Key terms, defined precisely.
Sovereign planning accumulates jargon that obscures more than it clarifies. These definitions reflect how we use these terms — grounded in legal and analytical reality, not marketing language.
A U.S. citizen or long-term permanent resident who meets one or more of three tests under IRC 877A at expatriation — triggering mark-to-market exit tax on worldwide assets.
Risks that arise not from any individual planning decision, but from the relationship between decisions made across different advisory disciplines — invisible from within any single domain.
The process by which a jurisdiction's openness to residents, investors, or citizens-by-descent contracts through incremental administrative changes rather than dramatic policy announcements.
The structural shape of a family's jurisdictional footprint — mapping how citizenship, residency, tax, and asset positions create or eliminate single points of failure.
The discipline of structuring citizenship, residency, tax obligations, and asset location across multiple jurisdictions to reduce single-point-of-failure dependencies on any one national system.
Two distinct legal concepts determining a government's jurisdiction over income and estate — often conflated, always consequential, never interchangeable in cross-border planning.
Precise language is the foundation of defensible advice.