An individual takes out life insurance in order to provide for his heirs and to obtain peace of mind. Tax treatment for the individual during life and the heirs is straightforward when everyone resides in one country. But when a life insurance policy is written in France and the insured or the heirs are U.S. citizens or residents, what the policy holder, his estate, or the beneficiaries may encounter is anything but peace of mind. To their chagrin, each may find that he or she is in the crosshairs of contrary laws in two countries resulting in sub-optimal tax results. In their article, Sophie Borenstein, of attorneys Klein Wenner in Paris, Neha Rastogi, and Stanley C. Ruchelman discusses the French and U.S. tax rules applicable to a French life insurance policy. Grown men have cried over less complicated matters.

· Ruchelman P.L.L.C. actively participates in the extern arrangement for students in the LLM Program at New York Law School. We provide real life professional experience to the extern and the extern receives two credits towards his or her degree requirement. Our younger lawyers benefit by providing hands-on supervision of the extern, a needed step in professional development. Recently, we expanded our extern program to include European externs and trainee lawyers. Lioba Mueller spent two months with us as an extern, sponsored by the University of Bonn. She also qualified for a PROMOS scholarship, offered by the German Academic Exchange Service, under the German Ministry of Education and Research. In her article, Ms. Mueller tells of her experience in the U.S., both professionally with us and socially with others. Our experience with Ms. Mueller is that doing a good deed is, indeed, its own reward.

Publications

Other Publications

Insights

Publications

French Life Insurance “101” – For U.S. Persons, Run Away

Off to New Shores: Tax Extern at Ruchelman P.L.L.C.

RUCHELMAN

services

Resources

news & events