practice areas
honors + affiliations
Member (Chicago), Society of Trusts & Estates Practitioners
Member, American Bar Association, Tax Section
bar admissions
- Illinois
- Chicago
-
77 West Wacker Dr.
Chicago, IL 60601-5094
Phone: 312.324.1754
Fax: 312.324.1001
Matthew D. McKim is an associate in Morgan Lewis's Tax Practice. Mr. McKim's practice involves counseling clients on a wide range of domestic and international tax-planning matters, principally those concerning private wealth. He also counsels clients in structuring complex corporate and business-related transactions. He assists foreign and domestic corporations, partnerships, trusts, and wealthy and entrepreneurial individuals in the analysis, structuring, and negotiation of tax-efficient business and personal wealth transactions, as well as planning for the creation, preservation, and transmission of wealth among generations.
Mr. McKim regularly provides general international tax-planning guidance for high-net-worth multinationals and their families, and counsels clients on the tax implications that arise when cash, property, businesses, or transactions cross borders. He has counseled clients based in the United States, Canada, Europe, Mexico, and Brazil. Mr. McKim also has led cross-disciplinary advisory teams in the design, execution, and implementation of international strategies, working closely with banking relationship managers, financial planners, and domestic and foreign attorneys (e.g., in the Cayman Islands, Bahamas, British Virgin Islands, Jersey Channel Islands, United Kingdom, Switzerland) to tailor solutions for clients' individual needs.
Mr. McKim also advises on domestic and cross-border mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures, spinoffs, tax-free reorganizations, and fund formations. In this regard, he has represented private and public companies, private equity funds, hedge funds, emerging companies, and established entrepreneurs.
Mr. McKim is dedicated to providing pro bono services. He regularly advises private foundations and public charities on issues related to formation (including forming nonprofit organizations and obtaining tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service), maintenance of tax-exempt status, and various other nontax-related issues. Mr. McKim has regularly acted as "outside" general tax counsel for a Chicago-based legal aid foundation, providing advice on a wide range of tax issues.
Prior to joining Morgan Lewis, Mr. McKim was a member of the taxation practice of an international law firm.
Mr. McKim received his LL.M. in taxation, with distinction, from the Georgetown University Law Center in 2005; his J.D., cum laude, from the Nova Southeastern University, Shepard Broad Law Center in 2004; and his B.S. in education from Youngstown State University in 2000.
Mr. McKim is admitted to practice in Illinois.
Selected Representations
Note: This list includes engagements completed prior to joining Morgan Lewis.
- Representation of private equity and hedge funds organized in the Cayman Islands, Bahamas, Barbados, and the British Virgin Islands in connection with acquisitions of U.S. businesses and various other business issues, including the acquisition of multimillion-dollar funds and other restructurings.
- Representation of a private equity fund in connection with planning for an allocation of approximately $400 million of cancellation of debt income and tax characterization issues regarding hedging transactions related to more than $500 million in allocable trading losses.
- Representation on tax structuring matters related to the formation of a German-based private equity fund anticipated to raise $1 billion to invest in sea-going cargo vessels having operational connections with U.S. ports, specifically structured to utilize certain U.S. tax laws to prevent the imposition of U.S. tax on foreign investors.
- Representation of high-net-worth U.S. and non-U.S. (e.g., German, Brazilian, Dutch, Mexican) families in connection with their worldwide organizational and tax structures designed to reduce the incidence of worldwide income, capital, gift, estate, and generation-skipping taxes, including the establishment of foreign trusts for the benefit of U.S. family members and counseling with respect to the new U.S. expatriation taxes imposed upon such families.
- Representation of a large privately held multinational group of foreign corporations in connection with the investment by U.S. persons of approximately $100 million in shares of its stock, including the development of a structure designed to avoid classification as a “passive foreign investment company.”
- Representation of billionaire families with respect to "institutionalization" of their wealth over multiple generations and jurisdictions, including establishment of licensed trust companies, family "banks," and related structures facilitating the clients' needs.
- Representation related to tax matters of one of the world’s largest cement and concrete companies, in its approximately $600 million acquisition of a U.S.-based cement and concrete company.
- Representation of a private equity fund in a convertible debt–financed acquisition of a U.S.-based business.
- Planning and implementation of complicated “like kind” exchange programs.
education
- Georgetown University Law Center, 2005, LL.M., With Distinction
- Nova Southeastern University, Shepard Broad Law Center, 2004, J.D., Cum Laude
- Youngstown State University, 2000, B.S.