Private Foundation (Asset Protection)

A private foundation is a legal entity without shareholders and without owners. It holds assets under a charter written by the founder and distributes them to beneficiaries according to that charter.

The core effect for asset protection: the assets no longer belong to you. They belong to the foundation. A creditor, a divorce court or a hostile authority has to attack the foundation, not you, and in the right jurisdiction that is hard.

Panama, Liechtenstein and a few other countries have foundation laws written for exactly this purpose. A Panama Private Interest Foundation is the classic tool in our practice: no owner, no public register of beneficiaries, and fast to set up.

A foundation is not a tax trick and not a hiding place. Depending on your Tax Residency / Tax Domicile, transparency rules may attribute the assets back to you for tax purposes. The protection works, the taxation follows your residency.

Foundations also solve succession. The charter decides who receives what and when, across borders and without probate in several countries.

Whether a foundation, a trust or a simple holding company fits your case depends on the assets, the family and the countries involved. We look at that in the free initial consultation.