Оффшорлық қаржы қызметтері және салық салу ерекшеліктері

Relates to the wider financial services industry in offshore centers

Offshore investment is the keeping of money in a jurisdiction other than one's country of residence. Offshore jurisdictions are used to pay less tax in many countries by large and small scale investors. Poorly regulated offshore domiciles have served historically as havens for tax evasion, money laundering, or to conceal or protect illegally acquired money from law enforcement in the investor's country. However, the modern, well regulated offshore centres allow legitimate investors to take advantage of higher rates of return or lower rates of tax on that return offered by operating via such domiciles. The advantage to offshore investment is that such operations are both legal and less costly than those offered in the investor's country—or "onshore". Locations favored by investors for low rates of tax are known as offshore financial centers or (sometimes) tax havens. Payment of less tax is the driving force behind most 'offshore' activity. Due to the use of offshore centers, investors are able to conduct investment activities in a more profitable fashion. Often, taxes levied by an investor's home country are critical to the profitability of any given investment. Using offshore domiciled special purpose mechanisms (or vehicles) an investor may reduce the amount of tax payable, allowing the investor to achieve greater profitability overall. Another reason why 'offshore' investment is considered superior to 'onshore' investment is because it is less regulated, and the behavior of the offshore investment provider, whether he be a banker, fund manager, trustee or stock broker, is freer than it could be in a more regulated environment.

Offshore investing includes investment strategies outside of an investor's home country. Investment opportunities in money market, bond and equity assets are available through offshore companies. One may also charter an offshore corporation to provide a legal personality, limited liability, transferable shares, a centralized management, and shared ownership. In some cases the investment advantages of such a corporation are offset by legal, corporate and account registration fees imposed by the country in which the offshore account is established. Further, the officers of the corporation may be required to establish residence, own real estate, or meet an investment minimum (depending upon the country this may range up to $1 million).

The Organisation for Economic Co operation and Development (OECD), the European Union (EU) and the United States of America (USA) strive for exchanging tax data. The OECD has established a threshold of bilateral tax information exchange agreements, twelve, as the minimum which a country is also placed on the “white list” and recognized as having “substantially implemented” internationally agreed tax standards. The OECD “grey list” includes countries which have not achieved “white list” status and are considered as fostering tax evasion through insufficient financial openness. As a result, the Cayman Islands and Liechtenstein implemented financial openness reforms to get off the list and escape the threat of sanctions, while Panama, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and the British Virgin Islands (BVI) were still on the grey list as of late 2009. As one example of efforts to reduce illegal offshore investments made for the purpose of tax evasion, in 2010 the Swiss bank Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) has paid a fine of $780 million and is cooperating on identifying the estimated 19,000 wealthy U. S. tax evaders who have accounts in UBS. The US Internal Revenue Service has offered amnesty to those who come forward voluntarily. Similarly the banking firm HSBC has been alleged to have aided two U. S. citizens in a multimillion dollar tax evasion scheme that relied on various accounts held in the names of foreign shell corporations, using Swiss lawyers to act as cut out signatories for some of these accounts. The two men were arrested and are under indictment for tax evasion.