Bespoke inheritance tax planning and cross-border wealth optimization for UHNW families across Dubai, Geneva, Hong Kong, London, and Singapore. Independent, discreet, and strategically aligned with your legacy goals.
Sphere Private delivers bespoke global tax optimization and private wealth tax planning solutions — structured around trust, insurance, and cross-border strategies for high-net-worth families worldwide.
Bespoke Tax Efficiency for Significant Wealth. Across Every Jurisdiction That Matters.
For ultra-high-net-worth individuals, families, and family offices, tax is never a simple equation. It is a multi-layered challenge that spans residency, domicile, asset ownership, corporate structures, and succession frameworks across multiple countries simultaneously. A decision made in London can trigger consequences in Geneva. A trust established in Singapore must be understood in the context of Hong Kong reporting obligations. An inheritance in Dubai may have tax implications in the home jurisdiction of the beneficiary.
At Sphere Private, we understand that every client’s journey is unique. We provide bespoke inheritance tax planning solutions and broader private wealth tax planning advisory that preserves wealth, maximizes the legacy passed on to future generations, and ensures that every structure we design is fully compliant, robustly documented, and strategically aligned with your long-term objectives.
We serve discerning clients across Dubai · Geneva · Hong Kong · London · Singapore — five of the world’s most significant wealth centers, each with its own distinct tax and regulatory landscape.
The global tax environment for high-net-worth individuals has changed fundamentally over the past decade. Information exchange agreements including FATCA and the OECD Common Reporting Standard (CRS) have made financial transparency mandatory across most major jurisdictions. At the same time, several key markets have introduced or are reforming their inheritance and estate tax regimes in ways that directly affect UHNW clients.
In the United Kingdom, recent Budget reforms have extended inheritance tax (IHT) to previously exempt pension assets and tightened non-domicile rules, creating a significantly more demanding planning environment for internationally mobile families. UK IHT receipts reached record highs in 2025, with HMRC collecting over £8 billion annually — a figure that continues to grow as asset values rise and planning gaps remain unaddressed.
In Asia, Singapore and Hong Kong operate without inheritance or capital gains taxes for most clients, making them attractive bases for long-term wealth structuring. However, families based in these centers who hold assets in multiple jurisdictions must carefully coordinate their structures to avoid inadvertently triggering tax exposure elsewhere — particularly where the UK, EU, or US estate and gift tax regimes apply.
For clients in Dubai and the wider UAE, the zero personal income tax environment is compelling — but internationally mobile families must navigate the interaction of UAE-based structures with home-country tax rules, especially as treaty networks and reporting requirements evolve.
Against this backdrop, proactive, coordinated global tax optimization is not an option. It is a necessity for any family serious about preserving the full value of what they have built.
Sphere Private’s tax optimization and planning advisory is deliberately integrated with our specialist life insurance and wealth structuring expertise. This integration is important because the most effective tax planning at the UHNW level does not treat tax in isolation — it coordinates tax efficiency with estate liquidity, succession structures, asset protection, and long-term family governance.
Our private wealth tax planning services cover the following core areas:
Inheritance tax represents one of the most significant and avoidable threats to generational wealth transfer. Sphere Private provides bespoke inheritance tax planning solutions that are individually designed around each client’s asset base, family structure, domicile, and cross-border exposures.
Life insurance is one of the most powerful and underutilized tools in inheritance tax planning. When properly structured — typically held via a trust or foundation outside the taxable estate — a life insurance policy can provide immediate, tax-free liquidity to pay IHT or estate tax liabilities without forcing the sale of family businesses, real estate, or investment portfolios at the worst possible moment.
For UK-exposed clients, this is particularly relevant. The standard 40% IHT rate applies to estates above the threshold, and the tax is typically due within nine months of death. Without a pre-positioned liquidity solution, heirs may face forced asset sales that destroy value and disrupt business continuity. A properly sized life insurance policy, held in an irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT) or equivalent structure, eliminates that risk entirely.
Sphere Private works closely with clients’ legal and tax advisers to ensure that life insurance structures are fully coordinated with their broader inheritance tax planning framework — not placed in isolation, but integrated as a precision instrument within a cohesive plan.
For internationally mobile families and business owners, tax efficiency requires more than one-country planning. It requires the careful coordination of residency, domicile, asset ownership, and structuring decisions across multiple jurisdictions — in a way that minimizes leakage without triggering compliance risk or reputational concern.
Sphere Private’s cross-border tax optimization advisory covers:
One of the most complex challenges in family wealth planning is ensuring that an estate can be distributed fairly among heirs — particularly when key assets such as a family business, property portfolio, or operating company cannot easily be divided.
Sphere Private offers tailored inheritance equalization strategies designed to ensure a fair and harmonious distribution of wealth among heirs, using life insurance as the equalization instrument. Where one heir inherits illiquid business assets, life insurance proceeds can provide equivalent value to other beneficiaries in cash — outside the estate, tax-efficiently, and without requiring the sale or fragmentation of core holdings.
