What does the Portuguese tax landscape look like in 2018?

Extreme investor optimism has been dealt a blow. But growth is still strong, inflation is still low, and our investment partners believe the equity-market correction is likely to be short-lived.

Investor sentiment had been extremely optimistic in recent months and markets overbought, but that is no longer the case. After last Thursday’s near-4% decline, the S&P 500 is now officially in correction territory, being down by more than 10% from its record high reached on 26 January. However, in the midst of this kind of market turbulence, it is particularly important to take a step back and consider the broader economic backdrop – growth is still strong and inflation is still low.

January is a good time to reflect on the previous 12 months and look ahead to what the coming year may bring. This should always include a review of your financial planning to ensure it is up-to-date and on track to protect your family’s long-term wealth.

Fund manager Neil Woodford has warned stock markets around the world are in a "bubble," citing bitcoin, ETFs, and yields on European junk bonds as "red lights."

Woodford made his name as a money manager by avoiding bank shares before the 2007 financial crash and by avoiding the tech sector before the tech sector's dotcom crash in 2001.

The first EU Blacklist finally revealed

The EU has put 17 jurisdictions on a blacklist: American Samoa, Bahrain, Barbados, Grenada, Guam, South Korea, Macau, Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Namibia, Palau, Panama, St Lucia, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates. However, when contrasting the revelations in the Paradise and Panama Papers about international tax schemes, exposing some of the intricate ways that the world's wealthy use to evade tax through offshore havens, it quickly becomes apparent that the EU has chosen to target countries with little economic or political weight.

Part nº3: Advantages of a Delaware LLC - the final part in a series providing an in-depth analysis of Delaware LLCs, by Dennis Swing Greene.

If you were offered £300,000 now or an inflation-proofed £10,000 a year for the rest of your life, what would you choose? 

This is a similar dilemma faced by many Britons with ‘final salary’ pensions. Often nicknamed ‘gold-plated’ pensions, these are where employers guarantee a minimum income throughout retirement, with yearly cost-of-living increases. But today many pension providers are offering non-retired members high pay-outs – ‘transfer values’ – in exchange for giving up those future rights.

With a portfolio approach that is global in nature, currency volatility is playing an important role in the reported returns to clients on a quarter-by-quarter basis. The last two years has seen some substantial US dollar, British pound and euro volatility as confidence in the respective economic regions ebbs and flows. This has a profound effect on how the overseas assets’ performance is reported in an investor’s base currency, based on their individual circumstances.