Charitable Bequests From France
Cross-border charitable planning is quite different from U.S. domestic charitable planning. Article 10 of the France–U.S. Estate and Gift Tax Treaty (Treaty)1 appears, at first reading, to do exactly what we want it to do: shield charitable gifts from tax even when the charity and the donor are on different sides of the Atlantic. In substance, Article 10 provides that a transfer to a qualifying legal entity organized in one contracting state (that is, in the United States or in France) may be exempt or fully deductible in the other contracting state if the transfer would have qualified had the entity been organized in the first contracting state, provided all Article 10 requirements are satisfied.2 For a donor domiciled in France leaving…
