Five Financial Matters to Consider When Moving to Ireland

So you’ve finally made the decision…. That new job opportunity or potential lifestyle change is simply too good to pass up. It’s time to move to Ireland.

Your life then becomes a whirlwind of ticking off the major items on your list. Where will you live, will you buy or rent, and what will you do with your existing house? What will the new job mean to your lifestyle, how will you travel to/from work and how will you integrate yourself quickly into your new organisation? When will you move the family over and deal with the challenges of changing schools, joining clubs and helping the kids to build their networks? And there are many more challenges to be considered alongside these.

Making the most of the changes in your financial life will feature highly on the list too. After all, this may be a great new job that is delivering a higher income. You want to ensure you leverage that. Or if you are moving for a slower pace of life, have you fully considered the financial implications of the move?

For people relocating to Ireland, we believe that there are five major areas of financial concern that you should consider before you make the move:

• Preserving your wealth. Your aim with wealth preservation is to produce the best possible investment returns consistent with your time frame and tolerance for risk. You need to fully understand the implications of potentially investing in Ireland as opposed to maintaining investments in your current jurisdiction – for example will the new tax environment be a beneficial impetus or a drag on your wealth?
• Enhancing your wealth. Your goal here is to minimise the tax impact on your financial position while ensuring the cash flow you need to meet your spending requirements now and in the future. Where and how are you best placed to grow your wealth?
• Taking care of heirs. This means finding and facilitating the most tax-efficient way to pass assets to your spouse and succeeding generations in ways that meet your wishes. There are different laws and taxes in different countries, the challenge for you is to make this work to your advantage.
• Protecting your wealth. This includes all concerns about protecting your wealth against catastrophic loss, potential creditors, litigants, and identity thieves. Know the risks and how they will best be managed.
• Charitable giving. This encompasses all issues related to fulfilling your charitable goals in the most impactful way possible. You may be able to make your legacy go further by optimal structuring in different countries. The time to consider this is long before you actually want to implement your generosity.

None of these five areas of concern stands in isolation from the rest. Wealth protection, for example, is often intertwined with wealth transfer needs. Charitable giving can often support goals in each of the other four areas. Relocating to Ireland from another country increases both the complexity of your situation and the opportunities for innovative financial planning solutions.

To be most effective, you need to deal with each area systematically, while maintaining an integrated approach to your overall financial picture. We call this comprehensive financial planning.

We are fortunate at Everlake to have deep experience in helping people manage their move to Ireland. I made that very move myself in 2008, coming to Ireland from the UK. With my own experiences, expertise and qualifications gained in both the Irish and UK markets, I’ve been fortunate to have the opportunity to advise numerous valued clients who have relocated to Ireland.