Formosa Plastics: the founder who moved the shares offshore, then died without a will

Wang Yung-ching died intestate in 2008. Taiwan assessed the worldwide estate under the old 50 per cent schedule; the Bermuda trusts that held the group shares had already written his children out. The Privy Council undid that in 2022. The fight is still running in 2026.

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The god of management dies in New Jersey on 15 October 2008 aged 91, and leaves Taiwan's largest private estate without a single instruction

Formosa Plastics, 台塑, was the largest industrial group in Taiwan when its founder died at his New Jersey home on 15 October 2008, aged 91. The Presidential Office recorded the death the next day. Wang Yung-ching had built the group from a rice shop with his younger brother Wang Yung-tsai, and Taiwan called him 經營之神, the god of management, for costing plants to the decimal place. He left no will. Nine children by three wives were publicly acknowledged. The most exact industrialist of his generation left the largest private estate in the island's history with no instructions inside it.

Taiwan assesses NT$52.6bn under the old 50 percent schedule and bills NT$11.9bn, because the flat 10 percent rate arrives 3 months too late

The tax bill arrived before the family did. Article 1 of the Estate and Gift Tax Act charges estate tax on the whole estate, within and outside the territory, of a national habitually residing in the Republic of China — read on law.moj.gov.tw on 12 September 2026. Because the death fell on 15 October 2008, the old progressive schedule governed: bands rising to 50 per cent. The flat 10 per cent rate was promulgated by the President on 21 January 2009 and took effect on 23 January 2009, three months too late. 風傳媒 reported on 28 November 2014 an assessed estate of NT$52.6bn and estate tax of NT$11.9bn.

The brothers declare 2 Bermuda trusts on 10 May 2001, one for the children and one for nobody, and the second grows past US$3.5 billion

The shares had left years earlier. On 10 May 2001 two Bermuda trusts were declared on the brothers' instructions: the Global Resource Trust No 1, whose discretionary objects were the children and remoter issue of the founders, and the Wang Family Trust, which despite the name was a purpose trust benefiting nobody. The judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of 8 December 2022 records that the GRT's holding company was worth about US$90m in 2001 and about US$560m by the Bermuda appeal, and the Wang Family Trust about US$567m in 2001 and over US$3.5bn by then. Further trusts followed in 2002 and 2005.

5 directors sign one page in September 2005 that writes every child out of the trust, and never ask a court

In September 2005, three years before the founder died, the directors of the GRT trustee added the Wang Family Trust as an object, excluded every other object — the founders' children and their issue — and appointed the whole fund away. Five directors signed: Susan Wang 王瑞華 and Sandy Wang 王瑞瑜, daughters of Wang Yung-ching; William Wong 王文淵 and Wilfred Wang 王文潮, sons of Wang Yung-tsai; and Wen-Hsiung Hung 洪文雄, a long-serving group executive who died in 2015. No application was made to the court for approval. The eldest son, Wang Wen-yang, went looking in 2009 through a New Jersey filing, and from 2010 through the courts of Washington DC; the family litigation has since produced decisions in three legal systems.

The Privy Council rules on 8 December 2022 that the trustee misused its power, and 17 years of exclusion are declared void

On 8 December 2022 the Privy Council allowed the appeal. Lord Richards, with Lord Hodge, Lord Sales, Lord Burrows and Lady Rose, held that the power to add and exclude objects is a fiduciary power that may be used only for the purpose for which it was given, that the September 2005 decision was taken for an improper purpose, and that the parties agreed the consequence was that the decision was void. The trust deed said the children were the class. The trustee could not convert a family trust into a purpose trust and call it an exercise of the power to add.

The heirs divide the NT$52.8bn Taiwan estate on 29 July 2021 after 13 years, and the offshore trusts stay undivided in 2026

Taiwan, meanwhile, settled the part it could. After thirteen years the domestic estate — about NT$52.8bn — was divided by agreement signed on 29 July 2021. In 2011 the Taipei District Court found three further children, the Lo siblings, to be the founder's; press reported a settlement in 2016. His legal wife Wang Kuo Yueh-lan died on 1 July 2012 leaving a will giving everything to Wang Wen-yang, and her sister claimed a compulsory portion against it. As at 12 September 2026 no final distribution of the offshore trusts is on the public record.

The resolution — how Singapore would have untied it

Settle the shares into a trust while you are alive, and write a deed that names the branches and cannot be rewritten against them.

