The main questions in inheritance planning are: - to whom? - how much? - when? In order to plan you need tools. The most common tools in Finland are donations, last wills and marital contracts. The tools are used at different times: 1) in life- these are for example donations to your children and grandchildren 2) at death - a will becomes effective upon death. Through a will you can decide who gets what, and you are for example able to state that ownership is granted to perso

Last week I wrote about how your place of residence decides applicable law. I also mentioned that when it comes to certain specific legal issues like your succession, marital assets etc. you might want to consider the possibility to choose applicable law. Even if the choices are limited, you still have a choice. An express governing law clause offers certainty. Since August 2015 EU has an inheritance regulation in force, that covers every habitually resident individuals' inhe

Last week I wrote about how a person by moving to another State can decide where he/she is taxresident. But just because a person has successfully managed to change his/her tax residency, does not automatically mean that the State, that has the right to tax him/her, also has jurisdiction over his/her divorce or inheritance issues. There are different criteria for each area of law. A person that has lived in the same country all the time, and always paid taxes to the same Stat

It's time to submit the annual tax returns in Finland and Finns are once again going through their receipts and checking for ways to reduce taxes. After all, Finland has made the top ten list of countries with the highest income taxes in the world. Undisputable is however, that Finland is a welfare state much thanks to the high tax levels, and Finns living abroad have a tendency to move back home when having children or in need of healthcare when growing older. But people als