Singapore families setting up a private trust company (PTC) usually reach the same conclusion within their first planning meeting: someone still has to hold the shares of the PTC itself, and whoever that is should not, in the ordinary sense, "own" it. This is the essence of the orphan structure, and Singapore practitioners now have [...]
If your family's Single Family Office ("SFO") was set up in Singapore before 15 June 2026, there is a filing you cannot afford to overlook: the MAS Notification under the revised licensing exemption framework for Single Family Offices. Every existing SFO that wants to keep operating without a capital markets services licence must submit this [...]
When a Singapore family sets up a private trust company (PTC) to act as trustee of the family's wealth, the governance question that eventually surfaces is not who owns the PTC's shares, it is who actually controls what the PTC does once nobody in the ordinary sense "owns" it. In an orphan structure, where the [...]
Singapore has no non-charitable purpose trust regime, so families cannot use the BVI or Cayman style orphan structure to hold PTC shares. Here is what they use instead.
Singapore has become the default answer when a wealthy family asks where to base its wealth management operation in Asia. That success has created a choice that trips up many principals: should the family build its own Single Family Office (SFO), or should it join, or later spin up, a Multi-Family Office (MFO) serving several [...]
Singapore's Variable Capital Company (VCC) framework has matured significantly since its launch in 2020. By mid-2026, over a thousand VCCs have been incorporated, and the structure has become the vehicle of choice for fund managers and family offices domiciling in Asia. But the regulatory and compliance landscape has shifted — and fund managers setting up [...]
Singapore's two family office tax incentive schemes — Section 13O and Section 13U of the Income Tax Act 1947 — are both administered by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and both exempt qualifying fund income from Singapore tax. Yet they are not interchangeable. The right choice between them shapes your minimum asset requirements, fund [...]
Singapore has cemented its position as the premier Asian hub for family offices, with the number of single family offices holding Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) incentive approvals growing substantially over the past decade. Central to this success are two tax incentive schemes: Section 13O (formerly 13R) and Section 13U (formerly 13X) of the Income [...]
For high-net-worth families establishing a Single Family Office (SFO) in Singapore, two tax incentive schemes under the Income Tax Act 1947 sit at the heart of fund structuring: Section 13O and Section 13U. Both exempt qualifying investment income from Singapore tax â but they target different scales of operation, impose different conditions, and suit different [...]
Singapore has established itself as Asia's leading family office hub, with more than 2,000 single family offices operating under the Monetary Authority of Singapore's (MAS) tax incentive framework by 2026. At the heart of this framework are two fund tax exemption schemes: Section 13O and Section 13U of the Income Tax Act 1947. Both can [...]