Global Residence and Citizenship Handbook. Christian H. Kälin
but very effectively.
While several of the firm’s partners are themselves involved in important philanthropic work, for many years Henley & Partners as a firm has committed large parts of its yearly global profits to support humanitarian projects. This substantial commitment is further strengthened by the fact that all projects benefit directly from it and are administered by volunteers within the firm or associates in the countries where we operate. Furthermore, several of our clients have become important sponsors of our projects.
Most of the projects are focused on helping children in need. For example, more than 120 million children around the world are without any formal education or schooling, and many more have only very limited access to education. With rare exceptions, they never have the chance to improve their lives, and those children who are born poor tend to die poor. We therefore believe that one of the most significant contributions we can make to humankind is to help those who cannot help themselves, in particular underprivileged children.
We also fund other significant projects of local, national or international importance, such as youth entrepreneurship initiatives, reforestation, and our partnership with UNHCR. We support UNHCR’s global refugee registration activities with a contribution of over USD 1 million and further advocacy to assist UNHCR’s resource mobilization efforts.
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Acknowledgements
This work originally arose from my vision 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 Marshall Langer and Stephen Gray who 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 and together with the author, they are now pleased to present the 5th 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 firsthand information in this increasingly important field. We are convinced that with this book we continue to make 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, Susanne Ferullo, Janine Droux, Cameron Stent and Karolina Laubscher, as well as many of my other colleagues at Henley & Partners in our various offices throughout the world, who made a tremendous effort to help me produce this book. Furthermore I also thank the co-authors, reviewers and the publisher, as well as the main sponsor, Henley & Partners. Thanks to their valuable support, they have also contributed significantly to the successful and continued publication of this book.
Christian H. Kälin Dubai, November 2015
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 at 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.
Tonio Fenech MP Minister of Finance, Economy and Investment (2008-2013), Malta
Introduction
Since the first edition of this book was published, the world, and the Euro zone 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 has a knock-on effect on immigration policy in a number of countries which are now adopting a more protectionist approach. Furthermore, a number of countries are looking to increase their tax receipts by targeting high earning residents.
It is therefore clear that obtaining citizenship or residence rights in one or more countries, combined with the ability to quickly leave one country and settle in another, is becoming increasingly important, both politically and economically, for high net worth individuals.
In a mobile global economy, the reality is that key players live and conduct business on an international basis. For the ever growing number of these high profile and high net worth individuals, meeting the physical presence requirements for settlement or for