Hello there
Well, first of all I will not qualify for the $50 bonus even if you
like everything else you read. The lowest figure I could come up with
for what you want is $1500 US with an annual renewal fee after the
first year of $650. If I am reading your question right, you want to
form an International Business Corporation in a tax haven country.
As the name implies, tax havens are typically countries that have no
taxes of any kind: no personal or corporate income tax, no capital
gains tax, no foreign investment tax, no withholding tax, no estate
tax, no sales tax, no value added tax, etc. Tax havens may tax their
local citizens, but this does not usually apply to offshore investors.
Corporations formed in a tax haven will never have any financial
reporting requirements or taxes to pay to their home country. ((a note
here: this is an official definition of a tax haven. Tax liability
in the country of your residence is determined by the country of your
residence and establishing an off shore account for the specific
reason of avoiding your country's taxes may very well be in violation
of the law where you live. So please do not consider this answer as
any kind of legal advice. It isn't. I am simply letting you know
what is being offered according to the laws of the country where the
bank account actually resides. An additional note: the term "home
country" means the country where the account actually resides rather
than the country of your residence. ))
Offshore companies (IBC's) are completely private; even the government
of the country in which the company was formed does not know the
identity of the founder(s), director(s), shareholder(s) or corporate
officer(s) and because of that, can never give such information away.
Most IBC's are prohibited from doing business, but not from banking,
in their home country.
For example: an IBC formed in The Bahamas may do business anywhere in
the world except The Bahamas.
Just as with U.S. corporations, the same person may act as the
shareholder, board of directors, president, agent or as any other
officer within the company. One person may act for your company; no
one else need be included.
A corporation is owned by its shareholders. In most onshore
jurisdictions (such as the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, etc.) nearly
every share a company issues or sells is registered with a government
agency. Thus the name "registered shares". The government and other
parties know who owns the shares of a corporation and what price the
shares were bought or sold for. There is absolutely no privacy.
However, offshore corporations issue bearer shares. The bearer (the
holder, or the one with possession of) the share certificate(s) is the
owner of the share(s). Only the bearer knows that he/she owns stock in
an offshore corporation. Therefore, the ownership of an offshore
corporation (IBC) remains private. Bearer shares may be bought, sold
or exchanged in complete privacy.
Tax havens have laws that forbid financial institutions (banks,
brokerages, insurance companies, etc.) and advisors (brokers,
accountants, attorneys, investment advisors, etc.) from divulging
information about clients or accounts to any third party. These laws
apply whether the third party is a person, company or government. The
laws typically call for a minimum penalty of 1 year in jail and a
$10,000 fine for any person divulging information. Needless to say,
the privacy laws are not broken by anyone. Once a depositor puts
his/her money into a bank or brokerage account offshore, by law, only
he/she will know about it.
Tax haven governments levy no taxes on the IBC's formed in their
country. However, they do charge a fee to incorporate each IBC. These
fees are included in the price of the package/s I have found for you.
The package I have found includes everything needed for complete
financial privacy, protects assets from lawsuits and you can do
business and private investing in any market on the globe.
1 - Government fees: That is the incorporation fee I mentioned above.
2 - Registered Agent Fees: Tax haven jurisdictions require that only
a licensed, local professional or organization may order an IBC
directly from the country's IBC formation office(s). The local
professional or organization that forms a particular IBC is called the
Registered Agent of the IBC. These fees are included in the package
price.
3 - Nominee Director Fees: Every IBC must have a Board of Directors.
The Board may consist of one person or many people. For instance, the
founder of the IBC may appoint himself/herself as the director and
sole officer of the corporation. However, most IBC's are formed with a
nominee director. The nominee is an individual who works and/or
resides in the country where the IBC was formed. The nominee may be
used to sign (contracts, loans, etc.) for the IBC should the founder
not want his/her signature to be connected with the corporation. The
nominee director has no knowledge of the IBC's affairs or accounts,
cannot control or influence the IBC and will not act unless instructed
to by the founder. The fee for appointing a nominee director is also
included in the price I will list.
The country I will be discussing is Belize.
Belize is one of the best jurisdictions in the world to form an
offshore company in. Privacy is ensured through federal
confidentiality legislation with substantial penalties for breaches of
confidentiality. Belize' privacy laws are excellent and the cost to
form a company is low: $1500 to start and $650 annually. You can be
in business about 12 days after you begin to set things up. As a side
note to this, any company you set up must end with the words "Inc.,
"Ltd.", "Corp." or the complete words "Incorporated", "Limited" or
"Corporation". You may not use the words "bank" or "trust" in your
company name. - - - One other side note: If by any chance you are a
US citizen, regardless of where you live, all you may legally have off
shore is a brokerage account.
No other jurisdiction has proven that it will back up its privacy laws
as strongly as Belize. The only challenge to Belize' sovereignty came
in 1995 when the Supreme Court of Belize successfully kept the
country's privacy laws from being breached by the United States
Securities and Exchange Commission. - - Good for Belize, at least
somebody can stand up to Washington's threats.
For the card services you are asking about, Belize banks and
brokerages issue Visa/MasterCard debit cards and secured credit cards
to account holders. These cards may be used to make purchases from
merchants or to withdraw cash from an ATM.
The foreign company (IBC) or trust may purchase real estate, cars,
businesses, etc. Typically, the founder/client acts as an agent of the
IBC or trust to purchase assets on its behalf. By this means, assets
are held under a corporate or trust name, thus helping to protect the
client's privacy.
The client may borrow funds from the corporation or trust. The IBC or
trust is a separate legal entity from an individual and may make loans
to individuals or other entities.
Now when you say you want to find "the best offshore companies that
can open bank accounts," I must presume you are looking for a company
who can handle all of this for you and one which is secure.
The company I am going to recommend is Equity Development Group. - -
"EDG can recommend established, reputable, rated (by Moody's and
Standard & Poors) banks that have been in existence for 100 years or
more, have over $20 billion in assets and have proven themselves to be
service oriented. As long as accounts are opened at a bank EDG
endorses, an individual's or corporation's money will be safer
offshore than it is onshore."
From personal experience, I can recommend them wholeheartedly. I have
been incorporated in Belize for many years.
In fact, pretend there are giant quotation marks enclosing most
everything above. I have used a lot of their material interspersed
with my own ruminations to the extent there would be quotes around
sections of sentences and parts of paragraphs to the extent the
punctuation would make reading difficult.
I think the reason the question remained unanswered was the $1000
limit you had placed. When you lifted it in clarification, it made a
difference.
Check out EDG here:
http://www.equitydevelopers.com/index.asp
If you decide to do business with them, just don't tell 'em "Digsy"
sent you. They will have no idea of who you are talking about :)
If there is anything I may clarify, please ask. Your question seemed
to be rather general and non-specific as to what you wanted. I just
hope I interpreted it correctly. If you are looking for an off shore
banking service other than IBC, they have many plans available.
No real search strategy, since I was already familiar with the
company, I just went to their website.
Cheers
digsalot |
