This article comes from Figaro Magazine
Every year, a certain number of wealthy taxpayers decide to move to a foreign country, fleeing French taxation which they consider too confiscatory.
The temptations are great at our doors: Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal, Greece, Malta and many other countries are reaching out to them.
On paper, the advantages of tax offshoring can be attractive.
But in reality, this exile sometimes proves difficult to bear.
Some end up getting bored on the shores of Lake Geneva, in Brussels or Singapore, far from their family, so far from their friends.
Tax exiles suffer from a common pathology: homesickness... Seemingly, over the years, they return to France a little more often than they should, playing a game of cat and mouse with the tax administration, scrupulously paying their expenses in cash and disconnecting their mobile phones with the air of a secret agent, so as not to leave traces of their increasingly regular visits to France.
Some even end up spending more time in France than in the country where they officially declared their tax domicile, or even no longer living there at all.
However, the tax authorities are waiting for fraudsters around the corner.
“
It’s a particularly dangerous game,”
warns lawyer Philippe Kenel, a specialist in tax, estate and asset planning, and more particularly in the relocation of wealthy people to Switzerland and Belgium within the Swiss firm Python, based in particular in Geneva, Lausanne, Brussels and even Doha.
Personally, I refuse to work with people who are considering a fictitious relocation.
I have always been a fervent defender of freedom...
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