The Collector | Sabrina Ho artfully dabbles in cultural diversity, and tax havens

Sabrina Ho Chiu-ying met the East Timor prime minister last month, and gave him a rather politically incorrect piece of advice: turn your young nation into a tax haven.

“East Timor has ambition to become the next Phuket. But they still have problems with their water supply. I suggested looking to the British Virgin Islands as a model instead,” says the 27-year-old daughter of Macau casino tycoon Stanley Ho Hung-sun and Angela Leong On-kei, his “fourth wife”.

We don’t know how Mari Alkatiri, the two-time East Timorese prime minister, reacted to the suggestion, which seems ill-timed considering the public anger that has grown since the 2014 “LuxLeaks” first tipped people off about just how often multinational companies and wealthy individuals escape scrutiny and avoid tax by shifting assets to low-tax foreign jurisdictions.

The morality of tax havens aside, the firestorm of criticism targeting those named in last month’s “Paradise Papers” leak about celebrities and companies using British overseas jurisdictions for tax avoidance would seem to be another nail in the coffin for traditional tax planning.

Clearly, Ho doesn’t think the demand is going away soon. “A lot of Chinese companies, especially insurers, find it is not easy to register in [China] these days,” she tells Post Magazine. “There is no reason why they can’t be persuaded to register in East Timor instead.”