International mobility

The international mobility of entrepreneurs and wealthy individuals has far-reaching tax and legal consequences.

Higher taxes result in emigration to more interesting places that sometimes appear to be surprisingly close to home. But a poorly planned emigration can have disastrous tax and legal consequences. We can advise you on your emigration choices and their correct implementation.

Immigrants to the Netherlands can take advantage of the 30% expat legislation if they meet the qualifying conditions. Immigrants need proper planning advice in order to optimize their Dutch and foreign tax positions under the applicable tax treaties.
Families with structured wealth, including revocable trusts, are advised to always seek advice in relation to family members who take up residence in the Netherlands even on a temporary basis.

A few examples of the things our practice focuses on:

• Where a person is considered to have a (dual) residence in various jurisdictions, this can give rise to double taxation. The definition of residence in the Netherlands has been substantially broadened in the last few years. Consequently, it takes more to effectually emigrate while immigration is often more an unintentional consequence of, for example, buying real estate in the Netherlands. With the right navigation, however, it is sometimes possible to use the different countries' opposing views of residence to prevent a tax obligation from arising in either country.

• The European Succession Regulation, which enters into effect on 17 August 2015, can create a lot of undesired legal consequences because a person’s succession will automatically be subjected to another legal system and forum upon emigration. We expect the interpretation of this new regulation to result in numerous difficulties. Read: The New European Succession Regulation 650/2012: The conflict of applicable law resolved, but now subject of conflicts?
  
  
• Many jurisdictions have introduced anti-abuse regulations pertaining to the tax consequences of rights relating to trusts and other special purpose funds. These anti-abuse regulations are different in nature and can result in unworkable situations for emigrating families where the family’s capital may be found to be stuck in different anti-tax mechanisms with contradictory tax liabilities in the hands of different stakeholders. The result of these mismatches is "economic" double taxation.