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Your Client Does Not Live in Spain. But the Taxman Says Their Assets Do.

For non-residents who own property, investments, or other assets in Spain. Your client does not live in Spain, but maybe they lived there in the past, visit regularly, or own a property on the coast that they bought as an investment or a holiday home. They may have a brokerage account holding Spanish equities, or a Spanish-situs bond portfolio. Perhaps they moved on — to London, to Dubai, to Geneva — and Spain is somewhere in the background of their financial life rather than its centre. But Spain has not moved on from them and their assets. Spanish-situs assets — property, shares in Spanish companies, certain financial instruments with a Spanish connection — attract Spanish tax on capital gains, Spanish

Spain Taxes Your Portfolio at 30%. The Beckham Window Doesn’t Last Forever.

For wealth advisers with Spanish-resident clients — and those with clients planning to relocate. Your client moved to Spain, or has lived there for years. They have built a portfolio – equities, funds, some cryptocurrency, perhaps a bond ladder. And every year, without fail, the Spanish tax authority takes its share. Dividends received: taxed. Capital gain on a fund switch: taxed. One cryptocurrency swapped for another: taxed. Each event is a separate charge, a separate calculation, a reduction in the capital that is supposed to be compounding. From 2026, Spain introduced a new 30% rate on savings income above EUR 300,000 per year. That is the headline number. But even before reaching EUR 300,000, the standard rates are 19%, 21%,

Offshore PPLI and the Trust Question: What UK Policyholders Need to Know Beyond the Crown Dependencies

The previous two pieces in this series established the UK tax baseline for life insurance payouts and the mechanics of trust structures that remove a policy from the policyholder’s estate for Inheritance Tax purposes. This third piece addresses a question that arises directly from that analysis: when the life company itself authors the trust structure — as is standard practice across the offshore PPLI market — does that structure hold, and what are the UK IHT implications across the major PPLI jurisdictions beyond the Crown dependencies? THIS SERIESPart 1 – Are Life Insurance Payouts Tax-Free in the UK?Part 2 – Writing Life Insurance in Trust: How the Structure Works and What Changed in April 2025Part 3 – Offshore PPLI and

Writing Life Insurance in Trust: How the Structure Works, Why It Matters, and What Changed in April 2025

Part two of a three-part series on UK tax law and life insurance. Part one established the baseline: death benefits are exempt from Income Tax and CGT, but a policy not held in trust falls into the deceased’s estate and is potentially subject to Inheritance Tax at 40%. This piece examines the structural solution — how trusts work, which structures are available, and what the April 2025 legislative changes mean in practice. THIS SERIESPart 1 – Are Life Insurance Payouts Tax-Free in the UK?Part 2 – Writing Life Insurance in Trust (You are here)Part 3 – Offshore PPLI and the Trust Question: What UK Policyholders Need to Know Beyond the Crown Dependencies THE FUNDAMENTAL MECHANISM A trust is a legal

Are Life Insurance Payouts Tax-Free in the UK? What Policyholders and Advisers Need to Know

The question sounds simple. The answer is not. Life insurance death benefits are widely – and correctly – described as tax-free. But that description applies to only two of the three taxes that could theoretically touch a payout. The third, Inheritance Tax, is where the planning gap opens. And for high-net-worth policyholders with estates above the nil-rate band threshold, closing that gap is not optional. This is the first in a three-part series examining how UK tax law interacts with life insurance – including how trust structures, and specifically the trust arrangements offered by offshore PPLI carriers, determine whether a death benefit reaches its intended beneficiaries intact. For a broader overview of how PPLI structures serve estate planning and tax

Crypto Assets in an Insurance Wrapper: Risks, Mechanics, and Practice

Cryptocurrencies long stopped being a fringe asset class. But the infrastructure surrounding them – tax, succession, regulatory – still lags far behind the market’s growth rate. For an investor whose crypto holdings form a significant portion of a larger portfolio, or who is sitting on a multi-million-dollar crypto position built over years of early conviction, that gap creates specific and measurable risks. Insurance products – ULIP and PPLI – can close most of those risks. This guide explains how placing digital assets inside an insurance structure works in practice, what problems it solves, what it introduces, and why the insurer’s jurisdiction matters more than most investors realise. Part 1. Problems the insurance wrapper addresses Tax complexity under direct ownership Every

The Case for the Standard-Bearer: Why Mauritius Has Set the Benchmark for Offshore PPLI

Every jurisdiction in this series has been assessed against a common set of criteria: the quality of its legislative framework, the depth of its statutory policyholder protections, the track record of its regulator, the strength of its sovereign backing, and the honesty of its failure record. Mauritius’s case rests not on a claim that it alone has avoided PPLI-specific failures — true PPLI carrier collapses are rare across all jurisdictions — but on something more substantive: a purpose-built statutory framework, a regulatory enforcement record confirmed at the highest appellate level, and a clean track record across the entire insurance sector. That combination of framework quality and institutional credibility is what distinguishes it. THE FRAMEWORK: PURPOSE-BUILT FROM THE GROUND UP The

Seychelles – An Emerging Jurisdiction Still Building Its PPLI Foundation

Seychelles is occasionally referenced in PPLI discussions, but it is not a developed PPLI jurisdiction. Understanding what it is — and what it currently lacks — matters for advisors whose clients may encounter Seychelles-domiciled structures through marketing channels that outpace regulatory reality. THE FRAMEWORK The Financial Services Authority of Seychelles (FSA) was established under the Financial Services Authority Act 2013 and regulates the non-bank financial services sector including insurance under the Insurance Act 2008. The FSA covers fiduciary services, capital market and securities business, collective investment schemes, insurance, international trade zone activities, and gambling — a broad mandate for a small-island regulator with limited institutional depth relative to the jurisdictions reviewed elsewhere in this series. Seychelles does not have a

Asian PPLI Hubs: Strong Centres, State Fraud, and the Mis-Selling Export

Asia’s PPLI ecosystem spans some of the world’s most sophisticated financial regulators (Singapore’s MAS, Hong Kong’s Insurance Authority) and some of the most catastrophic insurance fraud in global history (Indonesia’s USD 2.8 billion in state-controlled insurer losses). For UHNWI clients with Asian exposure, the distinction between these regulatory environments is not academic. SINGAPORE The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) regulates insurance under the Insurance Act (Cap. 142) with a risk-based supervisory framework. Singapore is an emerging PPLI centre for Southeast Asian high-net-worth individuals, with investment-linked and variable universal life products structured for accredited investors. Singapore has not experienced a major PPLI-specific insurer failure. The MAS is generally regarded as one of the most effective financial regulators in Asia. Enforcement cases

Puerto Rico & The Caribbean. America’s Backdoor PPLI Hub: Domestic Status, Offshore Risk

Puerto Rico offers something no other jurisdiction in this analysis can: domestic U.S. territorial status, Act 60 tax incentives, and a PPLI regulatory framework under the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance. It is the only ‘offshore’ PPLI jurisdiction that is technically onshore. That unique positioning comes with its own set of risks — some specific to Puerto Rico, some inherited from the wider Caribbean. THE FRAMEWORK: PUERTO RICO The International Insurers and Reinsurers Division (IIRD) under Puerto Rico’s Office of the Commissioner of Insurance (OCS) licenses and supervises international insurers. Act 60-2019 (formerly Acts 20/22) provides 100% income tax exemption on dividends and distributions, 75% property tax exemption, and full exemption on premium taxes for Act 60 resident investors.

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