Things to consider when building an international structure It’s very important thing to note from the beginning that there is no one size fits all structure for a business, investment, operation, etc. Every case is different and there are lots of things to consider: Who are the owners? Who are the customers? Where are the suppliers? What type of business is it? Where…
What’s the Difference Between Residency and Citizenship? There is a lot of confusion when it comes to this topic. Many people don’t understand the difference between residency and citizenship. A residency permit gives you the right to live and possibly work in a particular country. Citizenship gives you access to their passport, and also typically gives you the right to vote. It also might change what benefits…
What is “Withholding Tax”? Most people only think of one, in some cases two layers of tax. In fact, we generally, have three layers of tax to consider whenever we’re doing international tax planning and structuring. The first layer is corporate income tax, which is what most people are trying to reduce by going to a low or zero…
What is “Taxation Basis”? Taxation basis in simple words means – which portion of your income is the country going to tax. The two most common you will hear about are worldwide income taxation and territorial taxation. There are few other forms of taxation basis that are not so common, including zero tax and remittance or blends of these. …
What is “Transfer pricing”? Lots of people have the idea of setting up an offshore company in a low or zero tax jurisdiction and then charging the original company (that’s in high tax jurisdiction) with management or marketing fees (or similar fees). Well, there are rules against doing this. These rules are called “transfer pricing rules”. If you are…
What are CFC Rules (Controlled Foreign Company rules)? There are lots of misunderstandings when it comes to CFC rules (controlled foreign companies rules) and CMC rules (management control rules, part of Corporate Residency Rules). Lots of people get confused about which is which. You have to pay attention to both. However, not every country has them, some countries will have CFC but…
What Does Source Income Mean? Today we’re going to learn about “income source”. Have you heard about territorial tax systems? What it means, in theory, is that they only tax you on your locally sourced income. By contrast, some countries will tax you on your worldwide income, meaning you pay tax on everything you make everywhere. (For the difference see taxation basis) Most places will tax…
You may have heard of trust companies when discussing estate planning or inheritance. You might have heard wealthy people talk about trust companies managing their assets, or watched movies where heirs of a wealthy individual deal with trusts to get their rightful share of inheritance money. Setting up a trust is considered good financial…
If you want to open an offshore bank account, you obviously would want to know how it will be beneficial to you in the long run. Is the offshore bank account going to improve your business or boost your personal wealth? There are actually a number of reasons why many investors have opted to…
Offshore banking is whereby an individual or company deposit funds in a bank that is situated in a place outside their country of residence. Other people define offshore banking as the act of depositing hard currency in a bank that is located in a country that is not their home of residence, usually for safekeeping…
