Importance of Choosing A Legitimate Jurisdiction
Many offshore jurisdictions are regarded by banks, the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) and other bodies in the finance industry as being regulated either as effectively as or better than their onshore counterparts whilst others are known to be areas of dubious legitimacy.
Unfortunately gone are the days (if ever they existed) where the distinction between onshore and offshore equated to legitimate or illegitimate. The current position is that there is no correlation between legitimacy of jurisdiction and tax status. For example Nigeria would not be regarded as offshore but perpetrates much of the world's advance fee fraud whereas Switzerland would be regarded as a highly respectable jurisdiction.
Meanwhile, some locations are still seen as being somewhat in between offshore jurisdictions and financial centres. The offshore regime in Cyprus for instance, although still maintaining low corporate tax and other benefits has successfully reformed all its financial sector legislation in line with international best practice, fully compliant with European Union directives, the OECD, Financial Action Task Force (FATF), and Financial Stability Forum (FSF); since EU accession. Following these measure, Cyprus was excluded from the OECD's harmful tax haven blacklist and was placed on the OECD white list of territories which have substantially implemented the internationally agreed standard in tax transparency.
It is no longer possible for illegitimate jurisdiction to operate in light of the OECD and the FATF as well as current and pending US legislation (13/06/09). It is very much in the interest of most offshore jurisdictions to ensure their house is in good order as this failure to comply and subsequent sanctions could lead to the total economic collapse of a country dependent upon its international reputation.
Read more about this topic: Offshore Company
Famous quotes containing the words importance of, importance, choosing, legitimate and/or jurisdiction:
“I can never bring you to realize the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumb-nails, or the great issues that may hang from a boot-lace.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (18591930)
“What is done for science must also be done for art: accepting undesirable side effects for the sake of the main goal, and moreover diminishing their importance by making this main goal more magnificent. For one should reform forward, not backward: social illnesses, revolutions, are evolutions inhibited by a conserving stupidity.”
—Robert Musil (18801942)
“Although Ive risen! and my back is bold.
My tongue is brainy, choosing from among
Care, rage, surprise, despair, and choosing care.
Im semi-splendid within what Ive defended.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“He will place a tax on the air you breathe and on the bread you eat; he will give you a legislation which is as legitimate as it is unjust and instead of reasons, hell give you laws. These will grow in the course of time, until you no longer exist for yourselves but for others.”
—Franz Grillparzer (17911872)
“The putting into force of laws which shall secure the conservation of our resources, as far as they may be within the jurisdiction of the Federal Government, including the more important work of saving and restoring our forests and the great improvement of waterways, are all proper government functions which must involve large expenditure if properly performed.”
—William Howard Taft (18571930)