Family Offices’ Love of Country Collides With Tax Policies

Greetings from New York and London. It’s been a busy month for family office news. There are some interesting executive shifts and investment trends to highlight, but before we get to that, let’s talk taxes. The age-old debate over taxing the rich has taken on new urgency and we’re looking at what that might mean for the world’s most mobile class.

Generally speaking, ultra-wealthy families tend to be a patriotic bunch. That’s not terribly surprising given most of their fortunes were forged from building or serving some core part of their home country’s economy, whether it’s railroads in Gilded Age America or oil refineries in India. Through some mix of tenacity, skill and happenstance they’ve thrived in their home nations. That influences their philanthropy and, of course, political donations.