediation levels; negotiating offers in compromise, partial-pay installment agreements, and currently-not-collectible status for clients with substantial liabilities; defending Trust Fund Recovery Penalty assessments against responsible persons; pursuing First-Time and reasonable-cause penalty abatement; litigating in the United States Tax Court and on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit; and defending taxpayers in criminal tax investigations conducted by IRS Criminal Investigation and the Department of Justice Tax Division.
Daniel is deeply committed to public service and to the broader tax bar. In 2023, the Maryland State Bar Association Tax Section awarded him the Schiff Pro Bono Award for his exceptional volunteer tax controversy work on behalf of low-income taxpayers. He serves on the MSBA Tax Section Council as an At-Large Member and is a longtime presenter at the Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service Tax Controversy Training, where he helps prepare other attorneys to represent under-served taxpayers. His combination of high-end private practice and sustained pro bono leadership reflects the firm's view that tax law done well is, fundamentally, a service profession.
Clients describe Daniel as calm, precise, and exceptionally well-prepared. He is the attorney clients call when the case is complicated, the exposure is significant, and the wrong move could trigger years of additional consequences.