There is no vaccine for asset holding structures against changes in economic, tax and personal circumstances. After addressing in recent years new rules on taxation and transparency, international clients now face the significant challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic and fiscal policy interventions which will follow.

WBD private wealth partner Neil Long has been featured in the prestigious Citywealth TOP 100 Trust Litigators List 2020, a guide which recognises individuals who have excelled in litigation and showed great skill in lateral thinking and in negotiating with opponents.

It seems that a burgeoning deficit is one of the more guaranteed results of the UK government's extensive support packages to prop up our economy in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The media is now replete with speculation about how Government may seek to address this, including through tax policy changes. In this article we briefly summarise some of the recent crystal-ball gazing on how tax policy may develop, together with highlighting some initial suggestions about how clients might seek to prepare.

For most of the British population, this year's Budget probably appears both irrelevant and overtaken by events. Irrelevant because it contained very few new measures which will directly impact the individual taxpayer, and overtaken by events because it came at a time when the nation was poised on the brink of the Coronavirus outbreak, which has seen dramatic changes to every walk of life in a matter of weeks.