International Tax Unlocked

This is the first guide in the International Tax Unlocked series and is, in my opinion, essential reading for anybody interested in international tax planning.

It's a short guide (around 30 pages), but don't let that fool you. The aim of this guide is to give context to everything else that follows. Without understanding the information contained here, you will find it very difficult to apply or structure any kind of tax planning to your international transactions/assets.

I decided to write this short guide as I've seen too many books by supposed experts with no legal, tax or accounting credentials suggesting the tax benefits of using foreign companies or moving to low tax jurisdictions. There are certainly some tax benefits that can be obtained if you can navigate the strict anti-avoidance rules many jurisdictions have in place. But even if you can, this is in reality only half of the issue.

In essence, this guide looks at the interactions between different tax jurisdictions on your income and gains, how different countries tax your income and gains, how double taxation is avoided and how to use this to your advantage. It effectively provides a broad roadmap for how to analyze and assess international tax scenarios.

This guide is not tied to any specific jurisdiction and is therefore relevant irrespective of your current country of residence.

Whether you're based in the US, UK, Europe, Asia or the Middle East, the principles in this guide apply as a method to analyze international tax planning scenarios.

It includes a number of examples explaining a number of the issues, including from Austria, Canada, China, Armenia, Angola and India, as well as the Indonesia-Japan and Argentina-Denmark double tax treaties.
About the AuthorThe author of the "International Tax Unlocked" series is Lee J Hadnum LLB ACA CTA. Lee is a rarity among tax advisers having both legal and chartered accountant qualifications. After qualifying a prize winner in the Institute of Chartered Accountants exams, he also went on to become a chartered tax adviser (CTA).

He worked in Ernst & Youngs Entrepreneurial Services department for a number of years before setting up his own tax planning practice, where he specialized in international tax planning and had direct input in tax planning covering over 200 jurisdictions. He is now a full time tax author.