Private foundations in Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland

Wealth planning is the service of managing assets of wealthy clients while structuring it, preserving, transferring to the successors, optimizing and protecting from fragmentation. Nowadays, the allocation of wealth has become more international and, therefore, raises the profile of legal and tax advice in terms of wealth planning. Wealth planning in used for the variety of reasons such as to solve family disputes regarding family assets, to preserve privacy of the family members and so to ensure family's reputation and safety. The concept of private foundation as a tool of legal protection of assets gives certain advantages to the (U) HNWI in order to control their assets. The proposed work examines the legal structure of private foundations in Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland as these jurisdictions offer unique environment for such actions providing requisite services such as legal advice and banking services within politically and economically stable society. This work also aims for revealing the peculiarities of the private foundations as a legal instrument for wealth planning purposes, their advantages over other means of wealth protection.