CURRENT ISSUES 2014-2015


Hungary


HUNGARY ENACTED A NEW CIVIL CODE, A LITTLE MORE THAN one year ago. It includes a number of interesting innovations,


and the trust is reshaped as a contract ...by which the settlor entrusts some assets to a trustee. There’s a statutory provision ensuring ring-fencing of the trust assets or settled assets. Of course they had to recreate all the main features of the trust by statute, so there’s something similar to tracing in the sense that, save the case of the bona fide purchaser for value, there’s some way for beneficiaries to recover property that a trustee may have misappropriated or wrongly transferred for no consideration or to somebody who ought to have been aware what the trustee was doing. For some reason the maximum


Cross-border wills


IF THE TESTATOR IS A GERMAN NATIONAL WHO IS habitually resident in Malaga in Spain, Spanish


duration of a Hungarian trust is 50 years. There’s a provision that again is quite significant in a civilian context. It expressly provides for Hungarian discretionary trusts and, there’s a notion of fiduciary duties which have to be described by statute, as clearly no equity could assist a Hungarian trustee in its dealings. This statutory regime, although in its infancy, looks reliable enough to be considered as an estate planning or wealth management arrangement. And the corresponding tax treatment is quite attractive. The approach of the Hungarian tax authorities to this new trust contract is again to treat it as a taxable entity in its own right. So a Hungarian trust is taxable on a worldwide basis on its income, and it is treated in the same way as a company, with a corporate income tax rate of 10% up to the equivalent of €1.6m in annual income and 19% in excess of that. That is potentially interesting... If the beneficiaries are not Hungarian residents, the situation is quite straightforward, because the tax withheld of 16% is the same as the personal income tax rate...


[ PAOLO PANICO, from COMING ONSHORE, (AMSTERDAM) ] 030


The ITPA Green Book 2016 www.itpa.org


For some reason the maximum duration of a Hungarian trust is 50 years.


succession law will apply, unless he makes a choice in favour of German law. Where the testator is a French and British dual national, who is habitually resident in London but domiciled in France, then French succession law will apply, because of a renvoi in Article 34, unless the testator makes a testamentary choice of English succession law. That is because the participating member states apply these rules also with regard to third countries like the UK. If the testator is a British national who is habitually resident in London and is domiciled in England, but owns real estate in Spain, then English succession law will apply for worldwide moveable assets, but Spanish succession law will apply for the Spanish real estate, unless the testator makes a testamentary choice in favour of English law.


[ DANIEL LEHMANN, from EU CROSS-BORDER


SUCCESSION, (BERLIN) ]


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152  |  Page 153  |  Page 154  |  Page 155  |  Page 156