Offshore Instruments

Offshore financial planning can provide risk management, enhanced privacy, estate planning and the opportunity for tax mitigation. You can access the same investment vehicles that are available 'onshore' or choose from a vast universe of offshore investment managers that are not provided to domestic investors.

Further, expatriates working or retiring abroad avoid tax and residency complications by moving their investment portfolios away from the country they are leaving behind.

Trusts
In common law jurisdictions, trusts represent a fiduciary relationship between a person who willingly relinquishes control of some or all of his/her assets to a trusted advisor (the trustee) for the benefit of a defined person(s), group or organization (the beneficiary).

Key Benefits of Trusts

- Tax and estate planning flexibility.
- Asset and creditor protection.
- Avoidance of forced heirship requirements.
- Protection against foreign exchange controls or public sequestration.
- Protection against personal lawsuits.
- Protection of assets against the break-up of a relationship, including marriage.
- Possible deferral and/or reduction of personal income taxes, capital gains tax and wealth and/or death duties for settlor.

Asset Protection Trusts
If a individual has significant net worth (usually $1 million or greater) and wants a portion of their estate protected from claims of creditors, including family members, then an Asset Protection Trust ('APT') is the correct offshore vehicle for them. The primary consideration of the client is asset protection and not tax avoidance. An APT is tax neutral insofar as there will be attribution of income and/or capital gains back to the Settlor which must be reported.

International Business Companies
An International Business Company (IBC) is a legal entity incorporated in an offshore jurisdiction for commercial or personal purposes. While they can perform any number of different functions, the most important role of an IBC is to provide personal financial and estate planning flexibility as well as ease of corporate succession planning.

Key Benefits of IBCs

- Investor confidentiality.
- All or only some of your worldwide assets may be controlled by an IBC.
- Beneficial ownership of the shares of an IBC remains strictly confidential.
- Tax and estate planning flexibility