When it comes to choosing a location for your offshore company there is certainly a lot of choice, but how do you know that the one you are choosing is the best for you?
In order to help you with your decision we at Chesterfield have selected some of our most popular jurisdictions and prepared a short background on each focusing on the advantages and disadvantages of each in order to help you make an informed decision without being overloaded with unnecessary information.
British Virgin Islands
The BVI is certainly one of the most popular choices around. One of the main reasons being is that it is non complex jurisdiction to use with advantages like 24 hour incorporation, no complicated corporate requirements making changes easy to do and running costs kept modest. It has tax exempt status and a fixed annual renewal fee. It has double tax treaties with the UK, Japan and Switzerland. The BVI has Limited disclosure in its registry so information on directors and shareholders is kept private. Combined this with its worldwide recognized currency of US Dollar and strong economy, English speaking community this is certainly a jurisdiction to be considered whatever your business needs.
Cyprus
Cyprus has had a boom in the area of offshore registration over the last ten years and has several advantages to incorporation here such as it low corporation tax rate 10%, the lowest in the EU. Cyprus follows British Common Law and the majority of the Island is English speaking as a second language and it is a full EU member. Cyprus has double-taxation treaties with over 30 other countries including most of the high tax countries in Western Europe. The Cyprus currency is the Euro. Cyprus does have publicly accessible records so details of the directors and shareholders are open to the public. However, nominees are used to overcome this.
Ireland
Ireland is one of the longest established low tax jurisdictions and has a corporate tax of just 12.5% less than half the current UK level of 28%, although this is for companies with trading income with ‘substance’ in Ireland, this is 25% for all other cases. They also have attractive incentives such as an exemption from corporation tax for the first three years of trading applies to certain new start up companies. Tax planning opportunities can be obtained in respect of the change of ownership between generations. Ireland has numerous double taxation treaties (54 in effect, 62 signed). The name of the Company is protected and the company has unlimited existence. Transfer of ownership is less complex than the UK and the ownership may be assigned to several persons.
Isle of Man
This is certainly one of the longest running reputable places for offshore incorporation. The Isle of Man is an internal self-Governing Crown dependency. Although English law does not extend to the Isle of Man, the Manx legal system is based on the principles of English common law, but in other respects Manx law has been developed to meet the Island’s special circumstances, particularly with regards to direct taxation, company law and financial supervision. Whilst many jurisdictions have suffered over the recent years due to financial turmoil the Isle of Man’s bank deposits in 2011 remained steady at £62 billion. The Isle of Man is a low tax economy with no capital gains tax, no wealth tax, no stamp duty and no inheritance tax. The rate of corporation tax is 0% for almost all types of income
If you would like further information on any of the featured jurisdictions or any other jurisdiction fell free to contact us
