Elise Bean was first hired by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) in 1985, to serve as an attorney on the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. In 2003, Senator Levin appointed her staff director and chief counsel of the Committee’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which he chaired. Ms. Bean handled a variety of complex investigations, hearings, and legislation, including matters involving money laundering, offshore tax abuse, foreign corruption, unfair credit card practices, corporate misconduct involving derivatives or structured finance, health care fraud, and shell companies with hidden owners. Investigations headed by Ms. Bean included inquiries into offshore tax avoidance by Apple, Microsoft, and Caterpillar; undeclared UBS, LGT, and Credit Suisse accounts for wealthy U.S. clients; and tax shelter sales by professional firms, including KPMG. Ms. Bean is now co-director of the new Levin Center at Wayne Law School in Detroit. In 2013 and 2011, the Washingtonian magazine named her one of Washington’s 100 most powerful women. In 2015, she was included in the Global Tax 50, a list compiled by the International Tax Review of the year’s top 50 individuals and organizations influencing tax policy and practice.
