UK wealth managers are quietly scaling back access to offshore accounts for their clients as the global crackdown on tax havens gathers pace.
The number of wealth managers offering UK investors offshore services dropped by a fifth in 2016 compared to the previous year, according to a survey by Wealth-X for the Financial Times. However, two-thirds of wealth managers surveyed said they still offered some offshore services. The retreat is partly due to rules surrounding the exchange of information between tax jurisdictions tightening over recent years. In 2010, the US introduced its Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (Fatca) which forced overseas banks and wealth managers to hand over details of their customers.
“Post-Fatca, the ability to hide money offshore has gone away,” says Matt Thomas, partner at global consultancy KPMG. Other countries soon signed up to similar agreements with each other — tax authorities in more than 100 jurisdictions now exchange information with each other automatically.
Full article source: https://www.ft.com/content/31e5cad8-4d32-11e7-919a-1e14ce4af89b
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