Author: Svěřenské fondy a trusty

We would like to highlight an excellent article from Forbes magazine on this topic.

The advice in the article (which unfortunately is in English only) is tailored for the US market but is all equally applicable to Czech trusts.

You can find the full article here.

As you know, part of our work involves helping families secure the financial well-being of disabled children and other family members. We work with a number of non-profit organizations to educate and help their clients.

We are delighted to have been invited to present at the conference organized by the Ombudsman and Charles University on the Practical Implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The conference takes place on 22-23 November in Brno. Our presentation is on the Friday afternoon.

For more information on the conference, click here. If you are interested in attending the conference you can register here.

As you will be aware, there are new legal requirements in relation to the record keeping and registration of beneficial owners for both companies and trusts.

Join the members of the APRSF and experts Karel Rada and Jan Pavelka from law firm Pavelka s.r.o. At the seminar we will discuss key issues around these new legal requirements including answers to the following questions:

• Who are the beneficial owners of a company?
• Who are the beneficial owners of a trust?
• How should beneficial ownership be documented?
• What are the record keeping requirements for companies and trusts?
• What are the consequences of failure to keep the necessary records?
• What is the register of beneficial ownership?
• Do I need to register? And what are the consequences if I don’t

The seminar will be held in the Czech language at 17.00 on Wednesday, November 14th at the offices of PwC Czech Republic, City Green Court, Hvězdova 1734/2c, 140 00 Praha

The seminar will be followed by an opportunity to network over wine and nibbles.
The seminar is free, but we do ask you to register your attendance by email to info@trusty.cz

Here is some recent media coverage of our company and our team members:

 

Svěřenské fondy přišly o své tajemství. Banky jim přesto dál nevěří
Online ● Ekonom ● 11. 10. 2018 Vydavatel: Economia, a.s. ● Autor: Alžběta Vejvodová

 

Evidence nepomohla. Banky svěřenským fondům dál nevěří
Online ● Právní rádce ● 7. 9. 2018 Vydavatel: Economia, a.s. ● Autor: Alžběta Vejvodová

 

Evidence nepomohla. Banky svěřenským fondům dál nevěří
Tisk ● Právní rádce ● 7. 9. 2018 Vydavatel: Economia, a.s. ● Autor: Alžběta Vejvodová

 

If your trust was allocated a tax identification number before it was registered on the register of trusts, it is likely that the tax authorities have, or soon will, issue a new replacement identification number to ‘match’ the identification number from the register of trusts.

You may have already received a letter from the tax office or will receive one soon.

We never enjoy getting registered letters from the tax office, but if you get one in the next few weeks, do not be nervous – it’s probably just boring paperwork and nothing scary.

 

 

As you are probably aware, we run seminars every three months for trustees and trust advisers together with Deloitte and J&T Family office.  These seminars are endorsed by and lead to APRSF accreditation.

These seminars are of course normally delivered in Czech.  However, we have always offered to deliver the course in English given sufficient demand.  We now have some demand so if we can attract one or two more participants, we’ll be running the course IN ENGLISH ON 3 – 4 DECEMBER.

This is an intensive course suitable both for professionals who want to improve their ability to advise clients on trusts and also for people acting in the role of trustee. The course provides an in-depth understanding of the structure, history and practical applications of Trusts in the Czech Republic as well as detailed coverage of the duties and obligations of trustees.

This course is designed for:

• People who are considering, or have accepted, appointment as trustee of a Czech trust
• Lawyers, financial advisers, notaries and others who would like a core knowledge of trusts – suitable for providing clients with advice
• Anyone else seeking a more in-depth knowledge and understanding of trusts in the Czech Republic

For trustees, in most cases (depending on the terms of your trust documents) the cost of the course can be legitimately expensed to the trust.

Click here to download the full course syllabus, pricing, and registration details.  To register or if you have any questions, email us.  Don’t miss this chance as it’s likely to be four years or so until we do this again!

As part of our service, we aim to keep you informed of changes to the law which affect trusts.

There have been some developments that trustees should be aware of and which require action. In particular, two things:

 

Obligation to Maintain Records on Beneficial Ownership

Since 1 January 2018, all trusts have been obliged to maintain and keep updated records to ascertain and verify identity of their beneficial owners.

This is done by way of a declaration of the trustees which is held on the minute book of the trust.

We have previously advised our clients about this obligation.

If your trust does not hold this declaration on file, it is already a legal requirement to do so. If you need help in preparing this declaration, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

 

Register of Beneficial Ownership Information

The amendment to AML Act significantly changes Act No. 304/2013 Coll., on public registers of legal entities and natural persons by establishing a new public register concerning beneficial ownership data of legal entities registered in the Czech Republic. This is a new register (in addition to the register of trusts, which we have already discussed).

The Register of Beneficial Owners is being established as non-public register maintained by the Registry Court. This means that the data from the Register of Beneficial Owners will not be publicly available.

Although the wording of the amendment to AML Act is not clear as to the deadline for you to register your trust on this new register, the most common interpretation presumes that existing trusts will be obliged to notify the data to the Register of Beneficial Owners before 1 January 2019. In addition, our understanding is that registration is free of charge this year but from next year, fees will apply.
For this reason, we now recommend that you take action by registering your trust on the register of beneficial owners.

