Global financial leaders gathered in Hong Kong this week and largely sidestepped Beijing’s crackdown on offshore trust taxes. The move by Beijing earlier this year to increase scrutiny on the overseas assets of wealthy families was barely discussed at events such as the Global Financial Leaders’ Investment Summit and the PWMA Wealth Management Industry Summit 2026, even though it remains a thorny issue for cross-border wealth management.
Instead, industry heavyweights focused on Hong Kong’s growth as a cross-border wealth hub and a safe haven during global market volatility. A report released on Thursday by the Private Wealth Management Association (PWMA) and KPMG China, which surveyed most of the association’s 44 institutional members, showed the city has seen “continued momentum” in wealth management.
Total private wealth assets under management in Hong Kong reached HK$12.9 trillion (US$1.65 trillion), up 24 per cent from a year earlier and “comfortably surpassing” the previous peak of HK$11.3 trillion in 2020.
The sector, however, faced a more complex operating environment amid geopolitical tensions and an evolving cross-border tax and regulatory landscape, the report said. Respondents cited in the report said that “greater tax transparency” and “more rigorous reporting requirements” are increasing the complexity of cross-border wealth arrangements in the short term.
In July, China’s Ministry of Finance stated that the country’s 20 per cent personal income tax rate applies to investment gains from offshore trusts. This has raised concerns regarding Hong Kong’s position as a destination for affluent mainland Chinese investors.
During a panel discussion at the PWMA summit on Thursday, Marc-Andre Sola, founder and chairman of 1291 Group, said that as tax regimes in Europe forced wealthy families to “step up their game”, awareness was also “growing substantially” in Asia. Sola noted that Chinese regulators are working to define what works from a tax perspective, meaning structures that were previously used no longer work and leaving “a lot of room to restructure”.
Despite these hurdles, the PWMA report suggested that greater tax transparency could “strengthen confidence in Hong Kong over time”. Experts have also previously argued that clearer offshore trust taxation rules that eliminate grey-area practices would enhance the long-term credibility of the city's trust industry.
