Papers & Publications

The Estate’s contention that the decedent utilised funds earned while married and a resident of Belgium to purchase the shares was not challenged. The decedent and his spouse had both been born in Uganda at a time when it was still a protectorate of the United Kingdom. They married in Uganda in 1967, at which time Uganda was an independent country. They were expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin in 1972 on account of their Asian ethnicity. All of their assets within Uganda were con?scated, and they owned no assets outside Uganda. They migrated from Uganda to Belgium with the intention of residing inde?nitely in Belgium. By circumstance of birth the The Charanias acquired UK citizenship, but they never lived in the UK during the decedent’s lifetime. The Tax Court held in Estate of Charania, 133 T.C. No. 7 (14 September 2009) that the decedent owned the whole of the shares (not merely an undivided one half) after determining that Belgian law in force from the time of the decedent’s marriage in 1972 his death in 2002 would look to the law of the common UK nationality of the decedent and his spouse for the purpose of determining the matrimonial property regime to which they were subject throughout their marriage. This holding sustained the IRS’ determination of a defciency in the Estate’s payment of FET in the amount of USD2,070,000.01. The Court also held that the IRS did not exceed its statutory authority when it assessed an addition to tax in the amount of USD511,758.93 for failure to ?le the FET return on time.

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Avoidance of the Rule Against Perpetuities (“RAP”) or some comparable provision of law which prohibits restraint upon alienation or limits a trust to a term of years is an essential element of the “dynasty trust”

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The estate planner for an individual whose wealth and family identity are closely aligned with a successful business enterprise may be called upon to create a structure to last beyond the lifetime of such individual that would preserve the family enterprise. Aside from the question whether there are surviving family members capable and personally motivated to step into the shoes of the founder for purposes of managing and preserving the business (the answer to which question is beyond the scope of this article), the planner must reconcile the competing vision of his client with the antipathy of modern trust law to the concentration of investment risk in a single company, business or geographic area.

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A trustee who is sub ject to the law of a jurisdiction which has adopted the prudent invest or rule (or which will invoke an obligation to diversify on the ground that i t is an imp licit common law duty inherent in the obligation to protect and preserve trust corpus) must consider carefully (a) [...]

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For calendar year 1998, the Japanese life insurance industry’s share of world total premium stood at 28.6%, life insurance purchase on a per capita basis was US$2,857 and the penetration rate measured in terms of aggregate premium value to gross domestic product was a remarkable 9.4%. This marked Japan as the world’s largest life insuranceindustry [...]

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In order to ascertain the locus of a trust for the purpose of taxing it, a jurisdiction first needs to define the essence of a trust. Federal rules for locating the “residence” of a trust for income taxing purposes remained ambiguous until the recent adoption of regulations interpreting 1996 legislation which defines a trust as [...]

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YOUR ESTATE PLAN: WHAT NEEDS CLOSE SCRUTINY UPON YOUR ARRIVAL MUTATING MARITAL PROPERTY RIGHTS . . . JUST DON’T GET DIVORCED OR DIE

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The rights created by a life insurance contract are determined, in the absence of aneffective choice of law by the insured in his application, by the local law of the statewhere the insured was domiciled at the time the policy was applied for unless some otherstate has more significant relationship. See RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OFCONFLICT OF [...]

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WHAT MAKES A TRUST “FOREIGN” WHAT INCENTIVE TO CREATE A FOREIGN TRUST? BEWARE THE ASSUMPTION ALL TRUST LAW IS ESSENTIALLY THE SAME COMMON TRUST DRAFTING CONCERNS IN AN UNCERTAIN WORLD THE U.S. TAX CONSEQUENCES OF A FOREIGN TRUST IS OFFSHORE LIFE INSURANCE A VIABLE ALTERNATIVE TO A FOREIGN TRUST?

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Packaged innocuously in Subtitle I of the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996 are provisions that dramatically reform the law governing foreign trusts, foreign gifts, and persons associated with them. These provisions are of concern not only to a highly specialized big six accountant or to an American attorney practicing from an office on the Champs-Elysées. A person who consults a professional on Main Street is as likely to be affected by its provisions as one who consults on Park Avenue.

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Each TFJ has its own personality, its own strengths and its own weaknesses — there is no one jurisdiction that will be best for all foreign persons investing in the U.S. in all circumstances. Assuming that the foreign investor will either be a non-resident alien individual with respect to the U.S. or a foreign corporation controlled · by a small group of non-resident alien individuals (hereinafter referred to as “NRA”), the following preliminary issues might be addressed.

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American lawmakers have frequently used international trade in an attempt to induce or compel foreign governments to embrace American concepts of social morality. By such means as broad licensing requirements, limitations on eligibility for most-favored nation treatment and generalized trade preferences, and restrictions or prohibitions on imports and exports, the Congress and American administrative officials have manipulated the right of access to American markers and produce.

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Automotive transportation has become increasingly accessible to individuals in industrialized nations during the past decade. A corollary of this phenomenon has been an alarming growth in the number of motor vehicle accidents. Many of these accidents involving persons and vehicles of more than one nationality have raised serious questions as to whose law should apply. The resulting legal complexities prompted twenty-four nations! to convene at the Eleventh Session of the Hague Conference on Private International Law to examine the possibility of establishing common provisions for the law applicable to civil non-contractual liability arising from traffic accidents.

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