If you are new to the offshore world with its advantages and opportunities, you probably experience difficulties with where to start and what exactly to do in the first turn and next. Setting up of an offshore structure is a “do-it-yourself” thing for many small businesses. Even larger companies, in terms of the crisis, look beyond cushy relationships and actually start questioning how much they spend on outsourced advisors.
Although today there is a good choice of low-tax jurisdictions, none of them may appear to be good for you because of the “tax haven” image. New Zealand is definitely off any lists of tax havens, but its tax law and international reputation provide for enormous opportunities for your your business, including but not limiting to trading operations, investments, banking and asset protection.
Cyprus has been an attractive place for making international business for many years, for trading purposes in the first place. Even after introduction of 10% corporate tax for both resident and non-resident companies, Cyprus is still one of the countries with the lowest taxation level in EU. In recent years, Cyprus developed its tax legislation and emerged in a decent location for multinational investors considering setting up a holding company for their participations.
In continuation of recently discussed Tax Residence and Exchange of Information topics, we would like to pay your attention to upsides of double tax treaties, say, bringing your business better international image, tax transparency, stability and unequivocal legality. Let’s look at this closer.
Countries with high taxes keep pushing tax havens towards a level playing field. Cooperation, compliance and transparency in taxation matters are the flags of international organizations fighting for tax justice. Tax havens’ commitment to the principles of transparency and effective exchange of information improves their international image in the eyes of the first world countries, but obviously leads to a lack of privacy and confidentiality for persons using services of such jurisdictions.
Some websites on the Internet offer assistance with Panama citizenship and second passport. Without speaking about scammers, which sometimes difficult to distinguish in advance, here is what you might need to know about Panama citizenship requirements, as well as residency programs and second passport in Panama.
As you approach using an offshore company in your business, you may realize that a better option as to your particular case is not available to you because of substantial set-up and maintenance costs. A solution might be to incorporate your first company in a cheaper jurisdiction with fewer benefits and later switch to a better option when it becomes worth of it economically. How can you legally change your offshore company’s domicile to another jurisdiction?
It’s the end of the year already, we all think about the Season’s Holidays. But after we are back to work, we still observe that times of financial difficulties are not over yet. Businesses go bankrupt, people loose jobs, the crisis keeps developing. Experts say it might be the worst world crisis ever seen, they do not expect upturn in at least two years. Meanwhile prudent people would do all possible to safe what they earned so far, rather than strive for economic achievements.
Many providers of offshore corporate services still promote offshore companies incorporated in tax haven jurisdictions as a panacea from taxation. They claim that the company is exempt from taxes in the country of incorporation. True. But it’s not carrying on any business in that country. Where does your offshore company carry on its business and pay taxes then?
If intangible assets are a significant part of your business, it is important to manage them in a way that meets the business and legal objectives. Moving the intellectual property offshore may contribute not only to its protection and flexibility of exploitation, but also reduce the tax burden on the related income.