British Virgin Islands offshore banks
British Virgin Islands offshore service providers
The islands were first inhabited by the Arawak and later Carib Indians. First settled by the Dutch in 1648, the islands were soon after (1672) annexed by the English.
The economy is closely tied to the larger and more populous US Virgin Islands to the west; the US dollar is the legal currency.
The British Virgin Islands consist of the main islands of Tortola, Virgin Gorda, Anegada and Jost Van Dyke, along with over fifty other smaller islands and cays.
Economy
The economy, one of the most stable and prosperous in the Caribbean, is highly dependent on tourism, generating an estimated 45% of the national income. An estimated 820,000 tourists, mainly from the US, visited the islands in 2005.
Roughly 400,000 companies were on the offshore registry by yearend 2000. The adoption of a comprehensive insurance law in late 1994, which provides a blanket of confidentiality with regulated statutory gateways for investigation of criminal offenses, made the British Virgin Islands even more attractive to international business.
The offshore financial sector, which has been operating since the mid 1980s, has been a spectacular success, by virtue of the British connection, benign legislation and political uncertainty in rival centres (notably Hong Kong and Panama). However, in the last few years, the government has been forced to respond to international pressure to tighten its regulatory regime in order to prevent money laundering.
GDP: purchasing power parity - $853.4 million (2004 est.)
GDP: per capita: $38,500 (2004 est.)
Currency: US dollar.
Taxation in the British Virgin Islands is relatively simple by comparative standards; photocopies of all of the tax laws of the British Virgin Islands would together amount to about 200 pages of paper. Taxation in the British Virgin Islands is mostly notable for what is not subject to taxation. The British Virgin Islands has:
• No capital gains tax
• No gift tax
• No sales tax or value added tax
• No profit tax
• No corporation tax
• No inheritance tax or estate duty, but
Income tax rate in the BVI is set at zero.
Some IBC benefits
• One shareholder and one director (both may be private persons or corporate entities)
• Corporate officers are not required
• Annual general meetings are not required
• Bearer shares are permitted
• Company needs only keep those accounts and records that are considered appropriate by the Director(s)
• BVI authorities need not to be informed of the identity of the IBC's shareholders or directors