Although there is a widespread misconception that offshore tax havens are directly linked to money laundering or tax evasion, this is not always the case. The word “offshore tax haven” can signify various things to different individuals. It is permissible to try to (legally) reduce your tax by establishing activities in one nation as opposed to another when you wish to create a foreign firm, for instance. The so-called tax haven nations, such as Belize, Switzerland, Malta, Panama, Singapore, etc are under strict scrutiny and are required to follow a set of guidelines established by international organizations.
When it comes to offshore tax havens, a quick Google search will reveal the stalwarts like Panama or Switzerland without highlighting the problems that these popular tax haven nations have by default. For instance, Switzerland and the US have engaged in a number of deferred prosecution agreements during the last 10 to 15 years, and only a few years ago, there was the “Panama Papers” controversy.
Many nations renowned for being offshore tax havens have lost their appeal in recent years. For instance, numerous Swiss banks have signed DPAs with the US, and the Swiss government has sent financial data on hundreds of thousands of its citizens to more than 70 nations in compliance with CRS. The Cayman Islands appear to have moved away from financial secrecy and toward financial transparency, which lessens the possibility of using the islands as a tax haven.
What makes St. Kitts & Nevis stand out:
- One of the finest tax havens in the world could be St. Kitts and Nevis. Personal income, wealth, long-term capital gains, inheritance and gifts are not subject to tax on international income.
- You can gain citizenship through St. Kitts & Nevis long-running Citizenship by Investment programmes, which provide a method to obtain dual citizenship at the most competitive prices in the world, or you can become a tax resident of the country right away by spending 183 days there in a year.
- The Common Reporting Standard (CRS) does not apply to St. Kitts and Nevis. As a result, it can offer the greatest degree of security and protection for the investors’ and account holders’ personal information.
- St. Kitts & Nevis is unaffected by the typical tactics used by international organizations to combat tax evasion and money laundering such as legal action against lenders and diplomatic pressure. This is due to its special status as a sovereign nation that is also legally a part of the United Kingdom, with Queen Elizabeth II serving as the head of state.
- Strong regulations governing financial secrecy conceal beneficial owners. In order to compel offshore jurisdictions like the BVI, the Cayman Islands, and Bermuda to establish public registries of businesses discretely functioning from those areas, the UK introduced an amendment to its anti-money-laundering law in May 2018. St. Kitts and Nevis, a tiny sovereign nation in the Caribbean with Queen Elizabeth as its head of state, remained to be an outlier even though many tax havens were forced to change their secrecy-based economic models.
- Clients have been able to establish businesses in St. Kitts and Nevis with a degree of confidentiality that no regulator could access. Regulators must first establish both the existence and ownership of the registered entities on the island in order to demonstrate that they are involved in money laundering, tax evasion, or the funding of terrorism.
- If investigators are unable to establish who the owner of the entity in question is, they will not be able to establish that the entity engaged in tax evasion, money laundering, the financing of terrorism, etc. You have one year from the time the business was founded to file a lawsuit in order to demonstrate that a St. Kitts & Nevis-registered firm truly belongs to someone and was not created unlawfully. This is so close to being impossible since it is so difficult to even know if such an entity really exists.