Isle of Man Reinventing the Concept of Offshore

Summary: Offshore changes are afoot in the Isle of Man with tax breaks and benefits being improved upon to attract business

The Isle of Man has long been an incredibly important offshore jurisdiction of distinction; it is well regulated, highly regarded, very attractive and above all else it is considered to be a safe haven for offshore banking, investing and company incorporation activity.

But something is afoot in the Isle of Man and recent developments in the jurisdiction have been profound and significant and appear to suggest that the Isle of Man is reinventing the concept of offshore…so what’s going on?

Well, despite the fact that the Isle of Man is head and shoulders above many of the other offshore tax havens of the world in terms of the amount of business it does and the inward investment it attracts, it is not complacent about its position. 

The haven’s parliament and treasury are well aware that the Isle of Man has to continue improving its offshore services and tax friendly attraction if it is to remain at the forefront of all offshore jurisdictions in the world and therefore continue to be able to advance economically as a result of its continued offshore attraction.

To that end the Isle of Man is looking at a number of ways to reinvent the concept of offshore to improve upon its current position and also to derive new streams of sustainable income. 

One of the ways it is going about this is to embrace eOffshore as a concept and bring in more revenue, employment and general interest from the likes of music and movie download companies as well as online gambling companies, hosting firms and even online payment providers.

Additionally, the Isle of Man recently made 0% corporate tax the standard, put a cap on personal income taxation, tidied up the Isle of Man Companies Act and now it is thinking of giving greater advantage to the Isle of Man fund sector to create an even more significant and sustainable income source from this lucrative business sector alone.

The funds sector has already benefited to the max from the aforementioned recent taxation and Companies Act improvements, and the island in turn has seen the amount of funds under management go up by 50% in the last year alone…now the Isle of Man wants to become the leading jurisdiction for the domiciliation of specialist institutional funds in the alternative and closed ended sectors and also become the number one near-shore location for the establishment of front and middle office operations for many global fund managers.

Once they have achieved these strategic goals it’s considered within the offshore industry as highly likely that the government and the treasury in the Isle of Man will then conduct comprehensive reviews of the offshore banking and captive insurance sectors to see how these can be significantly improved upon as the Isle of Man continues on its journey of reinventing the concept of offshore to become highly attractive to more businesses and more lucrative for the Isle of Man economy whilst remaining within accepted international tax practice guidelines.

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