#offshore-trusts

#offshore-trusts

The purchase of Daniel Kinahan's luxury mansion from the Criminal Assets Bureau will come under boardroom scrutiny as Michael Flatley has won back control over his hit show.

Most employer 401(k) plans allow mid-year changes to the deferral election percentage. Before the bonus pay period, raise the deferral rate high enough to funnel as much of the bonus as possible into the 401(k), up to the annual limit.

The family is faced with the challenge of appointing a decision-making representative for their mother, who has dementia, without a prior power of attorney in place.

Under the UK's statutory residence test, individuals who spend 183 days or more in Britain within a tax year are generally considered UK tax residents. If that threshold is crossed, global income, including earnings generated overseas, may become liable for UK taxation.

For high-net-worth individuals who declare residence in low- or non-tax jurisdictions such as Florida, Texas, or Puerto Rico, yet continue to circulate between New York, California, Illinois, and other high-tax states, the answer increasingly runs through software. Most tax tracking apps were launched in the 2010s, but they gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic as remote work expanded dramatically.

Panama Ports Company (PPC), part of the Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison, said the Panamanian government acted in disregard for the rule of law. It decried what it called the latest steps to invade and take the property of PPC during a search on Thursday. It also accused authorities of entering a private storage site without notice and ignoring requests to safeguard sensitive corporate data.

The key to selling underperforming holdings at a loss and using those losses to cancel out capital gains on a dollar-for-dollar basis is to bring one's capital gains level down as close as possible to zero. Additionally, it's possible to use $3,000 of capital losses per year to offset other ordinary income, so there's the potential here with such a strategy to actually lower one's overall tax burden by selling the right securities at the correct time.

The 'immovables rule' dictates that foreign laws and court decisions generally have no direct effect on the ownership of assets tied to UK land. While originally designed to protect national sovereignty, its application in the 21st century creates a unique paradox for the London market.

Indian Creek is an independent municipality with its own government and a police force that patrols the island 24/7 not only by land but also by sea. A single guarded bridge connects it to the mainland, and any visitors must show their ID and may even undergo vehicle inspection.

Nearly 150 countries have agreed on a landmark plan to stop large global companies shifting profits to low-tax jurisdictions, but the US will be exempt from the deal, angering tax transparency groups. The plan, finalised by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, excludes large US-based multinational corporations from the 15% global minimum tax after negotiations between the Trump administration and other members of the G7.

In April 2024, the value of all the dollar bills in circulation reached an all-time high of $2.345tn, and may well be even more than that by now. The total value of dollars in the world has doubled every decade since the 1970s. Similarly, there are 1.552tn euro notes in circulation, while most other currencies the British pound, the Japanese yen, the Swiss franc and so on are all at something like their highest levels in history.

Q Is it better to leave a pension in an Approved Retirement Fund (ARF) in two years' time or put it in a "zero tax" property option that avoids the stock market? What are the pros and cons of each?

Currently, pension savings are not used for estate valuations when calculating IHT charges when someone dies. This means money left in a pension can be passed on without worrying about generating a tax bill. But from the new tax year in April 2027, pensions will be included in estate calculations. This creates a higher chance of pushing the value of an estate above the IHT threshold, currently 325,000.

"We are still in the early days of the so-called great wealth transfer," says the lawyer Pierre Valentin, the joint head of art law at Fieldfisher. "The wave started in the US with the sale of collections such as those of Sydell Miller, Mica Ertegun and more recently, Leonard Lauder. The wave is coming to Europe, for example with the auction of the collection of Pauline Karpidas [last] September. I expect that there will be many more of those 'white glove' sales in the next 10 to 15 years because younger collectors collect differently from their parents and grandparents."

Most of us would like to pay the IRS as little money as possible each year. And that's where tax credits and deductions come in. A tax credit is a dollar-for-dollar reduction of your tax liability, while a tax deduction allows you to exempt a portion of your income from taxes. If you're in a high tax bracket, claiming the right deductions could result in a huge amount of savings.

This tax year (2025/26), you can add up to £20,000 to one ISA or split the money between several of the various types; the most used being Cash ISAs and Stocks & Shares ISAs. Whichever type of ISA you invest in you pay no income or capital gains tax (CGT) on the returns - no matter how much they are.

Running a small or medium-sized business is tough enough without getting buried in spreadsheets every month. A lot of us owners and managers end up wearing too many hats, sales, customer stuff, operations, and then accounting piles on top. Those routine financial tasks eat up hours, and honestly, one slip-up can cause big headaches like tax penalties or cash flow surprises.