We assist our clients with their tax affairs, in Monaco, France, and all over the world. In an international environment such as Monaco, the need to take into account different sets of tax rules can be a challenge for individuals and businesses. Our team is here to provide shrewd, reliable, solution-oriented advice.

The teams at Gordon S. Blair are specialists in tax planning and are able to call on in-depth knowledge of tax legislation in a large number of jurisdictions. We help our clients to resolve cross-border issues: creating legal vehicles, setting up and disposing of businesses, handling tax litigation, and more. We provide advice on tax compliance, strategy, and inspections, and the process of obtaining tax approval or putting your tax affairs in order.

Our services cover all areas of tax law, including the following.

Personal tax in Monaco or a multi-jurisdiction environment

The Principality is known for its attractive tax environment. We advise and assist our clients to ensure that their tax arrangements are properly managed and organised. This includes things like:

• Preparing for relocation, to your home country or to the Principality,
• Analysing tax treatment of future revenue streams, and the associated formalities,
• Assisting with administrative formalities.

We can also help in situations involving other jurisdictions and the field of international taxation.

Creation and development of commercial or self-employed businesses

The Principality is also an attractive place for setting up a commercial business or a freelance operation, either in the form of a company or as a sole trader. We advise and assist our clients in the following areas:

• Choosing the most suitable legal form
• Obtaining official authorisation
• Operational organisation (pay, etc.)
• Organisation and taxation of future revenue streams, in the Principality and abroad

Acquisitions

Although the Principality’s economy mainly consists of SMEs, there are numerous opportunities for corporate acquisitions or external growth, and we advise our clients on the best way to structure these operations for tax purposes. For doing so, we team up with our Business and Corporate law practice.

Holding or management structures

The Principality has always been attractive for family-owned groups and high net worth individuals. We have developed special expertise in the design and creation of legal structures typically suited to these clients, both in Monaco itself and abroad. We study the possible structures and recommend ways of optimising tax treatment for situations such as management of revenue and capital gains, or successions and partitions. In doing so, we always keep in mind not just tax impacts, but also issues of governance and protection.

• Single Family Offices
• Holding vehicles, trusts, foundations
• Private investment funds

A multidisciplinary approach

Our firm employs a multidisciplinary approach, rather than a simplistic and generalist one. We firmly believe that, given the increasing complexity of law and taxation, problems can best be resolved by specialist experts able to call on in-depth knowledge in different areas, working together in coordinated fashion. Thanks to the talents at our disposal, we are able to adopt exactly that approach. In the field of taxation, for example, we have experienced specialists in the following disciplines:

• Personal income tax
• Corporate income tax
• Registration duties
• VAT and other indirect taxes
• Inheritance tax
• International conventions and treaties
• Litigation

And when specific expertise in a foreign jurisdiction is needed, we are able to call on a network of trusted, reliable contacts.