offshore bank accounts

any thoughts on where / why?

[sandor]

any suggestions on the wheres, whys and hows of having an offshore bank account ... bahamas, cayman, nevis, isle of man, jersey? would love to hear some advantages and disadvantages of different countries as well as accounts.

ideally i would like something where i could have funds wired to an account which is tied also to a credit card and i can use that credit card at will.

[Essex_boy]

try Cater Allen in Jersey, they have an account that uses a Visa debt card tied to the account.

Or the Isle of Man, independent of the UK with its own laws but has has the same advanced ifrastructure as any western country, ive banked in both locations.

[tbear]

Ensure the bank you choose has a currency exchange agreement with the currencies you will use.
The above mentioned bank (some 6 or 7 years ago just 4 people in 1 office) were recommended to me. Sadly it cost me an awful lot of money to change a peseta cheque to sterling, they had arrangement for sterling to pesetas but not the reverse. I ended up learning a lot about banking and having to explain it to these 'experts' in Jersey. What an expensive joke! Hopefully they have better facilities now and can afford another office..... ;)

[cabbagehead]

Pardon my ignorance ... what is the benefit of an offshore account? I know the US has previously had tax loopholes that benefit offshoring a copr headquarters (a la Accenture and Enron), but I thought they have closed those loopholes in the past year or two (?).

[webdoctor]

any suggestions on the wheres, whys and hows of having an offshore bank account ...

NB: All that follows assumes you want to stay within the law - if you don't care about going to prison, ignore the advice :-)

The "why" of offshore accounts usually depends a lot on where you are legally resident and domiciled.

For example, if you permanently live and work in the UK, and you start messing with offshore bank accounts, you're liable to end up in trouble very quickly - AFAIK the Inland Revenue claim that your worldwide income is relevant to your UK tax return ( not just income earned within the UK). So if you're getting frequent cheques from the Googleplex, it doesn't matter where you bank them, you're supposed to declare them and pay UK income taxes on them.

IMHO you have to lose your UK residence (and sometimes domicile too) before the Inland Revenue start to take their claws out of you, and then offshore accounts might start to make some sense :-)

webdoctor