Services

International estate planning, cross-border taxation, and the administration of estates and trusts connected to the United States: services for private clients and for their advisers.

PART ONE: CORE PRACTICE

U.S. institutions and fiduciaries paying or holding for beneficiaries abroad, and U.S. families with assets or heirs outside the United States.

1. U.S. Financial Institutions, Corporate Trustees, and Estates With Non-U.S. Beneficiaries

Distributions and payments to beneficiaries abroad

  • Withholding analysis on every distribution: determining whether a payment to a foreign beneficiary is FDAP or effectively connected, and what rate applies before the payment is released.
  • Treaty rate determinations: establishing entitlement to a reduced or zero rate under the applicable income-tax treaty, including limitation-on-benefits analysis and the documentation the institution must hold to support it.
  • Forms 1042, 1042-S, and 1042-T: preparing and reviewing the reporting that follows a distribution, reconciling it with Schedules K-1, and correcting prior-year filings.
  • Schedule K-1 versus 1042-S: handling reporting distributions from a U.S. estate or trust to a nonresident beneficiary.
  • Distributable net income and character tracing: allocating DNI across beneficiaries in different countries so that each receives the correct characterization and credit.
  • Backup withholding, TIN, and ITIN issues: obtaining ITINs for foreign beneficiaries, curing missing or invalid numbers, and avoiding the 24% backup withholding on distributions.

Documentation, classification, and account-level compliance

  • W-8 documentation files: building and auditing the W-8BEN, W-8BEN-E, W-8IMY, and W-8ECI files that support a reduced rate, including the treatment of hybrid entities, foreign trusts, and estates.
  • Presumption rules: advising on the consequences when documentation is missing, expired, or unreliable, and on the curing procedures available before a payment.
  • FATCA classification of estates, trusts, and family entities as FFIs, NFFEs, or exempt persons, including registration, GIIN, and reporting consequences.
  • Withholding-agent liability: assessing the institution’s own exposure for under-withholding, payment of US and overseas death-related taxes, interest, and penalties, and designing the controls that prevent it.
  • Account onboarding and periodic review for accounts with non-U.S. owners, beneficiaries, or signatories, integrated with the institution’s existing KYC process.
  • OFAC, sanctions, and AML screening of beneficiaries, payees, and counterparties before a distribution or transfer is made.

Fiduciary liability, release of assets, and estate closing

  • 31 U.S.C. §3713 personal liability: the fiduciary’s exposure for paying beneficiaries before the government, and the sequencing that avoids it.
  • IRC §6324 transferee and personal liability: the estate-tax lien, the long reach of transferee liability against beneficiaries abroad, and how a fiduciary protects itself.
  • Transfer certificates (IRS Form 5173): obtaining, and advising institutions that require, the certificate before U.S. securities, accounts, or other assets are released to a foreign estate.
  • Situs determinations for custodians and transfer agents: whether a given holding is U.S.-situs property whose release triggers estate-tax procedures.
  • Refunding agreements, waivers, indemnities, and holdbacks: drafting the instruments that let a fiduciary distribute while a foreign tax, claim, or filing remains open.
  • Discharge, closing, and record retention: the documentation that supports a fiduciary’s release when beneficiaries and assets are outside the United States.

Trust and estate administration with foreign parties

  • Probate proceedings involving foreign heirs, foreign wills, foreign forced-heirship claims, or absent beneficiaries.
  • Litigation involving foreign heirs, foreign wills or foreign forced-heirship claims.
  • Foreign beneficiaries of U.S. trusts: reporting, withholding, distribution planning, and the beneficiary’s home-country consequences, communicated in the beneficiary’s language where needed.
  • Non-U.S. settlors and grantors: the classification of the trust, the grantor-trust consequences, and the reporting the trustee owes while the settlor is living and after.
  • Foreign assets held by U.S. estates and trusts: FBAR and Form 8938 obligations, including the signature-authority exposure of individual trust officers.
  • Forms 3520 and 3520-A where a U.S. fiduciary or beneficiary deals with a foreign trust.
  • Successor and co-trustee arrangements across jurisdictions, and the migration, domestication, or decanting of a trust whose beneficiary base has moved abroad.

