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US UK cross border tax and planning

If you are living in the UK with any kind of US connection, you are likely to have more complicated needs when it comes to your personal and business affairs and you may not even be aware of it.

Our leading team of US tax and wealth planning lawyers working from our London office provide sophisticated advice to global clients with US connections. This advice is based on real experience and we endeavour to find both practical and creative solutions for the complex multi-jurisdictional issues our clients face.

We help clients with exposure to more than one legal system, create and sustain the right structures to achieve their person, family, business and philanthropic objectives.

The types of clients the team regularly advise include:

• US individuals living abroad who need integrated estate plans or tax advice

• non-US individuals who require assistance managing their US connections, which may include making gifts to family members, making investments, purchasing real estate or owning businesses

• non-US companies who need help forming or managing US businesses or assisting their shareholders with US tax and regulatory issues

• fiduciaries, such as trustees or executors, who need assistance developing and implementing plans to mitigate taxes for US beneficiaries or arising from US investments or who represent a decedent with connections to both the US and the UK and exposure to estate/inheritance tax in both

• US charities and private foundations with international objectives, and non-US charities that have US connections such as donors or investments

• US-based individuals and companies who have personal or business assets either in the UK or elsewhere around the world

• US individuals around the world who need assistance resolving IRS matters or participating in the IRS voluntary compliance programs

• US citizens and green card holders who wish to give up their US status

• US individuals living in the UK who are due to benefit from structures created by their relatives in the US

Fact sheets

Insight

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Track record

A UK client who had lived in the US for many years and amassed significant value in his US retirement funds

We undertook research and liaised with the provider and with our US based colleagues to determine the position and enable the client to formulate an informed succession plan regarding the funds in question.

International US/UK family whose wealth emanates from a renowned private equity business.

The team have undertaken structural planning projects involving the family's trust structures and for individual family members in the light of the current (and anticipated changes both in the US and UK) tax regimes of all the relevant jurisdictions, trust and investment issues arising from the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on the full spectrum of investments owned and taking into account the upcoming age of majority of some of the US/UK beneficiaries.

European entrepreneur currently resident in the US

He had a diverse range of business interests held through a variety of trust structures established by him and his family. The client's previous adviser had retired and he asked us to conduct a review to ensure that he was compliant with his US tax reporting obligations and to advise on the evolution of his trust holding structures. This review was completed and to the client's satisfaction confirmed that he had no undiscovered liabilities. Since then we have worked with the client and his family to develop a plan for the future devolution of his wealth and the maintenance of his children.

HNW Family

We advised on family and business governance for estate planning and succession purposes. This involved preparing Wills and trusts which were compliant with Indian law and also US tax constraints (as there are US citizen beneficiaries), advising on US citizenship and expatriation, advising on corporate and real estate structuring and lifetime gifting, advising on the Family Constitution and establishing a single Family Office for the family.

Restructuring of a Cayman trust

This advice was to eliminate large amounts of historic income and gains that otherwise would be adversely taxed at nearly confiscatory rates under the US 'throwback rules' when eventually distributed to US person beneficiaries who also are UK resident, while preserving the trust's favourable classification as an 'excluded property' and 'protected' trust for UK income, gains and inheritance tax purposes.

Transatlantic thinking

We work with couples with one foot either side of ‘the pond’, all the time.

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