Professionals

Carlos Gonzalez is the president of Carlos Gonzalez Law Office LLC (d/b/a BenefitsPuertoRico.com).  He has over thirty years’ experience as a tax, employee benefits, and executive compensation attorney both in Puerto Rico and the United States, and was previously The Home Depot’s in-house counsel for tax, benefits & compensation at the company’s headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.

During his years in the industry, Carlos has actively dealt with a wide array of issues regarding the evaluation, implementation, operation, and termination of benefits & compensation programs.  These include retirement plan filings with the Puerto Rico Department of the Treasury (Hacienda) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), ERISA fiduciary compliance, governmental audits and examinations, cost control strategies, cybersecurity compliance, risk management analysis, vendor selection and monitoring, participant enrollment and dependent eligibility audits, Puerto Rico and United States taxation of retirement income and other benefits, ACA, COBRA, FMLA, and HIPAA administration, officer pay, and equity-based compensation arrangements.

Carlos is the author of the leading publication on employee benefits in Puerto Rico: 324-2nd T.M., International Pension Planning – Puerto Rico (i.e., the Bloomberg Tax portfolio on Puerto Rico retirement plans).  He also has published numerous articles on Puerto Rico benefits matters in several of the main United States benefits journals, including the Benefits Law Journal, Tax Management Journal of Pension Planning and Compliance, BBNA Tax & Accounting Insights & Commentaries, Journal of Pension Benefits, and The ASPPA Journal.

Between 2003 and 2004, Carlos served as an advisor to the United States Department of the Treasury and the IRS on their 2004 Puerto Rico Plans Initiative.  From 2010 to 2011, Carlos assisted Hacienda with the evaluation and drafting the retirement plan sections of the Puerto Rico Internal Revenue Code of 2011 (PRIRC).  And between 2011 and 2017, Carlos assisted Hacienda with the drafting of the enacting regulations and other administrative guidance under the PRIRC.  Carlos has taught ERISA law at the University of Puerto Rico and the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico.

Carlos has a J.D. from the University of Puerto Rico Law School, a Tax LL.M. with a Certificate on Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation from Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC., and a Healthcare LL.M. from Georgia State University Law Center in Atlanta, GA.  He is a member of the Puerto Rico, Georgia, and Washington D.C. bars.