This can be done in two ways:

1. Do it yourself at https://issm.justice.cz/. We have already registered some trusts and did not find the process especially onerous, although as usual with public bodies, notarised signatures are required, or
2. You can ask us to register your trust for you. As this is a non-standard activity for us, we are forced to charge an additional time-based fee for this, which in most cases (ie. without complications) we anticipate will be approximately 1000 CZK.

If you have any questions about any of the above, please don’t hesitate to let us know.

As a founding member of APRSF, the Association for the Support and Development of Trust Funds, we are happy to share with you some information on a forthcoming free APRSF educational seminar.

The theme of the seminar is privacy – and especially how it impacts on Czech (and other) trusts, including CRS (the Common Reporting Standard)

The seminar is on Wednesday 19 September and you can find more information about it here.

APRSF Seminar for Trustees and Advisers – 18-19 October 2018

 

We are running our next two day seminar in October.  The seminar will be delivered in Czech.

Click here for more information on the seminar.

 

 

 

Here is some recent media coverage of our company and our team members:

 

Asociace: Na registraci svěřenského fondu zbývá poslední den
Online ● blesk.cz (Bulvár) ● 28. 6. 2018
Vydavatel: CZECH NEWS CENTER, a.s. ● Autor: ČTK

 

Končí lhůta pro zápis svěřenských fondů do nového rejstříku
Online ● bydlet.cz (Bydlení a zahrada) ● 29. 6. 2018, 14:38
Vydavatel: AliaWeb, spol. s r.o

Zanikly dvě stovky svěřenských fondů
Tisk ● Právo; str. 17 (Zprávy) ● 3. 7. 2018
Vydavatel: BORGIS, a.s. ● Autor: Jakub Svoboda

 

Zanikly dvě stovky svěřenských fondů
Online ● novinky.cz (Zprávy) ● 8. 7. 2018, 22:34
Vydavatel: BORGIS, a.s. ● Autor: Jakub Svoboda

 

Dobře utajené fondy
Tisk ● Euro; str. 24 (Ekonomika, finance, právo) ● 9. 7. 2018
Vydavatel: Mladá fronta, a.s.

 

Češi podceňují ochranu majetku. Předmanželská smlouva nestačí
Online ● domaci.ihned.cz (Zprávy) ● 11. 7. 2018, 0:29
Vydavatel: ECONOMIA, a.s. ● Autor: Alžběta Vejvodová

 

Velká část svěřenských fondů je stále anonymní, i když platí nový
zákon
Online ● euro.cz (Ekonomika, finance, právo) ● 11. 7. 2018, 0:04
Vydavatel: Mladá fronta, a.s. ● Autor: Petr Weikert

Češi podceňují ochranu majetku. Předmanželská smlouva nestačí
Tisk ● Hospodářské Noviny; str. 8 (Zprávy) ● 11. 7. 2018
Vydavatel: ECONOMIA, a.s. ● Autor: Alžběta Vejvodová,

 

Češi podceňují ochranu majetku. Předmanželská smlouva nestačí
Online ● pravniradce.ihned.cz (Ekonomika, finance, právo) ● 12. 7. 2018, 7:09
Vydavatel: ECONOMIA, a.s. ● Autor: Alžběta Vejvodová

Most trusts are set up for families – by parents or grandparents for the benefit of children, grandchildren and future generations. They are set up for private purposes and there usually isn’t an intention to benefit charities – or at least not as a primary focus.

But charities are still relevant to these families. What happens for example if all the members of the family die? Hopefully of course this never happens – but sadly it does happen from time to time. In such cases, where all the beneficiaries have died, the money would normally go to the Czech state.

We have so far never met a client who would like this to happen! For this reason, a well-drafted trust will always include a charity or charities as ‘beneficiaries of last resort’. This means that, if the unthinkable happens, your money will at least end up going to a good cause.

Sadly, and rather surprisingly, this outcome has already happened for one of our clients.  The good news is that UNICEF is now 367,300 better off, with another charity, Nadace Partnerstvi getting a similar amount.

You can read what UNICEF wrote about this here.

Here is some recent media coverage of our company:

 

Asociace: Letos vznikly desítky nových svěřenských fondů
Online ● blesk.cz ● 15. 3. 2018, Publisher: CZECH NEWS CENTER, a.s. ● Author: ČTK

 

 

Svěřenských fondů dál přibývá
Print ● E15; Page. 6 (News) ● 16. 3. 2018, Publisher: CN Invest, a.s.

 

 

Britská firma ovlivňovala volby, prý i v Česku
Print ● Týden; pages. 10, 11 (News) ● 26. 3. 2018, Publisher: EMPRESA MEDIA, a.s. ● Author: Pavel Cechl

 

 

V novém rejstříku je zatím jen minimum svěřenských fondů, zápis do
něj drhne. Chybí i Babišovy fondy
Online ● domaci.ihned.cz (News) ● 13. 4. 2018, Publisher: ECONOMIA, a.s.

 

V novém rejstříku je zatím jen minimum svěřenských fondů, zápis do
něj drhne
Online ● pravniradce.ihned.cz (Economics, finance, law) ● 16. 4. 2018, Publisher: ECONOMIA, a.s. ● Author: Táňa Králová