Working with Indian American families brings unique challenges that require atypical solutions. Please join us for an interactive discussion on estate and trust planning for Indian families with U.S. connections. Reshma Shah, Partner of Duane Morris in New York, and Bijal Ajinkya, Partner of Khaitan & Co. in India, will present on what you need to know and the questions you should be asking when working with Indian families.
The program will cover:
- Statistics and trends on India-U.S.
- The key tax considerations and foreign exchange remittance and repatriation rules for assets located in India
- How to plan for a future inheritance from family resident/domiciled in India
- How a U.S. person should plan for the disposition of assets in India
- How to handle U.S. assets when a U.S. citizen moves to India
- Tips & tricks when advising Indian American families
Speaker Biographies
Bijal Ajinkya is a senior partner in the Direct Tax, Private Client and Investment Funds practice groups at the law firm Khaitan and Co in the Mumbai office. As a Private Client practitioner, Bijal has varied experience in advising individuals and family businesses on succession planning, asset protection and cross border inheritance tax and investment planning, from a legal, regulatory and tax perspective. She has advised many family-owned organizations on creating frameworks for succession to wealth, leadership, and management. On the tax side, Bijal primarily focuses on international tax, structuring of inbound and outbound investments, tax structuring of flip, SPAC transactions, complex M&A tax negotiations, tax insurance, WNI insurance, and providing opinions on complex tax issues on international tax. In addition, she has immense experience in tax litigation matters with providing advice on unique litigation strategies and has been a lead advisor in many successful and path breaking tax litigations in India, including work on many successful international tax litigations in India. In addition, she has pioneered tax structures for investment funds, and she has also successfully represented several foreign institutional investors in relation to the issue of Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) before the Bombay High Court as well as been the lead counsel for the landmark case on international tax in India - Azadi Bachao Andolan. She is the first Indian qualified lawyer to be admitted as an international fellow to the The American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC) and is an acting steering committee member of Wealth Advisor's Forum, Asia Pacific.
Reshma Shah practices in the areas of tax, estate planning and the administration of estates and trusts, with particular emphasis on estate planning for high net worth individuals and families with cross-border connections. Her work also involves premarital agreements, foreign trusts, pre-immigration and expatriation planning, planning for the purchase of U.S. property by non-U.S. persons, asset transfers, and compliance with federal and state estate, gift, inheritance, and income tax returns. She also has extensive experience with clients disclosing overseas accounts through Voluntary Disclosures and Streamline submissions to the IRS. Reshma is a 2011 graduate of St. John's University School of Law and a magna cum laude graduate of The William E. Macaulay Honors College at The City College of New York. She is fluent in Gujarati and proficient in Hindi. She is a member of STEP.