{"id":1924,"date":"2014-03-14T04:38:02","date_gmt":"2014-03-14T08:38:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/?p=1924"},"modified":"2020-06-24T06:48:18","modified_gmt":"2020-06-24T10:48:18","slug":"understanding-tax-havens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/blog\/understanding-tax-havens\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding Tax Havens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Living, working, or running a business internationally is not only exciting, but can provide lots of opportunities to reduce your tax commitments by levying international law.\u00a0 While all legal transactions should be handled by a qualified attorney, it\u2019s wise to understand where your options lie when looking for tax havens.<\/p>\n

A tax haven is an international territory or country where specific incomes receive little or no taxation at all.\u00a0 Because of this, individuals and corporations can form offshore trusts and other binding financial agreements that keep the assets in a lower or nonexistent tax bracket than if they remained in their country of origin.<\/p>\n

There are three criteria that make a country a tax haven:<\/p>\n

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  1. Personal financial information protection.\u00a0 The country will have administrative or legal practices that block other jurisdictions from accessing and declaring the funds.<\/li>\n
  2. Lack of transparency.\u00a0 From country to country, the different reporting practices allow for loopholes that make it difficult to litigate between them, which benefits the account holder.<\/li>\n
  3. Minimal taxation.\u00a0 To fully qualify as a tax haven, the territory must have low to no taxes for outside investors who shelter their money in the country.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    It\u2019s important to keep in mind that individual country regulations and laws are constantly changing, so a location that was originally a tax haven can eventually lose this status, like Andorra and Cyprus.<\/p>\n

    That being said here is a list of common and well-known tax havens:<\/p>\n