FRANCE—French assimilation of foreign private foundations, trust or sui generis entity: current situation and outlook

Private foundations are quite common in some jurisdictions as a means to hold assets for the benefit of third-party beneficiaries. When there is some sort of nexus with France, currently, the French tax authorities apparently consider that these entities are assimilated to a trust, with all the French adverse tax consequences that come with it. The authors suggest a different interpretation, to consider private foundations as so-called sui generis organisms. Only an explicit court decision on the matter will likely settle this question for good.