Competitive Taxes And Services

Most of the off-shore financial centers provide excellent banking and corporate services facilities and effective and user-friendly ways to administer companies in combination with very low tax rates. Based on this it is not peculiar in any way that so many of the world's leading companies have chosen to place smaller or bigger portions of their financial activities in off-shore jurisdictions.

High-tax countries around the world naturally find this very hard to compete with. Instead they are doing their best to convince everybody that easily administered off-shore companies, low-tax jurisdictions, and bank secrecy doesn't have a justifiable role to play in today's world. In other words, they do not like the competition these opportunities present compared with their own oversized and cost heavy administrations.

Competition however is always good. Just think how the phenomena of the new low cost airline companies have lowered our ticketing costs compared with the old state-controlled airline companies. The result of this is new and radical way of looking at passengers and air-transport in which the airplane itself is seen, not only as a means of transportation, but also as a market place. A whole new business model has evolved - all in favor of the customers.

Almost all OECD countries are running budget deficits year after year and are, as a consequence, and left with no other option but to raise taxes continuously and indefinitely until they reach the breakeven point. Just imagine what would happen if there was no competition in the world in this arena? Common sense tells that we would be over taxed, and that we would have no other option but to accept whatever tax level they implement.

Competition is need in this field now more than ever to counterbalance the overspending pattern seen in the high-tax countries. This does not necessarily mean that we need to go completely off-shore, it can as well mean that we use the instruments and laws our authorities have implemented in order to build strong and long lasting Tax Optimization structures.