Michael T. Fatale is the General Counsel at the Massachusetts Department of Revenue. Previously, he was the Deputy General Counsel and before that the Chief of the Rulings & Regulations Bureau. He is the primary author of numerous state tax regulations and administrative pronouncements and has litigated or co-litigated several high-profile DOR cases. Fatale is the author of ten law review articles on constitutional and federal law that have been cited in various state tax cases, including cases decided by the Ohio, Iowa and West Virginia Supreme Courts and the California and New Mexico Courts of Appeal. He is an adjunct professor at Boston College Law School and at Boston University School of Law and has been a guest lecturer at Georgetown University Law School and the University of Iowa College of Law. He also has served for many years as an instructor in the corporate income tax training program offered by the Multistate Tax Commission (MTC). In 2016, Fatale was named a state government “administrator of the year” by the Tax Analysts’ publication State Tax Notes. In 2012, he was awarded the Paull Mines Award for Outstanding Contribution to State Tax Jurisprudence by the MTC. In 2005, The Boston Globe reported on his leadership role in obtaining a large settlement in a bankruptcy case on behalf of eighteen states (“Hooray for the Taxman”). Fatale worked in private practice before joining DOR and holds an undergraduate degree from Columbia University and a law degree, with honors, from Boston College Law School.
