The structure used to buy U.S. real estate decides three things at once: what is paid on sale, what happens if the owner dies and how hard it is to get out. Almost no one looks at them together.

The family company has become the default advice for organizing wealth in Colombia. It works, but not for everything, and there are four situations where creating one makes the problem worse instead of solving it.

It is the most repeated advice among Colombians buying in the United States. Open an LLC and you are done. Or set up a trust and you are done. What almost never comes with the advice is what happens the day you die, and that is where the 40% appears.

Pedro Pérez had ten billion pesos in his own name, including a portfolio of U.S. stocks. His son Juan inherited everything. This is what it cost.

Three different numbers are going around about the net worth at which Colombia's wealth tax applies. Only one is in force. What the law says, and what happened to the decree the Constitutional Court struck down.

A U.S. citizen can transfer 15 million dollars without paying federal estate tax. A non-resident Colombian, 60,000. The gap is not a typo, and it defines how wealth should be held in the United States.

Colombia has two very different things that both get translated as 'trust': the civil fideicomiso and the commercial fiducia. One can be set up between family members before a notary; the other only through a licensed trust company. What each one does, who is involved and where each one is used.