KENNETH KIES Chair, Federal Tax Policy Group KENNETH KIES is Chair of the Federal Tax Policy Group, which provides sophisticated strategic and technical tax advice on tax policy matters before the Congress, the U.S. Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service, and the OECD.  Mr. Kies served as the Chief of Staff of the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation from January 1995 until January 1998 when he joined Price Waterhouse LLP.  The influential Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation staff is responsible for developing and analyzing all tax legislation for the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee, and other committees of the Congress.  He is also responsible for estimating the cost of enacting changes to tax laws, approving all IRS refunds in excess of $1 million, and performing all technical analysis of tax treaties considered by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  He had a broad-based tax practice involving legislation, tax planning, and practice before the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department.  From 1982 until 1987, Mr. Kies served as Chief Minority Tax Counsel in the Ways and Means Committee of the United States House of Representatives.  In that position he directed the Ways and Means Committee’s Republican tax staff and was the chief tax lawyer responsible for developing and analyzing all tax-related legislation for Republican members of the Ways and Means Committee and the House Representatives.  Mr. Kies began the practice of law in 1977 with Baker & Hostetler in Cleveland as a tax associate until joining the Ways and Means Committee staff in 1981.  Mr. Kies holds an LL.M., Taxation from Georgetown University Law School a J.D. from the Ohio State University College of Law, and a BA, Cum Laude, From Ohio University.