Background
Four decades at the center of federal tax policy
Ken Kies is a Washington insider with more than 40 years of experience in economic policy and tax legislation, spanning both government and private practice. He most recently served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Tax Policy and Acting Chief Counsel of the Internal Revenue Service, confirmed by the U.S. Senate in June 2025, where he led the U.S. Department of the Treasury's implementation of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), the sweeping 2025 tax law.
Before his Senate confirmation, Kies was managing director of the Federal Policy Group LLC, advising clients and practitioners on federal tax policy matters before Congress, the Treasury Department, the IRS and the OECD. Earlier in his career, he served as chief of staff of the U.S. Congress Joint Committee on Taxation from 1995 to 1998, giving him firsthand experience on both sides of how tax legislation moves from Capitol Hill into Treasury guidance and IRS enforcement.
Kies began his career as a tax associate at Baker & Hostetler in 1977, later becoming firmwide chair of the firm's tax practice. From 1982 to 1987, he served as chief Republican tax counsel to the House Ways and Means Committee, where he helped develop major legislation including the Tax Reform Act of 1986. He went on to co-manage the Washington National Tax Services office of PricewaterhouseCoopers before founding what became the Federal Policy Group.
Over more than four decades, Kies has worked closely with Congress and federal agencies to shape economic legislation -- a perspective few instructors can offer. He was a popular Surgent CPE instructor for years, including a widely attended free webinar analyzing the 2024 election results, before his Senate confirmation.
Kies has since returned to the Surgent CPE faculty, resuming his regular appearances on Surgent's Weekly Expert Hour (WEXH) and co-hosting a new monthly program with fellow instructor Mike Tucker, Surgent's Tax Policy Hour with Ken Kies (TPHK). He teaches at Surgent because accounting and tax professionals need someone who was inside the room when the guidance was written, not just someone reading it after the fact.