This approach is increasingly being adopted by family offices and multigenerational enterprises in Hong Kong, Singapore, and London, where businesses and property portfolios form the dominant portion of family wealth and equal division would otherwise be commercially destructive.
Sphere Private also advises on retirement planning solutions that combine security, stability, and flexibility while protecting wealth and providing for future generations. For internationally mobile clients, coordinating retirement income structures across multiple tax systems requires careful attention to residency, treaty positions, and the tax treatment of pension and annuity income in each relevant country.
Life insurance-based retirement solutions — including certain universal life and indexed universal life structures — can provide tax-deferred cash value accumulation during the wealth-building years and tax-efficient income or legacy transfer at retirement or death, depending on the applicable framework. These solutions are particularly relevant for clients in Dubai and Singapore, where the absence of domestic income tax creates an attractive environment for accumulating value within a compliant insurance wrapper over the long term.
Sphere Private’s global tax planning advisory is calibrated to the specific regulatory and tax environment of each of our five primary markets.
The UAE’s zero personal income tax and favorable double tax treaty network make it an exceptional base for wealth optimization. For Dubai-based clients, Sphere Private’s focus is on coordinating UAE-based structures — including DIFC and ADGM foundations, holding companies, and life insurance — with any home-country tax obligations, ensuring that the UAE’s advantages are fully captured within a compliant and durable framework.
Switzerland’s reputation for precision private banking and tax structuring makes Geneva a center for some of the most sophisticated inheritance and estate planning in the world. Sphere Private works alongside Swiss legal and tax advisers to integrate life insurance and PPLI structures within Geneva-based wealth plans, addressing both Swiss cantonal tax considerations and the cross-border obligations of internationally mobile clients.
Hong Kong’s absence of capital gains tax, inheritance tax, and withholding tax on dividends makes it one of the most tax-efficient jurisdictions in Asia for family office structuring. Sphere Private supports Hong Kong-based families in leveraging Family-owned Investment Holding Vehicle (FIHV) structures alongside life insurance to optimize both tax efficiency and succession governance — particularly for families with Mainland China connections.
London presents the most complex tax planning environment of our five markets, particularly for UK-domiciled and UK-resident clients facing IHT, CGT, and the reformed non-dom regime. Sphere Private works alongside London-based tax counsel to design life insurance-based IHT solutions — including ILIT structures, business property relief analysis, and estate liquidity strategies — that address both current and future tax exposure in a fully documented, HMRC-compliant framework.
Singapore’s Philanthropy Tax Incentive Scheme, family office tax exemptions under Sections 13O and 13U, and the absence of estate duty combine to make it one of the most planning-friendly jurisdictions in Asia. Sphere Private helps Singapore-based families integrate life insurance and cross-border structures that maximize local tax benefits while ensuring that international reporting obligations are fully met.
Sphere Private’s tax optimization and planning advisory is always delivered as part of a fully integrated wealth planning engagement. We do not provide standalone tax advice — our role is to design and place the life insurance and wealth structuring solutions that sit at the implementation layer of a client’s tax plan, working in close collaboration with their appointed lawyers, accountants, and tax advisers.
This collaboration is one of Sphere Private’s defining strengths. With over 20 years of experience and more than 500 cross-border transactions completed across our five markets, we have built trusted relationships with private banks, trustees, legal counsel, and tax advisers across the globe — relationships that allow us to move quickly, coordinate effectively, and deliver outcomes that are technically rigorous and commercially optimal.
Our independence from any single insurer or institution means that the structures we recommend are selected solely on the basis of suitability for each client’s specific tax, legal, and planning context. We access the full global insurance market — including specialist carriers in Bermuda, Isle of Man, Singapore, and Switzerland — to identify the most appropriate vehicle for each client’s objectives.
Sphere Private’s tax optimization and planning advisory delivers the greatest value for clients who:
Preserving the full value of what you have built — for yourself, your family, and future generations — begins with a conversation. Sphere Private’s advisory team, led by Founder and Managing Director Imran Khan and supported by General Counsel and Head of Compliance Salah Mattoo , is ready to discuss your global tax planning needs with complete discretion and technical precision.
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Serving clients in Dubai · Geneva · Hong Kong · London · Singapore
Global tax optimization for high-net-worth individuals is the process of structuring assets, ownership vehicles, and wealth transfers across multiple jurisdictions in a way that minimizes unnecessary tax leakage — including inheritance tax, estate tax, capital gains tax, and withholding taxes — while remaining fully compliant with applicable reporting and disclosure requirements.
Sphere Private provides bespoke inheritance tax planning solutions built around each client’s specific asset base, domicile, family structure, and cross-border exposures. Our approach integrates high-value life insurance — held via trusts or foundations outside the taxable estate — with legal and tax advisory to create immediate, tax-efficient liquidity that pays estate liabilities without forcing the sale of core family assets.
