Talk:Offshore company/Archives/2016

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There should be some material on money laundering, illegal trade in arms, drug trafficking and numerous criminal or terrorist-assisting activities that are traditionally supported by fake off-shore companies. Me thinks there is no place for off-shore companies in the post-9/11 world and tax havens should be forced to give up on their lax laws.

I guess that this could also be balanced with examples of legitimate uses of offshore vehicles, such as international insurance, transnational trade etc; at the same time giving some comparisons to offshore and onshore requirements. It might be interesting, for example to compare the requirements to open bank accounts in the Channel Islands and, say, Miami, or the filing requirements for say Cayman companies and Nevada companies.--Andrew Gardner 18:25, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Thin Capitalisation - so far as I am aware, UK companies allow nominal capital, and some US corporations allow NPV shares - where is the offshore distinction?--Andrew Gardner 17:27, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree with Andrew that this could use some information on the darker side of off-shore companies. There are certainly legitimate purposes, but this article doesn't even hint that for people with something to hide, off-shore companies can be very useful. William Pietri 05:49, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

A couple of comments occur to me:

• Thin capitalisation rules - I think this is an indication of emphasis rather than a distinction as such; some countries operate thin capitalisation rules (France, Germany, others) and some don't (US, UK, Australia). The point is just to emphasise a characteristic feature of offshore corporate regimes.
• Purposes of offshore companies (legitimate and illegitimate) - this is covered quite well in Offshore Financial Centre#Offshore structures - it could either be copied across to this article, or a cross referencing link could be included.

Legis 07:53, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I work in this industry and see your point, but I think a the comments of Andrew Gardner are short-sighted - fraud and ML have existed much longer than offshore companies and most offshore centres were set up by onshore governments and are (if anything) better regulated than their onshore counterparts. Take by comparison the UK and the Isle of Man (where the FSA presided over the collapse of the banking industry) the US state of Delaware with the British Virgin Islands. Although offshore companies are a good scapegoat in times of turmoil I would suggest that 99% of offshore buisness is legal (albeit some of it may be considered of dubious moral status but that is a seperate issue). In fact, in my opinion it would be considerably easier to set up most kinds of frauds in an onshore country than an offshore country. Consider if you will the Isle of Man, my area of expertise, where the industry operates very much on the policy of 'one bad apple spoils the batch', we go above any beyond any onshore regulatory structures rules or best pratice guidelines to ensure we are not party to illegality because this is our Island's way of life, without it we would be financially crippled. I will try to amend the article as mentioned... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thomascjackson (talk • contribs) 17:26, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I think we have now departed from Offshore Company and are mostly editing about companies generally.... Thomascjackson (talk) 11:48, 22 July 2009 (UTC)