Offshore Affairs: Tax Havens Decoded: The Offshore World Explained by an International Tax Lawyer

Book Synopsis: Book Updated on May 2023The Offshore World can be fascinating. It can allow you to reduce your taxes or to not pay taxes at all, protect your assets against creditors or in case of bankruptcy reduce the assets lost or keep the assets that you put into your asset protection vehicle, increase your freedom of mobility by obtaining a second citizenship or registering your boat with the flag of your choice, being able to access markets or business opportunities that would be restricted or prohibited if the company was to be formed in another jurisdictions, avoid capital controls, open a bank account in a more politically and economically stable jurisdictions, and much more.

But in order to profit from the benefit(s) you need, you must take into consideration several factors depending on, of course, the purpose of going offshore. If you want to profit from the tax and privacy benefits, you consider your country of tax residency tax laws, the offshore jurisdiction features, formation, management, and yearly maintenance requirements and costs, etc., including predictability, as the Offshore World is constantly changing.

Tax havens may change some features that might have been attractive to you when you initially set up your company, like they might go from 0% tax to X%, they might change their privacy laws and start disclosing company the director or company member/shareholder, might start requiring you to submit financial accounts, sign up an information sharing agreement with a new country, etc. Tax haven might engage into these changes due to pressure imposed by a specific country or multilateral organizations like the OECD, European Union, etc.

On the other hand, Multilateral Organizations are adding or subtracting jurisdictions to blacklists, grey list, etc., and labeling them as non-cooperative to motivate or force them to make changed to their tax, corporate, or privacy laws.

If you objective is asset protection, you must plan ahead and transfer your assets to an asset protection trust at least 2 years before a lawsuit is filed against you or bankruptcy is foreseeable, otherwise you may fall illegal conveyance of assets (illegal transmission) with the purpose to deceit creditors. If you want extra protection, you should form the trust in an offshore jurisdiction that does not recognize foreign judgements. You also have to check your country of residency or where the suit is filed laws, as if under these laws the settlor has “control” over the trust, the trust can be deemed invalid before the eyes of that jurisdiction.

Tax Havens and the Offshore World can help anyone, regardless if the person has low income or if it is billionaire, from a country under development or a highly developed one, without distinction in line of business.

Tax havens are used for a lot of legal purposes, but can also be used for illegal means. Herein we will also cover they ways tax havens can be used for illegal purposes so you can differentiate between a legal and an illegal use of offshore vehicles.

This book is written by an international tax lawyer to help you and guide you, so you can feel more secure and confident when going offshore, by understanding as much as possible about these topics.

If you are a lawyer, this book can also help you understand how tax havens and international tax laws, and the offshore world works.