Institutional support

  • Standing counsel arrangements for trust companies, banks, broker-dealers, and family offices on the cross-border questions that recur in their books of business.
  • Policy, procedure, and control design: screening protocols, escalation paths, and distribution checklists for accounts with foreign connections.
  • File reviews and remediation: reviewing a portfolio of accounts or matters for unaddressed withholding, documentation, or reporting exposure, and correcting it.
  • Training for trust officers, operations, and compliance teams, delivered in-house or through the firm’s webinar programme.

2. Asset Planning and Estate Administration for HNWI and UHNWI With Overseas Assets or Overseas Beneficiaries

Structuring and asset planning

  • Global structure review: mapping a family’s holdings, entities, trusts, and residences across jurisdictions, identifying the exposures each creates, and producing a single plan rather than a set of unconnected local answers.
  • Tax-optimized holding structures for overseas assets: companies, partnerships, trusts, foundations, and direct ownership, weighed for U.S. income, estate, and gift tax and for the tax of every country involved.
  • Situs engineering: placing assets so that neither the United States nor a foreign jurisdiction taxes them twice, and so that transfer taxes fall where they are lowest.
  • Blocker and treaty-based structures for U.S. real estate and securities held by non-U.S. family members.
  • Liquidity planning for a transfer-tax liability that will fall due in one country while the assets sit in another, including life insurance and reserve arrangements.
  • Pre-transaction planning: restructuring before a sale, a move, a marriage, a liquidity event, or an expected inheritance, while the options are still open.
  • Concentrated and illiquid holdings: closely held businesses, real estate portfolios, art and collections, aircraft and vessels, and private-fund interests held across borders.

Wills, trusts, and succession instruments in coordination with local counsel in the jurisdictions where we are not licensed

  • Coordinated will structures: a worldwide will or separate situs wills, drafted so that the instruments in each country complement rather than revoke one another.
  • Trusts built to survive contact with civil law: structures that achieve the family’s aims in the United States without creating punitive treatment in Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Belgium, or the United Kingdom.
  • Forced-heirship and reserved-share planning: anticipating Pflichtteil, réserve héréditaire, and legittima claims and structuring so they do not derail the plan.
  • Marital property coordination: reconciling a foreign matrimonial regime, a marriage contract, and U.S. community- or separate-property rules before they collide at death.
  • Choice-of-law elections under the EU Succession Regulation and their interaction with U.S. instruments.
  • Non-citizen spouse planning: QDOTs, §2523(i) lifetime gifting limits, and the alternatives where a QDOT is unattractive.
  • Cross-border incapacity planning: U.S. powers of attorney and health-care directives coordinated with their foreign equivalents and tested for recognition on both sides.

Estate administration across borders

  • Full conduct of the U.S. side of an international estate settlement from marshalling assets and obtaining authority to filing tax returns and court reports, liquidating assets, paying debts, and distributing to beneficiaries.
  • Ancillary probate of U.S. property for a foreign decedent, especially including US real estate.
  • The release of U.S. accounts, securities to foreign beneficiaries.
  • US federal estate tax returns IRS Forms 706 and 706-NA: preparation, situs schedules, valuation, deductions, treaty positions, elections, and audit defense.
  • Double-taxation relief: foreign death-tax credits, treaty credits, and the ordering of reliefs so the family does not pay twice on the same asset.
  • Currency, valuation, and timing: exchange-rate conventions, alternate valuation, appraisals accepted in both systems, and the mismatched deadlines between them.
  • Distributions to heirs abroad: withholding, reporting, banking and transfer mechanics, and the recipient country’s tax and disclosure obligations.

