Our book about offshore

Liquidation of an offshore company

As good of an instrument an offshore company can be, businesses start and end and you may face a need to close an offshore company that you no longer find useful. So, how can you do it?

Is it legal to use offshore companies?

The reference to offshore companies can cover entities registered in various jurisdictions – for instance, British Virgin Islands, Seychelles, Belize, Cayman Islands, St. Lucia, Guernsey and Jersey of the Channel Islands, Marshall Islands, St. Vincent and Grenadines, Bahamas and others, and there is no single list of existing offshore zones.

Best offshore jurisdictions

In the most basic sense, an offshore jurisdiction is one where companies are not required to file financial statements with government authorities and are exempt from taxation unless they do business locally. Such offshore jurisdictions of the “classic” type include, among others, the British Virgin Islands, Seychelles, Cayman Islands, and Belize.

What is offshore?

Offshore jurisdictions are jurisdictions that offer non-residents special conditions for doing business; companies using such special conditions are called offshore companies. As a rule, for a company to be considered an offshore one, its owner (the beneficial owner) must reside outside the jurisdiction where the company is registered, and the company itself does not have the right to do business in the country of incorporation. Complying with these two basic conditions allows these companies to be exempted from tax in their country of incorporation. But offshore companies are required to annually pay a certain government fee.