When you move from one country to another, it is very important to plan ahead to ensure your income and assets will be structured as tax efficiently as possible. Leaving it until you arrive in your new country may be too late for some tax planning opportunities and you may pay more tax as a result. This applies whether you are moving from the UK (or elsewhere) to Portugal, as well as if you are moving back to the UK.

While right now you may have no plans to return to the UK, circumstances may change, sometimes unexpectedly. Many UK nationals do return at some point. Often the surviving spouse will return after the death of their partner. If and when you do decide to return, the most important tax tip I can give you is that you need to do careful planning in advance of your return.

Banco Português de Investimento (BPI) today paid off its debt to the Portuguese treasury with a €420 million transfer.

The bank accessed an emergency loan of €1.2 billion at the start of the economic crisis in 2012.

In the UK, speculation is growing about when interest rates will finally rise. Here in Europe, the European Central Bank (ECB) has made a historic move in the opposite direction and introduced negative interest rates.

At its meeting on 5th June, the ECB unanimously voted to cut its deposit interest rate from 0% to -0.1% — the first time a main central bank moved interest rates into negative territory.

João Rendeiro, the disgraced founder of Banco Privado Português (BPP) and two other managers are accused of aggravated fraud and the Public Prosecutor is looking for at least five years in jail for each of the men.

BPP started to unravel back in 2009 when a Bank of Portugal enquiry started to look into Rendeiro’s role in the bank’s liquidity crisis and uncovered a matrix of offshore companies used to support the share price of the bank.

An accountant within the BES Group claimed today that the company's accounts have been dodgy since 2008.

Francisco Machado da Cruz intimated that the former top man at BES, Ricardo Salgado, was responsible for la grande fudge regarding the €1.3 billion in liabilities recently unearthed at Espirito Santo International.

Switzerland’s centuries’ old tradition of banking secrecy is coming to an end. It has pledged to collect tax related information from its financial institutions and automatically share the data with other governments each year.

Switzerland is the world’s biggest offshore centre, with $2 trillion in assets. Its prized banking secrecy has been slowly eroded under international pressure to increase tax transparency, particularly since the global financial crisis had governments looking for ways to increase tax revenue.

Many savers are burying their heads in the sand as they are confused by what’s happening within the financial market and global economy.  Inflation rates are high, bank interest rates are low, government bonds no longer seem safe and the stock market is too volatile, so what should you do with your money?

The Portuguese Non Habitual Resident regime (NHR) has been attracting both pensioners and high level professionals who are benefiting from reduced taxes.

Under this scheme professionals are paying a flat rate of 20% on their salary or self-employed income received in Portugal whilst pensioners are enjoying their tax exemptions!