Offshore Companies

an expensive laywer can

You can take advantage of some Tax avoidance tricks that are not available otherwise.

Yes

The starting point has to be where the tax saved exceeds the laywers fees for operating the scheme. I would guess this kicks in at a several hundred thousand. But then you have to mulitply up by the risk of the scheme not actually working or the loophole being closed 2 days after you have paid the lawyer his 100 grand. Personally I would doubt it is worth playing this game with less than a mil, 500K does doesn't seem enough

tim

I did look into it a while ago but found no advantage. If you live and work in the UK, you will pay UK tax on money you receive. Having your earnings paid into an offshore company does stop you getting the money and may (if it is done in a certain way) avoid paying UK tax until you actually receive the money.

At least one of the major banks offers an off shore bank account based at their branch on the Isle of Man. They make it clear that it doesn't save tax yet they charge a relatively huge annual fee. After reading the brochure several times I concluded that they were selling to people who wanted something to boast about to friends after dinner. There was no other advantage, unless you sought 10% discounts on various overpriced services.

Offshore companies and offshore accounts have a use when it comes to money laundering or hiding transactions within a group, but that's another issue.

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Nowadays money laundering is the term used for tax evasion too, and for that an offshore company is very useful. You can have investments all over the place, in the name of the company, and you can avoid the #1 method of getting caught: correspondence addressed to your UK address going astray...

If one is non-UK domiciled, offshore accounts and offshore companies serve a very legal and practical tax-sparing function. Ask Lord Ashcroft or the Vesteys about that.

These days, any sophisticated offshore entity can have its accounts transmitted in PDF format to a web-based e-mail account.

Are you saying that a reputable offshore bank or investment outfit will offer 100% guaranteed mail retention (i.e. absolutely nothing is ever sent by ordinary post to the account holder's address)? This sort of thing disappeared about 10 years ago. Some might still do it, but their numbers will be pretty limited. They need very good in-house safeguards to run an account like that.