Ongoing advice to families

  • Beneficiaries who move: re-planning when an heir relocates to or from the United States, takes a green card, or acquires a second nationality.
  • Next-generation planning: gifts, trusts, and legacies to the rising generation where children hold different citizenships or live in different countries.
  • Preparing the rising generation: guidance on helping the children and grandchildren become responsible stewards of the family wealth.
  • Family governance and reporting calendars: a consolidated schedule of every filing the family and its structures owe, in every country.
  • Compliance for the family’s own filings: FBAR, Forms 8938, 3520, 3520-A, 5471, and the PFIC treatment of foreign funds held or inherited.
  • Confidential remediation where past filings were missed, structured to preserve the reasonable-cause position before anything is filed late.
  • Periodic review: re-testing the structure against changes in law, residence, family composition, and asset mix, rather than leaving a finished plan to age.

PART TWO: SUPPORTING PRACTICE AREAS

The underlying technical work, available on its own or as part of a matter in Part One.

3. Estate Planning for Non-U.S. Persons With U.S. Assets

  • U.S. situs analysis: determining which assets are U.S.-situs for estate and gift tax purposes (real property, U.S.-corporation shares, tangible property, debt obligations, partnership interests) and which are not.
  • Nonresident estate-tax exposure planning: the $60,000 exemption, the graduated rates to 40%, and the structures that reduce or eliminate exposure before death.
  • Estate-tax treaty planning: treaty-based domicile and situs positions, prorated unified credit, and the relief available under the U.S. treaties with Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and others.
  • Beneficiary-side planning: structuring gifts and bequests to heirs living abroad so that the recipient country’s inheritance tax, reporting, and trust treatment are anticipated rather than discovered.
  • U.S. life insurance and annuities for nonresident aliens: situs treatment, beneficiary designations, and insurance used to fund a U.S. estate-tax liability.

4. U.S. Real Estate, Securities, and Investment Assets

  • U.S. real estate acquisition and holding structures for non-U.S. buyers: direct ownership, LLCs, corporations, partnerships, and trusts, handling income tax, estate tax, FIRPTA, privacy, and state law.
  • Closely held U.S. business interests with foreign heirs: S-corporation eligibility and inadvertent terminations, buy-sell arrangements, valuation, and liquidity.
  • FIRPTA planning and compliance: withholding on dispositions, withholding certificates, and FIRPTA in the estate and trust context.
  • U.S. securities portfolios for non-U.S. investors: the estate-tax trap in directly held U.S. stock, the portfolio-interest exemption, FDAP versus effectively connected income, treaty withholding rates, and limitation-on-benefits analysis.
  • Dividend-equivalent and substitute-payment withholding on derivative and securities-lending positions.
  • Art, collectibles, and tangible personal property: situs of tangibles, loans and exhibition, import and export, valuation, and collections that cross borders during life and at death.
  • Digital assets and cryptocurrency: situs and characterization, access and custody planning, and U.S.-platform holdings of nonresident owners.

5. U.S. Estate, Gift, and Generation-Skipping Transfer Tax

  • Form 706-NA: the nonresident U.S. estate-tax return, including situs schedules, deductions, treaty positions, and elections.
  • Form 706: returns for U.S. citizens and domiciliaries with foreign assets, foreign accounts, and foreign beneficiaries.
  • U.S. gift tax for nonresidents: the tangible/intangible distinction, gifts of U.S. real estate and cash, indirect gifts, and pre-transfer planning.
  • Lifetime gifting to a non-citizen spouse: the §2523(i) denial of the unlimited marital deduction and the annual exclusion available instead.
  • Generation-skipping transfer tax across borders: GST as applied to nonresident transferors, foreign trusts, and skip persons abroad.
  • Section 2801 tax on gifts and bequests received from covered expatriates.
  • Qualified disclaimers across borders: coordinating a U.S. disclaimer with foreign renunciation rules and deadlines.

