Bermuda: Bermuda’s Trust Law: Ticking All The Right Boxes

With the Transcontinental Trusts Bermuda Forum taking place next week, it is timely to reflect on some of the attractive features and structuring alternatives that Bermuda’s trusts and related law provides and to consider some recent exciting developments.

Bermuda provides a flexible, cost effective regime for the formation and administration of private trust companies (PTCs), which are not regulated as a trust business.

Unlike a number of other jurisdictions, Bermuda’s PTC regime permits corporate directors to […]

By |April 27th, 2015|

Canada: TCC: Unpaid Dividend Refund Is Not A Refund

A pair of recent Tax Court of Canada judgments highlight the unsustainable position taken by the CRA that a statute-barred dividend refund that cannot be recovered by the taxpayer nonetheless reduces taxpayer’s “refundable dividend tax on hand” (“RDTOH”) balance.

We have written in this space before about the Tax Court’s strict interpretation of the three-year time limitation to receive a dividend refund under subsection 129(1) of the Income Tax Act. A consequence of this limitation […]

By |April 27th, 2015|

United States: House Uses Tax Deadline To Highlight Estate Tax Repeal And Sales Tax Deduction

House Republicans used the April 15 individual tax filing deadline last week to highlight their tax legislative priorities and pass bills that would repeal the estate tax, permanently extend the state and local sales tax deduction, and modify many tax-exempt and IRS administrative rules.

The thrust of the legislative effort was largely political, as most of the bills stand little chance of enactment this year. H.R. 1105 would repeal the estate tax at a cost […]

By |April 24th, 2015|