Business and tax friendly regime driving Singapore to the top millionaires migration destination in Asia in 2018.
It was reported in the business insider Singapore on 5 May 2019 that Singapore is the top 10 world destination and top Asia destination for the total 108,000 millionaires also known as HNWI (High Net Worth Individuals) that migrated last year, of which 1,000 had chosen Singapore as their home citing wealth growth, economic growth, press freedom, and women’s safety as some of the deciding factors influencing their decisions.
The top 10 locations for HNWI in 2018 are:
Australia 12,000
US 10,000
Canada 4,000
Switzerland. 3,000
UAE. 2,000
Caribbean 2,000
New Zealand 1,000
Singapore 1,000
Israel 1,000
Portugal 1,000
Greece 1,000
Spain 1,000
Overall Singapore has a total of 222,300 HNWIs residing in 2018 making it the fifth most country with HNWI behind New York City (377,800), London (318,200), Tokyo (315,400) and Hong Kong (235,700).
In terms of ranking of wealthiest cities, Singapore is on the 10th place in the list of 20 wealthiest cities worldwide, with a total wealth of US$995 billion (S$1.3 trillion) held privately out of the total private wealth held worldwide of approximately US$204 trillion (0.63%). New York City with US$2.9 trillion topped the list followed by Tokyo with US$2.5 trillion (2nd place), Beijing with US$2.1 trillion (5th place), Shanghai with US$1.9 trillion (6th place) and Hong Kong with US$1.3 trillion (8th place).
The top 5 countries with the highest outflow of millionaires in 2018 are:
China (-15,000)
Russian Federation (-7,000)
India (-5,000)
Turkey (-4,000)
France (-3,000)
Ranking consistently top of the list of factors influencing the HNWIs decision on their choice for Singapore is the business and tax friendly environment. We have discussed in our earlier article “What so great about the Tax system in Singapore for Singapore resident companies?” dated 20/3/2019 which highlighted some of the tax benefits for Singapore resident company. In addition, Singapore has one of the lowest personal tax rate of 20% in the world (see article Personal vs Company income tax 29/3/2019).
