Time To Do Things Properly

Tax is, in fact, a very simple subject according to C. Northcote Parkinson, then Raffles Professor of History at the new University of Malaya in Singapore, and a writer for The Economist. His famous Parkinson's Law was followed in 1960 by a study of taxation in all its forms – trade, property, capital, inheritance – and the frequent words are 'blackmail', 'complex' and 'excessive'. The only way not to pay tax, he concluded, is to go where there is no tax.

But modern taxation is more complicated. The arrival of the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and the OECD-sponsored Common Reporting Standard (CRS) means there is nowhere to go.

This has important implications for the wealth management industry; some players may be rushing to catch up but for others there are great opportunities. The impact of FATCA on financial institutions is already well underway.