(Bloomberg) -- The Monetary Authority of Singapore will change the tax incentives it gives to qualified family offices in an effort to boost the hiring of locals and investment in the country’s equity markets.
Tax incentives will also be adjusted to encourage these firms to invest in climate-related projects and undertake more philanthropy through Singapore, said MAS managing director Ravi Menon at a briefing after the release of its annual report.
“Given our great success in being able to attract so much wealth here, we can afford to ask wealth to play a bigger role in our society and in our economy,” Menon said. His comments come after outgoing MAS chairman Tharman Shanmugaratnam said last month that the firms’ contributions to these areas will be recognized.
Qualified family offices - the firms set up by the ultra rich to manage their affairs and investments - are currently able to get tax exemptions on a range of investments in Singapore. That’s helped fuel a surge in the number of family offices based in the city-state from 400 at the end of 2020 to 1,100 in 2022.
While the increase of family offices has boosted the overall assets under management within the city-state, much of that wealth has not been invested within Singapore - blunting expectations it would result in a flood of local jobs.