Why France distrusts the common law trust, and what the 2011 law requires: reporting, the annual tax, the ad hoc death tax and income tax on trust income.
Ronald Sokol25 min read
Ronald Sokol
Avocat and Attorney-at-Law, Lexhelp
JD and LLM, University of Virginia
Ronald Sokol is admitted to the bar in Wisconsin and France, where he currently practices, through Lexhelp, his international law office in Puyricard, near Aix-en-Provence. He has practiced in France since 1973 and, after half a century of litigating in the United States, France and England, argued his last case in 2025. He now limits his practice to advising on cross-border inheritances, drafting wills, winding up estates, the French tax aspects of estate planning, trust issues, and the purchase of second homes in France.
He holds JD and LLM degrees from the University of Virginia and has taught at the University of Virginia, Imperial College, London, and in France and Norway. His books include A Young Person's Guide to Law and Justice (2024), co-written with his son Daniel Sokol, a London barrister, and a work on federal habeas corpus that has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court. He has written op-eds for the New York Times and Project Syndicate, and articles for Connexion and The Spectator.
His articles on EasyFranceNow are guest posts: they are written by Ronald Sokol, not by the EasyFranceNow team.