Contribution-sale-relocation

A dedicated three-step tax scheme has been designed for individuals holding assets with a latent capital gain; willing to reinvest their profits into other activities and reduce taxes on capital gains normally owed: Capital contribution of the assets held by this individual to a company in exchange of shares (Step 1), sales of those assets by the this company to a third-party (Step 2), relocation of the individual to another country (Step 3). The objective is for this individual to beneficiate from a deferred taxation on the capital contribution and for this company to sell assets on a tax-free basis. The company will therefore be able to reinvest the price from the assets sales and the individual will only be taxed when received shares are subsequently sold. In domestic situations, this tax scheme only offers deferral of taxes on capital gains ; but combined with the individual relocation, it enables to drastically reduce if not totally suppress taxes. Since then, legislators and judges have clearly identified conditions defining tax abuse, have defined new rules related to capital contribution to companies controlled by the contributor and have implemented exit-tax mechanisms. Despite this new legal framework, the studied tax scheme is still of significant interest. Additionally, some aspects of the exit-tax might certainly be challenged in regards to European Union law and European fiscal conventions.