Kevin T. Keen

Practice Areas

Domestic and international estate planning

Domestic and international tax planning

Global mobility planning, including preimmigration, expatriation, and residency/passports

Family office representation, including creation, structuring, operation, and investments

Private trust company representation, including creation, structuring, operation, and administration of trusts

Pre-liquidity event planning, including wealth transfer and income tax planning

Charitable planning

Career

Entrusted by some of the world's wealthiest families, Kevin Keen discreetly advises clients on a broad array of tax, trust and estate planning matters spanning both the United States and abroad. His global practice includes working with ultra-high-net-worth individuals, and their private businesses, family offices and fiduciaries, to design and implement strategies geared toward tax optimization and fulfilment of various non-tax goals. Such strategies traverse traditional estate and wealth transfer planning, including in the context of international, multigenerational families; pre-immigration and expatriation planning; and structuring of foreign investments into the United States.

As part of his expansive multijurisdictional and topical practice, Kevin routinely guides clients through complex tax and legal issues as outside general counsel — indeed, he often receives the first call from clients and their inner circle on significant personal and business matters. Clients appreciate his depth of knowledge and extensive experience, with one sharing that “Kevin is far beyond his years. He is a trusted adviser, thorough, smart and effective” (Chambers High Net Worth 2022). Another client praised Kevin as "always attentive, responsive and thorough, providing an exceptional service"(Chambers High Net Worth 2023).

Kevin brings his vast domestic and international experience and network to bear when advising global families, entrepreneurs, mobile executives, family offices and fiduciaries. His practice focuses upon planning related to estates and trusts, wealth transfer, tax optimization, structuring of direct and passive investments, formation and operation of private trust companies and family offices, premarital planning, and global mobility matters generally, including expatriation and exit tax mitigation, application of favorable residency regimes abroad, and attainment of additional passports.

Clients rely on Kevin for his creative problem-solving strategies to protect assets, mitigate tax exposure and achieve varied non-tax goals, such as privacy and governance. He regularly travels across the United States and throughout the world to attentively serve his client base and forge trusted relationships with external client advisors, family office executives and members of the next generation of his family clients. Kevin also maintains an active client base in Florida, and can assist clients transitioning from Florida to Texas, or vice versa, or from other states or countries to either Florida or Texas, with regard to their personal and business planning.

Professional Memberships

Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP), Vice Chair of the Board of the Texas Chapter, and Trust and Estate Practitioner (TEP)

State Bar of Texas, Former Vice Chair of Tax Law Section's International Tax Committee

American Bar Association, Taxation and Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Sections

International Bar Association

Publications

Proposed Regulations May Mitigate Certain US Tax Reporting Obligations for Some US Taxpayers, Katten Client Alert, May 14, 2024

2023 Year-End Estate Planning Advisory, Katten Client Alert, November 20, 2023

FinCEN Announces Extension to CTA Reporting Deadlines, Katten Client Alert, September 28, 2023

The States of Transparency, STEP Journal, Issue 4, August 24, 2023

2022 Year-End Estate Planning Advisory, Katten Client Alert, November 17, 2022

Foreign Inbound Investment in a Coronavirus World: Beware The US Estate Tax, Texas Tax Lawyer Journal, Spring 2020 (Vol. 47, No. 3)

U.S. Tax Reform and Its Impact on Swiss Companies, Expert Focus (Der Schweizer Treuhaender), Mar 1, 2018

Resident or Not: Determining Individual Tax Residency Under U.S. Tax Treaties, Tax Notes International, Nov 1, 2017

Look Before You Leap: Considerations and Consequences of US Expatriation, Trusts & Trustees, Sep 1, 2017

Self-Employed or Not at All: Passive Investor Income Is Not Always Subject to SECA Tax, The Estate Planner (Trusts & Estates), May 1, 2017

Artificial Intelligence and the Wealth Management Space, Wealth Management, Mar 1, 2017

The Only Thing Certain Is Uncertainty: The Future of Estate Planning Without the Federal Estate Tax, Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Journal, Jan 1, 2016

Awards