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Portugal: overview of foundations under Portuguese tax law

2024; Oxford University Press; Volume: 30; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/tandt/ttae032

1752-2110

Nuno Cunha Barnabé, Maria Inês Assis, Joana Monteiro de Oliveira,

Finance, Taxation, and Governance

Abstract Portuguese Foundations are relatively new in Portuguese legal history. In this article, the authors provide an overview of the main characteristics of Portuguese Foundations as well as their legal and tax framework. The fact that Portuguese law requires foundations to necessarily have a social or public interest purpose makes these legal entities unattractive and thus, in Portugal, they are rarely used for wealth protection purposes and in family estate planning (apart from bequests for charitable purposes). However, with the increase in the number of foreigners who have become tax residents in Portugal in recent years and who are either founders or beneficiaries of foreign foundations, Portugal had inevitably to adapt and in 2015 introduced specific provisions on the taxation of income from this type of legal entity.