6. Trusts across legal systems, in cooperation with local counsel in jurisdictions where we are not licensed

  • Recognition of trusts abroad: the Hague Trusts Convention, and the treatment of U.S. trusts in Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Belgium, and the United Kingdom.
  • Foreign grantor and nongrantor trust classification: the U.S. touchpoints, the control tests, and the consequences of each characterization.
  • Throwback rules and accumulation distributions: computing and mitigating the interest charge on U.S. beneficiaries of foreign trusts.
  • Trust migration, domestication, and decanting: moving situs or governing law, changing trustees, and fixing a structure that no longer fits the family.
  • QDOT planning and administration for non-citizen surviving spouses, including qualification, trustee requirements, and the deferred estate-tax charge.
  • Alternatives to trusts in civil-law systems: private foundations, usufruct arrangements, and life-estate equivalents.

7. Pre-Immigration Planning and Expatriation

  • Pre-immigration tax planning: the basis step-up window, accelerating gains and deferring losses, restructuring foreign entities and funds, and completing gifts before U.S. residence begins.
  • Visa, immigration status, and U.S. tax residency: the substantial-presence test, the green-card test, first-year elections, and treaty tie-breaker positions.
  • Changes caused by the permanent residence (green card): worldwide income and transfer-tax exposure, and the planning that should precede it.
  • Expatriation and the exit tax: §877A mark-to-market, covered-expatriate status, deferred compensation and trust interests, Form 8854, and the timing of renunciation.
  • Accidental Americans: establishing status, bringing filings current, and evaluating renunciation and its consequences for family members.
  • Relocation abroad: The impact of overseas tax regimes on US citizens moving abroad.

8. International Tax Compliance and Remediation

  • Foreign asset and account reporting: FBAR (FinCEN 114), Form 8938, and the signature-authority exposure of fiduciaries and officers.
  • Foreign trust and large-gift reporting: Forms 3520 and 3520-A, including late-filing and penalty-abatement work.
  • PFIC exposure: foreign mutual funds, ETFs, and insurance wrappers inherited or held by U.S. persons; QEF and mark-to-market elections; the excess-distribution regime.
  • Controlled foreign corporations: Subpart F, GILTI, §962 elections, and the treatment of a family company after the owner becomes a U.S. person.
  • Foreign pensions and life insurance: the U.S. treatment of foreign retirement arrangements, private placement life insurance, and foreign policies, including excise tax and reporting.
  • Corporate Transparency Act / FinCEN beneficial-ownership reporting as it applies to cross-border family structures.
  • Delinquency and remediation: streamlined procedures, delinquent-information-return submissions, reasonable-cause filings, and building the record before filing late.

9. Matrimonial Property and Succession Conflicts, in cooperation with local counsel where we are not licensed

  • Marital property characterization: how German, French, Swiss, Italian, and Belgian regimes (Zugewinngemeinschaft, communauté, participation aux acquêts, comunione dei beni) affect ownership, basis, and the U.S. estate.
  • Marriage contracts and régimes matrimoniaux: reviewing existing contracts and coordinating them with U.S. community-property and separate-property rules.
  • Forced heirship and reserved shares: planning around Pflichtteil, réserve héréditaire, and legittima, and the claims they generate against U.S. assets.
  • Usufruct and life estates: mapping civil-law usufruct onto U.S. concepts for tax, basis, and administration purposes.
  • EU Succession Regulation (Brussels IV): choice-of-law elections and their interaction with U.S. wills, trusts, and situs assets.
  • Conflict-of-laws opinions on which system governs succession to a given asset, and how the answers combine.

10. Retirement Accounts and Pension Assets, in cooperation with local counsel where we are not licensed

  • U.S. retirement accounts with foreign beneficiaries: IRA and 401(k) distributions, withholding, treaty rates, and the interaction with the SECURE Act payout rules.
  • Recipient-country taxation of U.S. retirement distributions in Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Belgium, and the United Kingdom, including credit and exemption mechanics.
  • Beneficiary designations across borders, including designations that conflict with forced-heirship or matrimonial-property rights.
  • Foreign pension arrangements held by U.S. persons: treaty relief, reporting, and the characterization of employer and personal schemes.

