Technology may very well be the bane of a busy practitioner’s existence. It makes us all too accessible. It deprives us of the solitude we all need to think and recharge. It makes available too much information. Then we have to deal with the follow-up surveys and questionnaires! Fortunately, the editors of Trust Quarterly Review… Read More Why it pays to keep an eye on developments in foreign jurisdictions
STEP, alongside ICAEW and the Law Society, has recently published a guide to help trustees determine the status of UK trusts under the UK/US FATCA IGA. There is still a misconception on the part of some practitioners that only UK trusts with US connections or assets have to take note of FATCA. The reality is… Read More It’s time to urgently think about UK trusts under the UK-US IGA
In recent years, we have seen almost daily developments chipping away at long-established boundaries of financial privacy. Before the global recession gave this process real impetus, who would have thought that offshore financial centres would sign automatic exchange of information agreements? The UK’s proposed public registry of company beneficial ownership may prove to be a… Read More Is financial privacy coming to an end?
In the summer, I flagged up that Austria on 10 July had signed up to the Hague Convention XXXV of 13 January 2000 on the International Protection of Adults, which had then been ratified by the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Scotland and Switzerland. Last month, less than three after signing, Austria ratified Convention… Read More Time for a Viennese whirl?
In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Brutus famously tells Cassius: ‘There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current… Read More Cross-border incapacity on a flood tide?
Reading HMRC’s on-going consultation ‘Simplifying Charges on Trusts’ does not give much hope for simplification. Of the key proposals, ignoring previous lifetime transfers and non-relevant property in relation to trust exits and ten year charges, is clearly attractive. However, while the idea of splitting the nil rate band between every trust a settlor creates -even… Read More On HMRC’s Charges on Trusts consultation
The EU Commission held a full day meeting with experts to explain its plans for developing full multilateral automatic exchange of tax information across the EU. Of, course the EU already has the Savings Tax Directive, but that only covers interest income, and plans to extend it have long been held up by objections from… Read More The European FATCA
Keeping abreast of the ever-changing tax rules is a challenging pastime for all professionals. My time spent on Committees for STEP has been invaluable, as I get to mix with professionals who cover all walks of the trust and estate practitioner fields and learn first hand about the latest issues that will, or might, affect… Read More I heard it through the grapevine…
The STEP Blog 