The modern world, with its spreading globalisation has seen many demographic developments in the last few years; not only has there been a migratory trend amongst the less well off of the newly ascended EU countries, but there has also been an increased trend amongst the more wealthy within the EU to chose alternate countries of domicile.

The choice of domicile within this group is usually determined by the preferential tax treatment available in their country of choice, but this also throws up a need for an understanding of the liabilities that they will incur. A legal firm will almost certainly be engaged in order to clarify the legal position in this regard, but this presents the firm with a problem; how to present all the relevant information to their client, clearly and accurately…the only sensible option is to produce a translation for their client, of the information presented.

Because the information could, if incorrectly presented or translated, produce a legal liability, it is essential that the translating company’s translators ideally have some form of experience within the legal field as well as being qualified in their target language…what is required is a specialist legal translation company.

Let us look at the basics of one of the many taxes that a person domiciled here would be liable to and we will see why this is so. Let us look at Inheritance Tax.

Inheritance tax is a loathsome tax that will see the Government take away 40% of your hard earned assets on any of your estate in excess of £285,000. These days, because of the continued rise in the value of real estate over the past 10 years, most people with even a modest property will probably fall into the grasp of Inheritance Tax liability.

Inheritance Tax is sometimes called a ‘voluntary tax’ though, because there are a number of strategies that can be used to reduce your liability or escape it altogether.

A popular strategy to use is to gift some of your assets to your children. Small amounts of liquid savings that will not be required in the future, for instance, can be passed on, as can sums and assets over £3000 as long as the giver survives for over seven years after the gifting. In a similar vein, investing in certain AIM listed shares, will after a qualifying period of two years, enable the buyer to pass the shares on, without any liability.

More complex strategies for use with this tax include the setting up of a trust to eliminate tax liability using a combination of inter- trust loans and ownership transfers and the use of insurance policies written in trust for your children upon your demise.

The above strategies, however, come with a caveat; there are all sorts of rules and provisos issued by the Government regarding their legitimate use and any transgression will render avoidance strategies null and void.

‘The devil is in the detail’, or so they say, and failure to communicate the detail to a foreign client can ensure that there is the ‘devil to pay’ for an unwary legal firm; the answer…when communicating complex legal ideas in a foreign language, ensure that there is a specialist legal translation company doing the translation for you!