Before taking into consideration a particular offshore jurisdiction you should first consider it in view of your intended business. Will your potential customers be concerned that their new supplier or service provider is registered in a particular offshore territory – or won`t they care? Have your prospective market countries imposed any restrictions against transfers of funds to the particular offshore jurisdiction? How will your partners, suppliers, customers or investors react when asked to transact their business with an offshore company? Will it cause any problem for them? Many high-tax countries have extensive blacklist regulations in their tax system, imposing tax surcharges or financial penalties on business carried out with known tax havens. Can it influence your business?
Perhaps, Your business partners already have their own offshore companies? If so, where are those registered? Nowadays, a considerable part of international trading business is completely transacted through offshore companies. The money never actually leaves the “low-tax zone”, as both parties to a deal would have their businesses registered in tax havens. According to some estimates, up to 60% of the total global mass of money at any given moment actually sits tax-free in offshore accounts, and not in the highly invasive, highly taxed financial systems of the big jurisdictions.
The offshore jurisdictions are also qualified into treaty jurisdictions and non-treaty jurisdictions. The treaty jurisdictions have a wide network of double-tax avoidance treaties (DTA`s) with other countries. A double-tax avoidance treaty basically removes or reduces levels of taxation on certain transactions, taking place between residents of both member countries. The most common and tangible benefits granted by a double-tax avoidance treaty are usually the reduction of withholding taxes on the payment of dividends and royalties between the contracting states – thus, great for a targeted establishment of offshore holding companies. It may sound surprising, but there are actually many DTA`s between tax-haven jurisdictions and distinctly high-tax jurisdictions.
Treaty jurisdictions often portray a non-offshore image – typically offering reduced levels of tax instead of a complete exemption. This obviously may provide a better “image” of the jurisdiction. Cyprus is a typical treaty jurisdiction. Seychelles has concluded a number of useful DTA`s, in particular with China, South Africa, Thailand, Cyprus, Belgium and several other countries.
Non-treaty jurisdictions are “classic” in the offshore sense – they would usually have complete absence of corporate taxes on the profits of the company and only a fixed annual license fee. In respect of International Business Companies, Belize is a non-treaty jurisdiction.
It is for you to decide whether the circumstances of your business require the tactic of “offshore stepping stones” through treaty jurisdictions, or the clear-cut approach through a classical offshore tax haven.
If you can find positive answers to these issues, the major part of choosing the right offshore jurisdiction is already done.
