Offshore companies

Registration offshore companies

Offshore is an effective and, above all, a legal tool to reduce expenses on tax payment.

Privacy is another advantage of offshore, which attracts many business persons. The owners of such businesses are provided with the guaranty of confidentiality at the legislative level. Opening of an account with an offshore bank will help you to hide money from prying eyes and encroachers, because those banks strictly comply with the conditions of non-disclosure of information about depositors.

Moreover, the third indispensable advantage is the access to bank offshore accounts twenty-four hours seven days per week. You can make banking transactions round-o-clock, whether you are an individual or a company representative.

Offshore can be a tool for your company for attracting additional investments, because many partners get more profits when doing business virtually, using offshore as a buffer. In addition, an offshore company helps to stabilize payments and supply of products to the domestic market. Offshore is used as a tool when purchasing real estate abroad, it contributes to regulation of prices for export and import of products.

How to minimize tax payments?

Every businessperson certainly aims to maximize the profits of his business. However, as it is well known, the lion’s share of a businesspersons profits are used to pay a variety of taxes. In addition, tax compliance takes a lot of time and resources that could otherwise be used for business development.

Meanwhile, we all have the right to conduct our affairs so that we may reduce tax payments to a minimum without violating the law. A significant number of companies around the world, from the largest multinational companies, such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, and many others, to medium and small ones optimize their tax liabilities using the tools that are absolutely legitimate.

The best way to minimize the tax burden on a business is to open an offshore company in the country that offers special favorable business conditions to entrepreneurs. What kind of conditions are they?

Types of jurisdictions

First, it is noteworthy, that depending on a number of common characteristics of and requirements, to the companies registered in the territory of the state, there are several conventional groups of jurisdictions that can be divided into offshore zones and low-tax jurisdictions:

Classic offshore.

Companies registered in offshore zones conduct their business operations outside the offshore, and, therefore, are exempt from any taxes and only pay annual state fee (small and often fixed, independent of the turnover or profit of the company). In addition, such companies are exempt from the duty to file financial accounts. The offshore zones often include small states: the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands, the Seychelles, the Guernsey Island, the Jersey Island, Belize, Gibraltar, Andorra, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, the Isle of Man, Barbados, Bermuda, Grenada, the Cayman Islands, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the Saint Kitts and Nevis, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Panama, Dominica, Samoa and some others.

Jurisdictions with low tax rates.

For companies registered in these jurisdictions the tax rates are extremely low, or they are non-taxed at all. However, these companies are forced to comply with certain requirements: for example, the director of a company must be a resident of such jurisdiction, the company must keep and file financial accounts, etc. The jurisdictions with low tax rates include the following countries: Cyprus, Malta, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, Singapore, the New Zealand and several others.

Jurisdictions that provide tax benefits.

This group consists of countries that offer to the companies registered in their territory the attractive tax benefits, subject to certain conditions. Often, these are countries characterized by a certain respectability:  USA (Delaware, Wyoming, Oregon, New Jersey, New York, Washington, Arkansas, and the District of Columbia), some EU countries (Austria, Germany, UK, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein), Israel and a few other countries.

How to buy an offshore company?

Having certain knowledge and capabilities, you can register a new or purchase a ready-made company in any of the jurisdictions where tax liabilities are negligible or no tax burden exists. This process is not time-consuming, if you know what to do and how to do it, and it does not take much time.

Quite often, a big role in the success of a business is played by the company image. Many contractors do not trust a newly-registered company but trust in an offshore company set up a few years ago. In such a case, the best and the most cost-effective way will be purchase of offshore, that is, purchase of already registered and active company.

If you want to start working immediately, purchase of an offshore is the best solution, since this process can be completed in the shortest possible time. In this case, the buyer gets the same benefits as when registering an offshore company – minimum taxes (or even their absence), and confidentiality.

SBSB provides a comprehensive advice on the feasibility and prospects of doing business in one or another jurisdiction. We will help you to register a new company or buy a ready-made offshore, even with already open bank account.

If you have any questions, please contact SBSB attorneys.