Dubai draws the Swiss family offices that are tired of taxes and organization

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The Swiss family offices that run the assets for the wealthy are looking to move to Dubai as factors from the organization to the political debate on taxes, the erosion of Switzerland’s attractiveness.

Ronald Graham, the administrative partner of the Taylor Wesyge attorney in Dubai, said that people in two large family offices, including one billions of dollars in assets, told him that they were exploring the move to the United Arab Emirates and that this regulation is the reason. One has already completed this step.

He said: “In Switzerland, there is more organization, and certainly more disclosure in terms of secret information. Dubai family offices are not subject to the same standards, and it can be more private – this is more attractive to the wealthy in the world.”

Graham said that there was no single problem or “road to the moment of Damascus”, who persuaded these family offices to think about leaving Switzerland, but rather a group of obstacles, including the definition of “family”.

The family office in Switzerland must run assets for more than 20 clients, including one family members, or profits or assets above, as it attracts more organization in an exhausting way, according to the Swiss Bank Giulius Bayer. On the contrary, Graham said, Dubai had a wide definition of the “family” that did not call for a greater organization.

The wealthy families were also concerned about the recent political debate in Switzerland, which will hold a referendum later this year on offering a 50 percent tax on the inheritance and very large gifts.

One of the beneficiaries of the Swiss family office said that the political debate and concerns about the organization prompted some people to leave the country.

Voters are expected to reject the proposal, but the person said: “The insecurity that it causes in the past two years has motivated some families to reconsider Switzerland as a financial center.” He cited the Norwegian families who moved there to avoid high local taxes and the Swiss families who held their work in their family offices.

Each of the individual family offices, which runs the wealth of one family, and the family’s multi -family offices were tolerance to Dubai or the creation of a branch there. About 200 family offices joined the financial center in Dubai last year, DICC said, as it reached 800.

Reto Garreus, a KPMG consulting partner in Switzerland, said he saw many multi -capacity offices move to the Middle East because their customers were moving. He said: “The standard of living in Dubai is enormous and the economic system is directed towards entrepreneurs and high -value individuals.”

Thomas Hug, the tax partner in Deloitte in Switzerland, noted that Switzerland does not provide generous incentives for investment companies, while some governments in the Middle East have provided “convincing benefits”.

Dubai also benefited from other changes Canceling a non -permanent system in the United Kingdom Industry numbers said that high taxes in other European countries and sanctions on Russian assets.

“The family offices operating outside Switzerland and exploring the UAE” were often “sophisticated, advanced, multi -generation (and) nominated for non -Saudi citizens.

Consultations at the international wealth management centers in DELOTTE for 2024 said that Switzerland has been a pioneering center in the world, but “recent developments … threatening to weaken the Swiss competitiveness,” noting that taxes, organization and loss of confidence between some investors after Credit Suisse.

At the same time, some The American wealthy Emergency plans are placed to transfer assets to Switzerland, where the Trump administration is planted uncertainty. Prix ​​the skiing village Especially attractive Because of more flexible rules about foreign property ownership.