Yes. When structured correctly — typically held within an irrevocable trust or equivalent foundation outside the taxable estate — a life insurance policy provides an immediate, tax-free death benefit that can be used to pay inheritance tax or estate duty liabilities. This prevents heirs from having to sell businesses, property, or investments under time pressure to meet tax obligations.
Private wealth tax planning is the strategic design and coordination of ownership structures, residency decisions, trust frameworks, and insurance solutions to minimize tax across all relevant jurisdictions for high-net-worth individuals and families. It is particularly important for internationally mobile clients, business owners, family office principals, and families approaching major wealth transfer events.
Cross-border tax planning for families operating across these five centers requires coordination of each jurisdiction’s distinct tax rules — UAE’s zero personal income tax, Switzerland’s cantonal frameworks, Hong Kong’s absence of estate duty, the UK’s 40% IHT regime, and Singapore’s family office tax exemptions. Sphere Private works alongside legal and tax advisers in each market to design compliant, cohesive structures that capture tax efficiency across all relevant jurisdictions.
Inheritance equalization is a strategy that ensures fair wealth distribution among heirs when core assets — such as a family business or property portfolio — cannot be divided equally. Sphere Private uses life insurance to provide equivalent cash value to non-business heirs outside the estate, preserving business continuity while ensuring all beneficiaries are treated equitably.
Private placement life insurance (PPLI) is a bespoke insurance wrapper typically available to ultra-high-net-worth clients that allows investment portfolios to grow on a tax-deferred basis within a compliant insurance structure. Depending on the applicable jurisdiction, PPLI can support tax-efficient wealth accumulation and legacy transfer — often used in conjunction with cross-border planning in Switzerland, Singapore, Bermuda, and other specialist insurance centers.
For clients moving to or from jurisdictions with significant estate or gift tax regimes — such as the UK, US, or EU member states — timing and structure decisions made before relocation can have enormous long-term consequences. Sphere Private advises on pre-immigration planning that protects existing structures, repositions assets where appropriate, and ensures new residency arrangements do not inadvertently trigger avoidable tax exposure.
Yes, Sphere Private operates as a fully independent advisory firm with no carrier affiliations, no institutional product shelf, and no conflicts of interest. Every recommendation is made solely in the client’s interest, with full access to the global insurance and structuring market to identify the most suitable solution for each client’s specific tax planning objectives.
Sphere Private works closely alongside clients’ existing private banks, trustees, legal counsel, and tax advisers — not as a replacement but as a specialist insurance and wealth structuring partner. Our role is to design and place the insurance and structural solutions that sit at the implementation layer of the broader tax plan, ensuring full coordination and consistency across the entire advisory team.
Salah Mattoo is an experienced international lawyer and accomplished executive, currently serving as General Counsel and Head of Compliance. He specialises in dispute resolution, corporate and commercial transactions, regulatory compliance, and internal and external investigations across multiple jurisdictions.
Salah has acted in a range of high-profile international arbitration and cross-border litigation matters, representing corporate clients, sovereigns, and institutions in complex, high-stakes disputes. Salah's background includes advisory and leadership roles in sectors such as insurance, private equity, financial services, defence, commodities, energy, technology, and infrastructure.
In addition to his disputes practice, Salah has led the design and implementation of robust compliance programs aligned with international best practices, including AML, anti-bribery, sanctions, data privacy, ESG, and whistleblower frameworks. Salah regularly advises executive teams and boards on legal risk management, governance structures, and regulatory strategy.
With a strong track record in both contentious and transactional matters, Salah combines legal precision with strategic insight to support businesses navigating regulatory complexity and international growth. Salah is qualified in England & Wales, DIFC and ADGM. He has acted as lead counsel in international commercial courts, as well as in many international arbitrations seated in the leading arbitration centers, including Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Geneva, Hong Kong, London, New York, Paris, Riyadh, Singapore, Stockholm, Tokyo, Vienna, Washington and Zurich.
Salah holds a B.A. from University of California, Berkeley and an L.L.B and L.L.M. from The London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London).
Dubai · Geneva · Hong Kong · London · Singapore
Imran Khan is a seasoned expert in private wealth planning and jumbo life insurance solutions, with over 10 years of experience advising ultra high net worth individuals (UHNWIs), families, and family offices across multiple jurisdictions. With a deep understanding of global wealth structuring, legacy planning, and asset protection, Imran is recognized for delivering highly customized strategies that align with clients personal, business, and multigenerational goals.
Throughout his career, Imran has worked closely with private banks, trust companies, and legal advisors to design and implement sophisticated structures involving international trusts, foundations, holding companies, and life insurance-based estate equalization plans. His expertise includes:
Imran holds specialist accreditations in wealth planning and international insurance advisory and is a trusted advisor to clients across the Asia, Europe, Middle East and UK. Known for discretion, technical proficiency, and strategic insight, he has built enduring relationships with UHNW families seeking to preserve and grow their legacies in an increasingly complex regulatory environment.
Dubai · Geneva · Hong Kong · London · Singapore