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Originally Posted by Mike33
I think that tax havens and shelters are almost a thing of the past. New worldwide regulatory agreements have been underway for a few years now among many former havens, especially after 9/11 in order for the government to find out what money is going where and from whom.
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Low tax areas have not changed so much Mike, but totally agree on the expansion of international agreements and OECD committee recomendations for lower tax areas to start charging higher taxes - they assume they know what's best for other nations - predictably.
The only problem with that is for every batch of nations adopting the policies of OECD, another 100 are waiting in line to take advantage of offshore commerce.
Sure, movement of funds have been a concern for a number of years and banks have implemented anti money laundering and "know your customer" policies, but "normally" that would not be of concern to webmasters - it's just covering ass all round.
The flip side is obviously that of "legal offshore" and "illegal offshore". The former being folks who just want to defraud revenue when remaining resident in their home country. It's nicer to be totally legal and have a structure which is 100% legal within whatever jurisdiction - and, at the same time being actually legal on a personal basis for the beneficial owners.
PS Not sure 9/11 had much effect on the average offshore (least the one's I know of) - they already had more than adequate monitoring in place, - in fact prob more than the average "onshore" banking institutions have even now.