Founder, while capable

transfers controlling stakes to a Singapore-law trust with Singapore-resident trustees; the shares leave his personal estate years before the succession opens

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Deed with a fixed class

names every branch and its entitlement; any power to add or exclude is expressly confined to its purpose, so it cannot be used to remove the family (Grand View v Wong [2022] UKPC 47)

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Independent trustee plus protector

a licensed corporate trustee rather than a board of interested children; the protector's consent is required for any change to the class; a letter of wishes records the reasons

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Taiwan tax priced at the time

the settlement is a gift when made under Estate and Gift Tax Act article 5-1, reported and paid; done years ahead, it is outside the two-year add-back in article 15

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Each branch, from day one

holds a defined economic entitlement that no later resolution can cancel; nothing waits on probate, an administrator, or an intestacy statute

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On death: nothing to probate offshore, no beneficiary class to argue about, and no decision taken in 2005 that anyone has to unwind in 2026

A founder settles the controlling stakes into a Singapore trust while alive and capable, and keeps daily control until he dies

The move, in plain terms. While the founder is alive and unquestionably capable, the controlling stakes are transferred to a Singapore-law trust with Singapore-resident trustees. The assets stop being his personal property years before the succession opens, so there is no estate to freeze, no grant to wait for and no intestacy statute choosing between branches. He can chair the company that controls the trustee, so daily control of the business does not change while he lives. The Singapore frame is old and tested: a perpetuity period of up to 100 years, no public register of trusts, no estate duty on deaths on or after 15 February 2008.

The deed names each branch and fixes the class, so no trustee can write the family out with one page in an afternoon

The deed is the whole case. Name each branch and what it receives; state that the class of beneficiaries is fixed; and if a power to add or exclude is included, restrict it in the instrument to what it is for — bringing in a later-born grandchild, not exporting the family to a purpose trust. Appoint an independent licensed trustee rather than a board of interested children, give a protector consent rights over class changes, and record the reasons in a letter of wishes. That is the Privy Council's lesson stated as drafting: a fiduciary power is read against the purpose of the trust, so write the purpose down.

The compulsory portion reserves half of each heir's share against a will, but Article 1225 reaches a bequest and not a transfer made while alive

What 特留分 does, and does not do. Wang Yung-ching died intestate, so Civil Code article 1223 never bit — the estate passed by 應繼分 under articles 1138 and 1144, spouse and children sharing per capita. Had he written a will favouring one branch, article 1223 would have reserved each spouse and lineal descendant one half of their 應繼分, and article 1225 would let a short-changed heir abate the 遺贈 by the shortfall, apportioned among recipients by value. Article 1225 by its terms reaches a testamentary gift, not a transfer completed while he was alive — which is why the date of the settlement matters more than its flag.

Taiwan taxes the worldwide estate whatever the structure, and a lifetime trust is a gift taxed when made under Article 5-1

What Taiwan's tax does regardless. A Singapore trust changes what sits in the estate; it does not change whose law governs the estate or who may tax it. Article 1 of the Estate and Gift Tax Act reaches the whole worldwide estate of a national habitually residing in the ROC; article 4 defines that by domicile within the two years before death or 365 days of presence. Article 5-1 treats a lifetime trust for someone other than the settlor as a taxable gift when made; article 3-2 charges a testamentary trust at death; article 15 adds back gifts to a spouse or statutory heirs within two years of death.

Section 90 shields the trust in a Singapore court but not a Taipei one, and the attack that won in 2022 was excess of power, not forced heirship

The honest limits, because the family that skips them buys litigation. Trustees Act 1967 section 90 provides that no rule of inheritance or succession affects the validity of a Singapore-law trust with Singapore-resident trustees, where the settlor was neither a Singapore citizen nor Singapore-domiciled at creation; that binds a Singapore court, not a Taipei one, and it says nothing about Taiwan-situs land or about tax. And section 90 would not have saved this family, because the attack that succeeded was not a forced-heirship claim at all — it was that the trustee exceeded its powers, which can be run in Singapore too. The cure is the deed, not the jurisdiction.

The founder — control for life, and his actual intentions binding after it — recorded in a deed, not reconstructed by five courts from an affidavit

Each branch — a named entitlement from the day the deed is signed; no branch has to sue to discover whether it is still a beneficiary

The trustee — a power to add and exclude that is written to a stated purpose, so it cannot be exercised against the class it exists to serve

The Taiwan tax office — the same worldwide charge either way — but assessed against a documented, dated, gift-taxed settlement rather than against a decade of contested transfers

The family name — no eighteen years of judgments in four jurisdictions, each one a public account of who was written out and when

A counterfactual, not advice: real structures need licensed hands and your family's facts.

The card

The case in one card — press and hold to save, or forward it as it is.

If your father holds Taiwan assets

Taiwan taxes the worldwide estate of a national who habitually resides there, and an intestate estate distributes by statute — which may not include you the way you assume. If the family holds shares through an offshore trust, the question is not whether the trust exists but whether the deed names you and whether anyone can remove you from it. What you can ask about while everyone is alive, and what a will, a fixed beneficiary class or a Singapore trust would each change about your position: