If you want to minimise the chances of underlying ownership of your IBC ever being found out there're a few things you can certainly do:
- Include a Nominee director included as part of your structure planning.
- Include a Nominee shareholder included in your game plan and have yourself appointed as an Advisor to the director. I am sure the nominee director will be happy to sign you a POA (Power of Attorney) and an undated Letter of Resignation. In that case, if your association with the IBC is ever uncovered, you have a valid reason at hand that you can point to in order to describe your involvement with the IBC.
- If possible, incorporate a Foundation as well to create hurdles for those who are extremely curious about your involvements in your offshore company.
- Be careful with your communications with the Offshore Company Manager/Director, do not leave any trace in your communication devices (Your email application, SMSes, Whatsapp, Facebook chat and Wechat are dangerous applications), alway use auto-erase communication application like Telegram or Whickr. When in doubt, please make an internet call and delete the call log. Always assume that all these information may end up in public domain (Panama Papers) one day.
- When incorporating, choose a jurisdiction:
- Which does not require owner, shareholder or director’s details to be filed publicly;&
- Which does not have a Tax Information Exchange Agreement (“TIEA”) with the country where you are ordinarily tax resident.
- A jurisdiction that has a set of regulations that protect corporate owners from assets protection standpoint, one good example is the Cook Islands.
- When opening a bank account, choose a jurisdiction:
- That is different from your offshore company jurisdiction of incorporation.
- Which respects banking and ownership privacy and which doesn't have a Taxes Information Exchange Contract (“TIEA”) with the US or your location is ordinarily tax citizen; &
- Never assume that offshore bank issued debit or credit cards can’t be traced.
- If you’re setting up a trading or marketing business offshore and are likely to do business in major “onshore” financial centres, think about establishing a more complex type of offshore structure. But do not overdo it as it may create more problem for yourself when you need to open a bank account for your offshore company.
- Seek advice from seasoned corporate lawyers or with the help of experienced incorporators wherever possible, especially before bringing any of your IBC’s money back “onshore”. Check with Offshore CorpServe and they will find out for you how to do it legally.
- Offshore CorpServe is one of those that sell the solutions. There are lots of big and expensive offshore incorporators in the offshore world who can sell you an offshore company but not many people know how to structure or control a business:
- so as to avoid coming into conflict with onshore regulation, especially tax rules or
- to be able to achieve the goal of maximum privacy and assets protection.
- Make sure the there are economical activities in the offshore company.