An associate lease is an agreement where an associate of the employee (typically spouse or partner), leases an existing or replacement car to the employee’s employer. The employer then provides the car to the employee via a pre-tax salary sacrifice arrangement. I.e. The employee pays for most of the vehicle’s operating costs from their pre-tax…
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The key reason Hong Kong is among the world’s largest financial centres is that it doesn’t have any currency controls. You can freely send money to and from Hong Kong and there are no limits. The lack of exchange controls, provides investors with confidence that their money is secure and safe, and can be quickly…
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From 1st July 2015 eligible start-up costs can be fully deducted in the year they were incurred if they relate to setting up a proposed small business and meet one or more of the following: Incurred in obtaining advice or services (from lawyers, accountants or business advisors) relating to the proposed structure or the proposed…
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Bank secrecy (or bank privacy) is a legal requirement in most tax havens and this prohibits banks providing authorities (foreign governments and their tax departments) personal and account information about their customers. Bank secrecy was codified in Switzerland by the 1934 Federal Act on Banks and Savings Banks. This Act also created the famous ‘numbered…
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The tax incentives for Early Stage Venture Capital Limited Partnerships (ESVCLP) apply from 1st July 2016 and provides partners with a 10% non-refundable tax offset on capital invested during the year. The maximum fund size for ESVCLPs is $200m and ESVCLPs are no longer required to divest a company when its value exceeds $250m. Entities…
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The Cook Islands claims to be the first country to have enacted an explicit asset protection law (in 1989 with its International Trusts Act). The asset-protection trust is a trust that splits the beneficial enjoyment of trust assets from their legal ownership. The beneficiaries of a trust are the beneficial owners of equitable interests in…
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This strategy involves a discretionary trust making pre-tax trust distributions to a tax-exempt beneficiary. If the beneficiary is tax exempt (a not-for-profit organization or church) then there will be no income tax paid on that income by the beneficiary. The beneficiary does not need to be able to receive tax deductible donations (i.e. be a…
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Without doubt, the dominant legal reason to use tax havens is to save tax. Many taxpayers, especially multi-national corporations, can legally save tax by structuring their affairs to use a tax haven. Apple, for example, has saved US$86 billion in US taxes by funnelling revenue through its tax haven entities and leaving the profits overseas.…
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Delaying the realisation of assets (and any assessable capital gains) until after the year end results in the income being taxed in the following financial year. To achieve this objective the sale contract must not be signed until after the end of the financial year (as it is the contract execution date that determines the…
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Tax havens can be used by individuals, small businesses, large businesses, Fortune 500 companies, governments, charities, and non-profit organisations. The numbers are staggering, with the British Virgin Islands, for example, having over 1 million registered companies. In the Cayman Islands, 40 of the world’s top 50 banks have licences, and hold US$1 trillion on deposit.…
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"You’d be stupid not to try to cut your tax bill and those that don’t are stupid in business"
- Bono: U2