“A border is not a wall around your money. It is a line that changes the rules — and the rules are knowable.”
The cases + planning lens. Named families. Country corridors. Planning sequences. How the rules actually play out at the dining-room table. Forty chapters, eight appendices, ten worked country corridors (US-UK, US-Canada, US-UAE, US-Switzerland, Mexico-US, US-Brazil, US-South Africa, US-Israel, US-France, US-Australia), five named-family planning vignettes (cross-border charitable architecture, US-Mexican real-estate, US-Canadian retirement coordination, UK-US tech-founder equity, Korean-American education funding), five recurring family cases threaded through every chapter, a ten-model companion workbook, and a five-tool free decision layer. Pairs with the International Tax & Cross-Border Wealth Guide (the technical reference) for the complete cross-border practice.
The Baratelli Institute does not pitch itself against the cross-border tax-advisory shops, the global private banks, or the international law firms whose seats this guide is written to serve. They sell engagements; we publish the reference those engagements run on. The Cross-Border Wealth Playbook is a reading and decision reference — the volume the family principal, the rising-gen heir, the cross-border CPA, and the private-client attorney can sit around the same table and read together so the conversation can finally happen in one shared vocabulary. The library is the asset; the relationships you keep with the specialists who actually file the returns and draft the deeds remain yours.
Three questions decide almost everything. Every chapter is built to answer one or more of them for your situation.
Your tax residence decides which country taxes your worldwide income — and you can be resident in two at once until a treaty breaks the tie.
Income has a source country that can tax it where it arises — employment where you work, rent where the property sits, dividends where the company is.
Assets have a situs that decides who taxes them on transfer and on death — the source of the most expensive, least-expected surprises.
Six seats sit at the cross-border table. The persona-routing table tells you where to start.
| You are… | Start with these chapters |
|---|---|
| Internationally mobile individual | Parts I, II, III, and VI — residence and the day-count tests, double taxation, earning across borders, and the move itself. Follow Mara Solé (Europe, accumulation). |
| Cross-border family (multi-jurisdiction) | Parts I, IV, VII, and IX — the map, investing without borders, family across borders, and the global family office. Follow the Almeidas (Americas, US overlay) and the Tanakas (East Asia, decumulation). |
| Cross-border tax advisor (US or non-US) | The whole arc, with Part II (Ch 5–9) and Part IV (Ch 14–18) as the desk reference. The US-person overlay in Ch 9 is the chapter clients most need you to read for them. |
| Private-client / immigration lawyer | Parts VI, VII, and VIII — the move itself, succession across jurisdictions, citizenship and residency as assets, and renunciation / expatriation. Follow the Larreas (South America → US, inbound). |
| International wealth manager / private banker | Parts III, IV, and V — equity comp and pensions, fund-domicile selection, the base-currency balance sheet, and property abroad. Follow Adaeze Okonkwo (Africa, internationalizing). |
| US person abroad (~9 million Americans overseas) | Ch 9 (the US-person complication), then Parts III, IV, and VII — FBAR / PFIC / GILTI, the situs trap, foreign-trust reporting, and succession when the US tax system follows you. The single most under-served seat in cross-border practice; the guide is calibrated for you. |
Every chapter follows the same five recurring cases, so the reader can watch one situation play out chapter after chapter rather than re-orienting to a new hypothetical each time. The cases are fictional composites, disclosed as such; the patterns are the ones that actually walk through cross-border practice.
The mid-career mobile professional and entrepreneur, building wealth while moving between countries and currencies.
A family carrying the US-person burden abroad — FBAR, PFIC, the situs trap — alongside a non-US business and cross-border succession.
The HNW founder diversifying wealth, residences, and reporting across borders as the business and family go global.
Retirees splitting the year between home and abroad — pensions, residence days, healthcare, and an estate across two systems.
A multigenerational family moving wealth into the US worldwide-tax system — the US-situs trap, the pre-immigration window, and a dynasty split across the border.
40 chapters across 9 parts, plus 6 appendices. Read end-to-end as a one-time orientation; returned to for decades as the decision reference.
Five free tools answer a real cross-border question in under a minute. No account, nothing stored, the math is in the browser. The guide is the reference that explains when each tool is the right one to reach for.
You see the writing, the recurring cases, and the level of the math before you pay. No email required. 18 pages, ~106KB.
40 chapters across 9 parts, 6 appendices, 204 pages. Searchable, hyperlinked TOC. Five recurring family cases (Mara Solé, the Almeidas, Adaeze Okonkwo, the Tanakas, the Larreas) running across every chapter where the situation drives a decision. Single-user license for one practitioner.
Ten linked models in one workbook, in the same plain-English language as the guide: the Flags Planner, the Residency Day-Counter, the Treaty / FTC Estimator, the Withholding Comparator, the Base-Currency Balance Sheet, the Property-Abroad Model, the Exit-Tax Estimator, the Retirement View, the Estate-Situs Map, and the Advisory-Team Planner. Each model is tied to the chapter that drives it.
Five interactive tools at the Institute’s website (above) run the math from the guide on your scenario. No purchase required to use the tools; the guide is the reference that explains when each tool is the right one to reach for.
The two cross-border guides are deliberately differentiated — one applied-planning lens, one technical reference. Most cross-border clients eventually need both.
| This guide (CBWP) | IntlTax Guide | |
|---|---|---|
| Lens | Applied planning — cases, corridors, life stages | Technical reference — code sections, forms, computations |
| Core spine | Residence/source/situs framework, RBI/CBI, return-home, matrimonial, the global family office, 5 recurring family cases on 5 continents | FBAR/FATCA, PFIC, CFC/GILTI, FIRPTA, §877A exit tax, Streamlined Procedures, QDOT, treaty article walks |
| Reader at the desk | Internationally mobile family principal, rising-gen heir, cross-border private-client attorney, international wealth manager | CPA / EA adding international competency, sophisticated reader engaging counsel |
For deep technical mechanics on any code section (§877A, PFIC, GILTI, FIRPTA, §1446(f), Streamlined, etc.), see the International Tax & Cross-Border Wealth guide. The two compose into the complete cross-border practice — each sold individually; see both guides below.
The two cross-border guides are a reading path, not a bundle. Read together they form the complete cross-border practice: The Cross-Border Wealth Playbook (this guide, $349, available now) for applied planning, and International Tax & Cross-Border Wealth ($349, available now) for technical reference. Each is sold on its own.
Each is sold separately as a single-user-license PDF with its companion workbook; firm licenses available on request.
The Cross-Border Wealth Playbook is the only Library volume written exclusively for the life across borders. It pairs with several adjacent guides for readers whose situation reaches further: