About 80 kilometers
east of Puerto Rico, in the Eastern Caribbean, the British
Virgin Islands (BVI) are situated. The official language of
this island is English and the official currency is the US
Dollar. The government is very stable and promising. It is
also putting in a lot of effort to encourage offshore
finance business given the good commercial and professional
infrastructure of the island. Recently the state of the art
technology has also been installed.
In 1984 the
International Business Companies Act was passed. Thus the
International Business Company (IBC) was created which has
become the desired vehicle of offshore companies. Due to the
extensive marketing of the jurisdiction the BVI has achieved
great popularity in the recent years especially in the Far
East. The IBC Act has now been superseded by the BVI
Business Companies Act 2004.
The British Virgin
Island IBC
Following are the characteristics of BVI IBC :
Taxation
– in BVI taxes are not paid by IBCs .
Shareholders
– the minimum number of shareholders required is one.
Either bearer shares or registered shares may be issued. The
details of the shareholders never appear in the public file
but a file of details has to be maintained by the company at
the registered office address in BVI. Since 2005 January the
certificates of any bearer share issued has to be kept in
the custody of an approved custodian. And an annual
Government license fee of USD 1100 has to be paid by all
such companies who are empowered to issue bearer shares even
if there are none in issue presently.
Directors
-the minimum number of directors required is 1.
Corporate directors are allowed. Public file doesn’t contain
the detail of the directors.
Annual Reporting
-it is not needed to file any annual returns or
accounts. It is worth noting that as much as 50% of the
annual Government fee can be incurred as penalty if the
license fee is not paid in time.
Timescale
-within 24 hours incorporation can be achieved but it
takes about a week for the document to come from the BVI.
Restrictions on name and activity – the names must contain
any of the followings:
Limited, Incorporated, Corporation, Societe, Anonyme or Sociedad Anonima.
The following words and their associated meanings must not be used:
Fund, Royal, Trust, Bank, Chartered, Co-operative, Chamber of Commerce etc.
Local Requirements
The company must maintain (within BVI) a registered office address. Further, a resident of BVI has to be appointed as the agent of the company.
Feel free
contact us
at info@sadekya.com for more information on how we can help
you realize these benefits.
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