Month: February 2015

  • How to Invest Offshore Post FATCA

    For years, people have invested offshore to protect their investment. This was money that the government could not tax and could not attach to you. Many considered it the safest way to store your money. Recently, however, things are changing. FATCA, Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, makes it harder for people to invest in offshore…

  • Top Offshore Mutual Funds

    Offshore mutual funds is a term which generally refers to a collective investment scheme domiciled in an offshore jurisdiction. The reference to offshore, in the classic case, usually means a traditional offshore jurisdiction such as the Cayman Islands, Jersey or the British Virgin Islands. However, the term is also frequently used to include other corporate…

  • Offshore Investment into the United States

    Sophisticated tax structuring is generally involved in the Investment activities of foreign private and sovereign investors in U.S. private equity and real estate investments, that generate effectively connected income to a U.S. trade or business (ECI). The focus of this structuring generally accomplishes several important tax and non-tax objectives. Re-characterization of income otherwise it’s subject…

  • The legal basis for a 402(b) Overseas Retirement Plan

    A Nonqualified overseas retirement plan has characteristics that are opposite of what we have all been used to. This specific 402(b), the Regulated Asset Protection Structure (RAPS), allows for pre-tax contributions. There are no maximum contribution limits as this is a nonqualified deferred compensation tax law issue. The fact that this is precisely the opposite…

  • Tax havens hidden in plain sight

    Many of the world’s most secretive tax havens, ranging from Anguilla to Uruguay, are set to open their books to foreign tax by 2017. A year later, dozens more, including Belize, Hong Kong and Singapore, are set to follow suit. Among them is Switzerland, abandoning a tradition of secrecy that dates back at least as…

  • Top 20 Best Foreign Retirement Havens

    Most foreign pension plans are likely characterized as trusts for U.S. tax purposes. Neither the statute nor the regulations define the term “employees’ trust.” However, if a foreign pension (i.e., the trust): (i) was created by a foreign employer, (ii) is administered by the foreign employer, and (iii) is more than half funded by the…

  • Invest Offshore in Escudo de Veraguas with the Ngobe (Ngabe)-Bugle´Indian Tribe

    The master developer of Escudo de Veraguas (to be referred to as “the project”) will be by HES International, S.A., IPPCorporation and the Ngobe (Ngabe)-Bugle´Indian Tribe. Escudo de Veraguas is an island off the east coast of Panama in Bocas del Toro Province. HES International owns 100% of the land and holds the master concession…

  • Regulatory driven offshore asset protection

    All foreign investment capital needs to be looked at because of the expanded scope of the U.S. Treasury form FinCEN 114 (FBAR), the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and Intergovernmental Agreements (IGA). The rule that changed everything is the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). Continuously there is the ever present report to the…

  • British Overseas ‘Tax Havens’ Warned by UK

    LONDON, England — A Labour government would push for UK overseas territories to be put on an international blacklist if they refuse to co-operate with a drive against tax avoidance, Labour Party leader Ed Miliband has told them ahead of general elections in Britain in May. In a letter to the leaders of British Overseas…