The legal and taxation issus of high-net-worth clients investing in HK, including family office, capital immigration, trust, SPV, virtual assets and etc.
Course Description
Course Valid period: 60 days after success payment
With the issuance of the "Policy Statement on Developing Family Office Businesses in Hong Kong" in March 2023, the Hong Kong government has implemented a number of measures to attract high-net-worth individuals around the world to set up "family offices" in Hong Kong, encouraging them to achieve their goals of legacy planning and family governance in the city, which representing a great development opportunity for HK’s insurance industry.
In this context, an increasing number of high-net-worth clients will seek legal or tax advice from their lawyers on “family offices” during the discussions about will preparation and legacy planning. Additionally, as more "family offices" settle in Hong Kong, there is a growing demand for legal service relation to high-value insurance, trusts, public and private equity funds, and even virtual asset investments.
This course provides a legal and tax overview of the structure of family offices and popular investment tools in Hong Kong. Given that high-net-worth clients often possess overseas assets, this course also introduce the tax systems in the US, Mainland China, UK, Canada and Australia, covering capital gains tax, estate tax, inheritance tax, wealthy tax, gift tax, and property tax. Additionally, the course will discusses if HK’s popular investment tools can help mitigating tax burden.
Finally, this course will also introduce the Hong Kong's HKD 30 million capital immigration program, which can create synergy with family offices. We shall see how this immigration program may lead to legal service demands.
Course Outline
- Family Office
- Why high-net-worth individuals need to establish Family Office?
- The functions of Family Office, particularly how Family Office can address the demand for legacy planning and family member protection
- The taxation benefits of HK Government for attracting Family Offices moving to HK
- Comparing the policies of family office in HK and Singapore
- Insurance
- How Family Offices and high-net-worth individuals purchase insurance policies for legacy succession, and comparing the advantages and shortcoming between insurance plans, wills, trusts and gifts from legal, administration and taxation perspective
- The common misconception of insurance products (in relation to taxation and divorce)
- Trust
- Major functions of trust arrangements, and underlying legal and taxation structures
- How Family Offices and high-net-worth individuals set up trust segregating assets to avoid claims from creditors
- Can high-net-worth individuals avoid claims from ex-spouse by setting up trust?
- Funds, Special Purpose Vehicle (“SPVs”)
- Definition of funds and different categories, and underlying legal and taxation structures
- Comparing funds established in HK, Singapore and overseas jurisdictions in terms of policy and taxation
- Virtual Assets
- Bitcoins, Ethereum
- USDT and other stablecoins
- Initial Coin Offering (ICO) and relevant regulations
- Securities Tokens and relevant regulations
- VA futures, VA funds
- Legal risks of VA (money laundering, the myth of decentralization, total ban in China and punishment)
- Overseas Taxation
- Capital gains tax (securities, crypto), property tax, wealthy tax, gifts tax, estate tax, inheritance tax
- Comparison of US, Mainland China, UK, Australia and Canada
- Using investment products to lessen tax burden, is it work?
- HK’s Investment Migration Plan
- HK’s latest “New Capital Investment Entrant Scheme”
