Offshore Financial Centers - Explained
What are Offshore Financial Centers?
- Marketing, Advertising, Sales & PR
- Accounting, Taxation, and Reporting
- Professionalism & Career Development
-
Law, Transactions, & Risk Management
Government, Legal System, Administrative Law, & Constitutional Law Legal Disputes - Civil & Criminal Law Agency Law HR, Employment, Labor, & Discrimination Business Entities, Corporate Governance & Ownership Business Transactions, Antitrust, & Securities Law Real Estate, Personal, & Intellectual Property Commercial Law: Contract, Payments, Security Interests, & Bankruptcy Consumer Protection Insurance & Risk Management Immigration Law Environmental Protection Law Inheritance, Estates, and Trusts
- Business Management & Operations
- Economics, Finance, & Analytics
- Courses
Table of Contents
What are Offshore Financial Centers?Academic Research on Offshore Financial Centers (OFCs)What are Offshore Financial Centers?
An Offshore Financial Center, otherwise known as an OFC, is defined as a country or jurisdiction that makes available financial services to non residents with the purpose of circumventing aspects of the non-resident's home country or jurisdiction.
These financial centers are generally used as locations for asset holding companies to achieve tax avoidance. Too often, they are used illegally for tax evasion.
Company assets (such as intellectual property) are parked in these foreign entities. This can protect these assets from liability and allow the allocation of certain revenues to the assets (rather than allocation to the country of use or sale - where taxes may be higher). This structure also allows the holder of assets (at death) to pass ownership to heirs or third parties without going through their home country probate system.
The international monetary fund categorizes OFCs as being third class financial centres, along with International Financial Centres (IFCs), and Regional Financial Centres (RFCs).
Back to: INTENATIONAL BUSINESS, LAW, & RELATIONS
Academic Research on Offshore Financial Centers (OFCs)
- Global finance and the growth of offshore financial centers: The Manx experience, Cobb, S. C. (1998). Geoforum, 29(1), 7-21. With the increase in the complexity of the world's financial system, OFCs provide an alternative for capital to be invested into offshore markets. This paper explains that small scale companies find a hard time in accessing the global economy and the only means available to them is through the creation of spatially focused financial regulation and supervision.
- Why reregulation after the crisis is feeble: Shadow banking, offshore financial centers, and jurisdictional competition, Rixen, T. (2013). Regulation & Governance, 7(4), 435. This paper provides insight on two levels of perspective concerning the radical regulatory reforms enacted to quell subsequent financial crisis.
- Chinese capital flows and offshore financial centers, Sharman, J. C. (2012). The Pacific Review, 25(3), 317-337. This paper expounds on the reasons for foreign investment into the British Virgin Islands as a representation of China and foreign investors to reduce governance and measurement transaction costs.
- Bank secrecy, illicit money and offshore financial centers, Picard, P. M., & Pieretti, P. (2011). Journal of public economics, 95(7-8), 942-955. This paper analyzes the effects of pressure policies on offshore financial centers and their ability to enforce the compliance of those centers with anti-money laundering regulations.
- On the Use and Abuse of Standards for Law: Global Governance and Offshore Financial Centers, Gordon, R. K. (2009). NCL Rev., 88, 501. This article expounds on the OFC's experience with prudent regulation and anti-money laundering rules.
- The role of offshore financial centers in the process of renminbi internationalization, Cheung, Y. W. (2014). This article examines the active stance of China in promoting the international use of its currency, the renminbi.
- Uncovering offshore financial centers: Conduits and sinks in the global corporate ownership network, Garcia-Bernardo, J., Fichtner, J., Takes, F. W., & Heemskerk, E. M. (2017). Scientific Reports, 7(1), 6246. This paper provides a unique data-driven approach for identifying OFCs based on the global corporate ownership network.
- Offshore financial centers and the Canadian economy, Hejazi, W. (2007). University of Toronto. Mimeographed. The analysis as provided by this paper posits that CDIA that go through conduit jurisdictions results in broad-based increases in Canadian exports to the global economy.
- Sources of polarization of income and wealth: Offshore financial centers, Larudee, M. (2009). Review of Radical Political Economics, 41(3), 343-351. This paper analyses the sources of polarization of income and wealth with relevant evidence on how much tax havens hold in terms of assets.
- Regulatory Effectiveness & Offshore Financial Centers, Morriss, A. P., & Henson, C. C. (2012). Va. J. Int'l L., 53, 417. This paper analyses the effectiveness of OFCs in relation to reducing the strain of Onshore jurisdictions and laws, and it is perceived in bad light as a result under the excuse of its regulations being lax.
- The conman and the sheriff: SEC jurisdiction and the role of offshore financial centers in modern securities fraud, Dhesi, N. S. (2009). Tex. L. Rev., 88, 1345. This paper focuses on the responsibility of OFCs in finance frauds.