The top tax policy official at the Treasury Department, who has also been filling in as the top lawyer at the Internal Revenue Service, is set to depart the government, according to three people familiar with the change, widening the leadership hole in the nation’s tax system.
Ken Kies, a longtime lobbyist, was confirmed last year to be the Treasury’s assistant secretary for tax policy. In that job, as well as in his second role acting as the chief counsel at the I.R.S., Mr. Kies oversaw how the government writes tax rules and implements tax laws, highly consequential decisions that can determine billions in tax payments.
Mr. Kies led the implementation of the tax law Republicans passed last year. The 2025 law included the extension of many tax cuts the G.O.P. first passed in 2017 as well as new policy changes aimed at fulfilling President Trump’s campaign pledges, like his promises to not tax tips or overtime.
An administration official said Mr. Kies’s focus had been on administering the new law. “We appreciate his service to our nation,” the official said.
But Mr. Kies’s time in the government also saw the I.R.S. face novel legal questions, including in a lawsuit filed by the president. Mr. Trump sued the I.R.S. in January, a complaint that eventually resulted in Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, granting Mr. Trump extraordinary protections from audits. A federal judge on Monday blasted those protections, calling Mr. Trump’s suit an attempt to use the legal system to legitimize self-dealing.
Mr. Kies had worked as a tax lawyer for Mr. Trump before he joined the administration, and he recused himself from the government’s decisions about the president’s case. But Mr. Blanche’s order granting immunity to Mr. Trump raised profound legal questions for the I.R.S., including whether individual members of its staff could eventually face criminal penalties if they carried it out. Another top Treasury official, the department’s general counsel, quit the day that the Justice Department said it would settle Mr. Trump’s case against the service.
Mr. Kies has also been the target of criticism from the far-right influencer Laura Loomer, who has attacked him for not taking a more accommodating approach to a widely abused tax break that the I.R.S. has been trying to clean up for years.
It is unclear when exactly Mr. Kies, who is in his 70s, will leave the government. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Trump last month nominated James Gadwood, a tax lawyer at Miller & Chevalier, to be the top I.R.S. lawyer. Mr. Gadwood previously represented Mr. Trump’s holding company, according to his financial disclosure.
Bloomberg Tax earlier reported Mr. Kies’s departure.
The I.R.S. has not had a confirmed commissioner since last year, when Mr. Trump fired his choice for the job after two months. Frank Bisignano has been running the agency as its first ever chief executive officer, a title he holds in addition to his duties running the Social Security Administration.
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