Here today, gone tomorrow?

2018 has brought good news for many expats tackling the idiosyncrasies of finance in Spain and, especially for those who want to manage their legacy planning successfully.

This is because British and other EU citizen expatriates in Spain have received a boost in relation to succession tax laws.

Under the Spanish regional system, expats in Spain (but not those from outside the EU or EEA) can avoid costly Spanish state succession rules on passing; instead they are able to take advantage of kinder regional laws, such as those just implemented by Murcia and Andalucía.

In these areas, if you have Spanish assets but have not quite yet become a fully-fledged expat or indeed if you have Spanish property but still reside full-time in the UK; your heirs, wherever they may live, are entitled to the full range of succession tax reliefs offered by the region in which your assets are invested. Sometimes this may be as much as 99% succession tax relief or, in some cases, total exemption.

Labour MP for Islington South and Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry has published an article for Politics Home in which she calls for greater pensions freedoms for public sector workers.*

Written as part of her failed leadership campaign, the article named five major policy areas she felt the party needs to address in the future: climate crisis, the NHS, Social Care, affordable housing, and pensions.

In fact, the article was largely concerned with the issue of public sector pensions as Ms Thornberry warned that the country faced a “ticking time-bomb” in respect of the sums which will become payable in future decades. She quoted a 2017 estimate which suggested that public sector pension liabilities had a £1.7 trillion shortfall. She said that the public currently spends around £40 billion a year meeting this gap.