International Tax Planning

One of the primary benefits of offshore financial structures is the ability to optimise taxes. Many offshore financial centers have been created and regulated in such a way as to provide significant tax advantages for foreign investors. With intelligent tax planning and expert guidance, it is possible to substantially reduce your tax burden through the use of different offshore financial vehicles.

Our extensive experience in a number of tax-friendly offshore jurisdictions enables us to provide expert advice to our clients on how best to optimise and reduce their taxes through offshore tax planning. We can advise on the use of specific financial vehicles in our various jurisdictions which will best serve our clients’ tax needs, as well as providing many other benefits such as greater security, confidentiality, and higher returns. 

Economic Substance Requirements

Economic substance requirements have been introduced in a number of offshore jurisdictions. This basically refers to the requirement for a transaction to have a substantive economic purpose aside from purely reduction in taxes, as well as an economic effect other than simply an effect on taxes.

We are experts at advising on economic substance requirements and compliance. There are many ways that economic substance requirements can be fulfilled through intelligent structuring and reporting. We help our clients ensure that they are able to comply with economic substance requirements which enables them to make better use of the tax optimisation vehicles which are available to them. We also offer substance audits on structures which are already in place, so as to identify and avoid any potential issues in compliance. We can regularly review our clients’ offshore structures for ongoing regulatory issues and improved optimisation. 

Comprehensive Tax Planning Services

We offer a comprehensive range of offshore tax planning services. In addition to our economic substance guidance, we also provide practical advice on numerous other tax matters. Our global expertise enables us to deliver expert legal support on multi-jurisdictional tax structures, including cross-border transactional tax matters, analysis of the best jurisdictions and vehicles to suit our clients’ regulatory and commercial needs, tax residence, FATCA and other tax reporting requirements, and a wide range of other complex regulatory tax matters. 

Our specific services include:

• Analysis and advice on economic substance requirements, including compliance and reporting issues.
• Information regarding the various forms of taxation in each jurisdiction, including both direct and indirect tax considerations.
• Assistance in obtaining tax clearances and tax exemptions.
• Advice on the best corporate structures for our clients to optimise their tax structures.
• Tax advise and regulatory requirements in the case of corporate restructuring such as mergers and acquisitions, liquidations and/or terminations.
• Tax issues pertaining to migration of trusts and companies.
• Practical advice on bilateral tax agreements and Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements (DTAA), as well as information and practical considerations pertaining to information sharing agreements and cooperation between different tax authorities. 
• We offer our tax planning legal services to wealthy individuals and private wealth funds which includes advice on tax issues pertaining to offshore trusts, companies, and foundations. We help our private clients optimise their personal tax structures through the use of these offshore tax vehicles. 
• Tax issues related to the use of hybrid financial vehicles and structures, partnerships, and securitisation vehicles, and the way in which they can be used to maximise tax efficiency. 

Our tax services are wholistic and integrated, in that they consider the various related areas and the wider implications. Our tax experts work closely with our corporate legal teams, banking and finance experts, and investment specialists to ensure that we take account of the bigger picture when helping our clients to plan and optimise their tax structure.