Oscar Javier Ornelas

Phone: (915) 440-0044
Email: Email

Oscar Javier Ornelas, The Ornelas Firm’s President and Founder, has provided clients of all sizes tax planning advice and solutions to their tax problems for over a decade. A native of the El Paso-Las Cruces borderplex, Ornelas is a licensed tax attorney in Texas and New Mexico and is admitted to practice before the United States Tax Court. He is fluent in Spanish and understands the cultural nuances required to conduct business in Mexico and Latin America. As an experienced accountant, Ornelas understands the economic and financial consequences of his clients’ tax concerns – not just the law that applies to his clients’ tax issues.

Prior to forming The Ornelas Firm, Ornelas graduated from the Texas Tech University School of Law (JD) and then earned his graduate degree (LLM) in tax law from the Graduate Tax Program at the New York University School of Law. He practiced at one of El Paso's oldest law firms. where he advised small businesses and foreign investors on tax planning matters, tax and entity structuring and restructuring, state and federal tax issues, tax audits and examinations and tax efficient cross-border investment strategies. Ornelas also assisted nonprofit entities address their corporate governance and tax-exemption matters.

In 2013 Ornelas joined a Fortune 50 company as in-house counsel in their tax workgroup. While at this company, Ornelas specialized in advising business units on excise tax matters, transfer pricing issues, state tax concerns and tax matters affecting intercompany and procurement contracts.

Capitalizing on his experiences in private practice and as in-house counsel, Ornelas formed The Ornelas Firm. The firm’s mission is to provide clients with value-added legal representation: to render effective and efficient tax and corporate legal counsel normally found in national law firms at a fraction of the cost and with personalized attention.

Ornelas understands that a tax audit or a tax lien is more than just a legal problem – it’s a psychological stress on individuals, a financial burden on families, a barrier to an entrepreneur’s strategic plans, and a threat to a small business’ ability to meet customer demands and finance operations. That’s why The Ornelas Firm is personally invested in resolving our clients’ tax issues.

The firm specializes in resolving state and federal tax audits, examinations, collection issues and other tax controversies for individuals, expatriates, foreign investors and small businesses. Ornelas has more than a decade-worth of experience helping clients large and small with their tax issues … let him help you solve yours.

Areas of Practice

• Tax Law
  • Tax audits, examinations and civil tax controversy
  • Nonprofit and tax exempt entities
  • State, local and excise tax planning and litigation
  • Expatriate tax compliance and planning (including FBAR)
  • International tax planning and compliance (including FATCA)
  • US tax planning and restructuring for small business and startups
  • Corporate and business law
  • Campaign finance compliance and ethics advice

Bar Admissions

• Texas, 2001
• New Mexico, 2009
• US Tax Court, 2012

Education

• Texas Tech University School of Law, Lubbock, Texas
  J.D. magna cum laude – 2001
• New York University School of Law, New York, New York
  L.L.M. – 2002
  Major: Tax Law
• University of Texas, El Paso, Texas
  B.A. – 1996
  Honors: High Honors, Honors Degree
  Major: Accounting

Languages

• Spanish