The Indians Are Coming, The Indians Are Coming....

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/personal-finance/tax-savers/tax-news/Income-tax-dept-to-open-10-overseas-I-T-units/articleshow/7100262.cms

"The Income Tax Department [of India] has begun opening overseas tax units in countries with low tax.

"We have opened two offices so far in Singapore and Mauritius and by March we will open another eight overseas locations like cyprus," Union revenue secretary Sunil Mitra said here today on the sidelines of a FICCI executive counil meeting.

"We do not say tax haven, we say low tax jurisdictions," he said when reminded that these offices are primarily targetted in tax havens to prevent tax evasion. "

Of course the public line will be they will be there to assist with tax info exchange, enquiries, case processing and so-forth. Doesn't mean that they won't be taking names, searching through registries, stopping by the supposed Sales Office or warehouse, flipping through the Tattler or wining and dining loose-lipped bankers and IFAs or eaves-droppping at the Sentosa Golf Club.

New Zealand: Not Sheepish About Trusts

Ok...we all know that there some 10 or so sheep for every Kiwi but one factoid that popped up that is very interesting is that: for trusts, there is "one for every 18 people, against one for 34 in Australia and one for 294 in Britain. Use of trusts in New Zealand has shot up in recent years, from 145,900 active for tax purposes in 2001 to at least 237,500 in 2008. The commission said the actual number might be as high as 400,000."

Other numbers:
* 400,000: The estimated number of family trusts in New Zealand.
* 167,925: The number of family homes held in trusts.
* $93 billion: The value of assets held in family trusts - equivalent to 18.6 per cent of all household wealth.
* 50 per cent of all couples with an annual income over $200,000 have a family trust.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10695668

I suppose those numbers do not include non-resident trusts which foreigners like to use NZ for but those are extremely enviable penetration rates. sigh now if only we could get that type of interest from the rest of Asia.......