an entire group of specialists who now work together at Henley & Partners. The firm’s Chief Executive Officer, Eric G. Major, who formerly built the most important Canadian immigrant investor business at HSBC, is another guiding light in the area of global residence and citizenship planning.
Today, individual clients as well as advisors and law firms worldwide rely on Henley & Partners for specialized advice and assistance in this delicate area where its expertise and experience are second to none.
The firm’s renowned Residence and Citizenship Practice Group has been advising private clients, their close advisors such as lawyers and private bankers, and governments on investor immigration and citizenship solutions. Henley & Partners is in contact with the government authorities of all of the relevant countries and constantly monitors the worldwide situation. The firm also assists in designing, implementing and operating investor immigration programs and gives relevant advice to governments.
Besides advising clients on the possibilities of acquiring resident status, permanent residence and citizenship by investment, members of the Planning Group advise them on the (re-)acquisition of citizenship based on ancestry as well as on residence planning for private clients with a view to tax optimization and/or post-immigration citizenship acquisition.
Residence planning and related tax planning for private clients involves finding solutions for individuals and families who move internationally, own property in different countries and who often have complex international situations and requirements. In this regard, they work closely together with the firm’s Trust and Tax Planning Group, and our combined services cover not only tax, immigration and citizenship law, but also international private law, real estate structuring and more.
For many years, Henley & Partners has organized the Global Residence and Citizenship Conference, which is the most important such event in the world. It is held annually in mid-November in different locations each year. To check for the program of the next conference and to benefit from early registration discounts, please visit www.henleyglobal.com/events
For more information about the firm please visit www.henleyglobal.com
Acknowledgements
This work arose from my idea and the need for a first-rate, up-to-date and useful handbook on residence and citizenship options for private clients. It was forward-thinking pioneers like US tax attorneys Professor Marshall Langer and Stephen Gray who have started to systematically plan for wealthy clients in terms of their residence and citizenship requirements, and have thus helped form the basis of this increasingly important field of private client advisory practice.
While there have been many different publications in the past, mainly information brochures, nothing of this kind, and in particular of this level of professional accuracy, has been attempted before. The publisher, Ideos Publications Ltd, concurred with this idea. Together with the author, they are now pleased to present the 2nd edition to interested readers.
A great deal of specialist knowledge, work and effort has gone into this project, and it has certainly proved worthwhile. As an expression of its overall concept, this volume can unquestionably be seen as a pioneering achievement. The author and publisher hope that our readers share this viewpoint as well as our enthusiasm for the project.
Certainly this book will be useful for many lawyers, private bankers, immigration specialists, tax planners and other private client advisors, but also governments and government agencies – they all require first-hand information in this increasingly important field. We are convinced that with this book we are making an important contribution in the advancement of private wealth planning.
No great book is created without the contribution of a great team supporting it, and this book, though it may not be great, is no exception. At this point, I would like to thank all those who have contributed to and supported this book. Special thanks are due to my colleagues at Henley & Partners and Ideos Publications, in particular Amanda Philp, Drew Markson, Ulrike Trux and Dominik Fehr, as all of them made a tremendous effort to help me produce this book. Furthermore I also thank the co-authors and the publisher, as well as the main sponsor, Henley & Partners. Thanks to their valuable support, they have also contributed significantly to the successful publication of this book.
Christian H. Kälin
Zurich, September 2012
Foreword
They say the world is getting smaller and more interconnected every day. Indeed, the effects of globalization continue to expand and touch all aspects of our modern lives. In the age of internet, jet travel, free-flowing movement of capital and multinational companies, we have become both more interdependent and more mobile than in any time in human history. This poses interesting new challenges for governments, as the concepts of immigration, citizenship and even statehood are changing.
Malta introduced its first tax residence scheme more than twenty years ago. Around that time, it was Henley & Partners which started to focus on residence and citizenship planning when most international lawyers and wealth planning professionals were not considering the subject to be of great importance. Today, the world looks very different, and countries find themselves competing not only for international talent but also for investors, entrepreneurs and high-net-worth individuals and families.
Malta has risen to the challenge. Despite being a small country in the Mediterranean Sea, we are a globally networked nation with a vibrant multi-cultural population and a sizeable Diaspora sprinkled across the globe. Being an outward-looking nation, we have always relied on trade and talent to channel our prosperity.
Our rich culture, beautiful climate and advanced standard of living are certainly an advantage, but we need to engage professionals who understand the investor immigration world and who can help us make the case that Malta is a prime destination of choice. One firm which we have had the pleasure of working with is Henley & Partners. Internationally recognized as the firm of choice for residence and citizenship planning, we sought their advice for the reform of our residence schemes and the development of new programs designed to attract foreign investors to settle in our country. Their knowledge and expertise in this area are truly unrivalled and they have imparted to us some very valuable advice.
The Hon. Tonio Fenech MP
Minister of Finance, Economy and Investment,
Government of Malta
Introduction
Since the first edition of this book was published, the world, and the Eurozone in particular, has been in the grip of unprecedented economic turmoil. Countries looking for new ways to generate growth are increasingly focused on the benefits of economic migration. However, Governments are also under pressure to ensure that employers give priority to local workers when they are looking to fill vacancies. The global political climate is therefore one torn between the undeniable economic benefits of migration and the political need to be seen to be implementing protectionist measures to appease the concerns of the general public. This has led to a number of countries implementing immigration and citizenship laws designed to meet these twin aims, with varying degrees of success. While each country is eager to be seen to be making its own mark on the worldwide immigration environment, the global immigration landscape has become plagued with a plethora of inconsistencies and diverging rules.
The last twelve months has also been a time of significant political upheaval. As well as the uncertainty which has been a consequence of the “Arab Spring”, there is an increasing sense that immigration itself is becoming a political battleground. With the rise in popularity of far right organisations, other, more mainstream, parties are having to rely on their support to form stable coalition governments. This is having a