Rachel Gillette is among the first attorneys in the nation to dedicate her practice to the cannabis industry. Since 2010, Ms.
Gillette has helped marijuana/cannabis businesses with licensing and regulatory compliance, business law and
transactions, contract drafting and review, tax litigation, corporate formation, and tax matters, including audit
representation. She works with startups and entrepreneurs, investors, and ancillary industry businesses to help develop
the cannabis innovation ecosystem, and is a zealous advocate for the industry.
Ms. Gillette regularly represents clients before the IRS’s Examinations, Appeals, and Collections Divisions, including
marijuana businesses facing the challenges of IRS adjustments under 280E. She has successfully protested local, state
and federal tax deficiencies on behalf of her clients, having prevented hundreds of thousands of dollars in incorrectly
assessed taxes, interest, and penalties. She can assist individual and business taxpayers in 280E proposed assessments,
offers in compromise, audit examinations, innocent spouse claims, sales, use, and employment tax matters, trust fund tax
penalty assessments, penalty abatement’s, and levy releases.
For several years, Ms. Gillette was the executive director of the Colorado state chapter of NORML, the National
Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws. She was a founding member of Women Grow and the National Cannabis Bar
Association. She an advocate as well as an attorney, and is committed to helping change laws – and perceptions –
relating to cannabis and ensuring state licensed and legal marijuana businesses are fairly taxed and regulated.
Ms. Gillette received her Juris Doctorate from the Quinnipiac University School of Law in Hamden, Connecticut, where she
served as Associate Editor of the Quinnipiac University Probate Law Journal. During law school, she interned with the
New Haven Public Defender’s office, where she developed her commitment to advocacy for those facing the many
challenges of the criminal justice system.