11. Recipient-Country Inheritance Tax and Country Desks, in cooperation with local counsel in the jurisdictions where we are not licensed

  • Germany: Erbschaft- und Schenkungsteuer, unlimited and limited tax liability, the ten-year rules, §15 AStG, Familienstiftung and Privatstiftung questions, and the U.S.–Germany estate and gift tax treaty.
  • France and Belgium: droits de succession, the trust regime and its reporting obligations, the U.S.–France estate tax treaty, and regional Belgian rules.
  • Switzerland: cantonal inheritance and gift taxes, the U.S.–Switzerland tax treaty, and the treatment of U.S. trusts and pensions.
  • Italy: imposta di successione, the flat-tax regime for new residents, and the treatment of U.S. trusts and distributions.
  • United Kingdom: inheritance tax, domicile and the residence-based regime, and the U.S.–U.K. estate and gift tax treaty.
  • Recipient-side duty to inform: the reporting and disclosure obligations that attach to an heir or beneficiary in the home country, and their deadlines.
  • Advice is available in English, German, and French.

12. Charitable and Philanthropic Planning

  • Cross-border charitable giving: obtaining a U.S. income, gift, or estate-tax deduction for gifts that benefit foreign causes.
  • Bequests to European charities from U.S. estates and trusts, including the §2055 requirements and the drafting that satisfies them.
  • Structures for international philanthropy: donor-advised funds, friends-of organizations, private foundations, and equivalency determinations.

13. State-Level U.S. Matters

  • State estate and inheritance taxes as they apply to nonresident and non-U.S. owners of property in Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia or California.
  • State income tax and residency questions for newly arrived and departing clients in the above states.
  • State probate, title, and transfer requirements for real property, vehicles, and tangible assets held in the above US states.

14. Services for Professional Advisers

Engagement models

  • Co-counsel: we supply the U.S. analysis and filings within your engagement; you keep the client relationship.
  • Referred U.S. counsel: the client engages us directly for the U.S. work, and we report to you throughout.
  • Coordinating counsel: we run the U.S. side end to end and coordinate foreign counsel, trustees, custodians, and accountants.
  • Discrete question or second opinion: a fixed scope and fee for limited issue engagements, such as a tax treaty position, liability regarding a proposed distribution, or a structure under review.

Practice support

  • Engagement and scope architecture for cross-border matters: allocating responsibility, documenting reliance, and managing professional-liability exposure.
  • Foreign-counsel coordination: engaging and instructing local counsel abroad, protecting privilege across borders (touch-base analysis, professional secrecy, Kovel and common-interest arrangements), and clearing conflicts on both sides.
  • Cross-border intake and risk-screening protocols: the screening questions, the flag-to-action workflow, and the re-screening triggers for a law, accounting, fiduciary, or financial-institution practice.
  • Serving as the escalation point when a cross-border flag is raised in your practice.

Education

  • Technical guides, books and articles for advisers, covering situs and treaty relief, trust recognition, withholding, PFICs, matrimonial-property regimes, cross-border estate settlements and tax-optimized asset structuring.
  • Webinar program and in-house training for financial institutions, trust companies, multi-family offices, as well as law and accounting firms.

How We Work

  • Defined scope in writing. Each firm opines only on its own law, with responsibilities and reliance documented at the outset.
  • Named deadlines. Every U.S. filing date is calendared with one firm responsible for it.
  • Coordinated, not duplicated: We work alongside existing advisers, in-house counsel, and local counsel abroad, or lead the U.S. analysis end to end, as the matter requires.
  • Institutional and recurring engagements are available on standing terms as well as matter by matter.
  • Fees quoted in advance, and fixed where the scope allows.
  • Three languages. Matters are handled in English, German, and French.

The firm is led by Caroline E. Ashford, PhD, JD. A graduate of Columbia University Law School, she has 17 years of experience advising clients in complex cross-border estate and tax matters. The firm’s lawyers are collectively licensed in California, Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia and Germany.

Ashford International Law PC

Washington, DC  ·  Los Angeles  ·  Munich

info@internationalestatelaw.com  ·  internationalestatelaw.com

This schedule describes the services the firm offers and is not legal or tax advice. It does not create an attorney–client relationship. Services are undertaken only on written terms of engagement.