New Chinese laws take effect from the start of January, prompting a rush to use trusts and other structures to shelter assets, a report said.

High net worth Chinese are racing to put assets and income in overseas trusts and other structures before the country introduces new tax laws at the start of January, Bloomberg reported.

The news reported cited the case of Bank of Singapore, the private bank, in having logged a 35 per cent jump in Chinese clients interested in offshore trusts since the second half of 2018. (The report quoted Woon Shiu Lee, head of wealth planning at the bank.)

Chinese reforms, taking force from 1 January, is meant to extract more money from high earners and holders of wealth. The country has also launched a crackdown on tax evaders, and sought to stifle outflows of capital.

As this publication has also noted, HNW Chinese citizens have been among the most enthusiastic pursuers of citizenship/residency-by-investment programmes operated by certain countries, sometimes dubbed “golden visas”. Countries such as Spain, Malta and Singapore offer these schemes. The UK, which has done so, recently mothballed its programme to address concerns about abuses. Canada, which had operated a similar programme, also suspended it about four years ago. A reason in this case was controversy about Chinese buying of property had inflated prices in cities such as Vancouver but arguably added relatively little to the Canadian economy.

China is also a signatory to the Common Reporting Standard, a global framework for countries to exchange data to foil alleged tax dodgers.