Offshore Company Formation

An offshore company structure is most commonly used by businesses wishing to legally reduce their taxation burden.

Nowadays with the sophisticated anti-avoidance legislation that the majority of countries have in place to reduce the amount of taxation they lose annually, offshore company formation has become a far more complicated business…gone are the days when it was simply possible for a company to establish itself offshore in a no tax jurisdiction and legitimately avoid all taxes on profits generated.

Offshore company formation nowadays is a specialist area of expertise with companies such as The Sovereign Group assisting companies with their entire taxation planning.  By working with a company to understand the way it operates, how profits are generated and where they are remitted for example, specialist offshore company formation firms can create an entire offshore structure that legally reduces or occasionally negates a business’s taxation burden.

Without careful planning and expert assistance those who decide to go it alone, establish an offshore arm for their business and seek to remit all profits offshore to avoid personal income tax or business gains tax can find themselves in a particularly precarious position where at best they’ve actually increased their taxation liability or at worst they’ve committed a criminal offence and are facing a jail sentence.

With the assistance of offshore experts a combination of offshore trusts, companies and bank accounts can be used to assist those who seek to legitimately reduce their taxation burden.  The act of offshore company formation itself is quite simple, it’s usually possible to incorporate in the majority of jurisdictions in a matter of days especially if the client is happy to take an off the shelf structure.  Usually it’s a requirement to supply proof of identity and signatures of all the directors and the secretary but apart from that offshore company formation services firms do all of the paperwork for their clients and this takes away the complexities of incorporation.

The choice of jurisdiction for a client when it comes to forming an offshore company for their requirements will depend on many factors including the nature of their business affairs and the country of residence of the directors – furthermore certain jurisdictions offer greater degrees of flexibility, confidentiality and all have different compliance rules.  Therefore a specialist company like The Sovereign Group whose business it is to understand all jurisdictions, international laws relating to taxation, anti money laundering legislation and how mutual assistance directives like the EU Savings Tax Directive could affect a particular client are best placed to assist anyone who wishes to incorporate offshore to legally reduce their taxation burden.