Category Archives: Offshore Schemes

Offshore Schemes
Offshore schemes have become very popular with contractors and it is absolutely legal for them to use offshore umbrella companies.

They can return 85% to 90% of the money that a contractor earns to them.

Mow UK contractors are getting in on the tax saving devices used by high net worth individuals and major international companies.
Average Tax Paid
The average limited company contractor pays around £10,000 a year less in tax than the average umbrella company contractors.

However, the average offshore umbrella company contractors pays £10,000 a year less in tax than a limited company contractors.

That’s £20,000 less than a PAYE umbrella company contractor would pay.

This can all tally up over the years.

Over 10 years, even without investing the money, the average tax paid by a contractors using offshore facilities would be £200,000 less than one operating through an onshore umbrella.

[caption id="attachment_516" align="alignnone" width="232"] Offshore Schemes for UK contractors to save tax[/caption]

Offshore Schemes legal says top HMRC boss

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Offshore Schemes Legal

Offshore Schemes Legal

Are offshore schemes legal? Are the Offshore Umbrella Companies that contractors use legal?

Offshore Schemes can be perfectly legal HMRC’s Commissioner and Director General for Enforcement and Compliance, Jennie Granger, said. According to today’s Times she conceded that “There is nothing illegal about an international structure, especially in a globally integrated economy and these arrangements may be particularly legitimate”.

So, many contractors and freelancers are now aping the bigger companies and even members of Parliament. They are using offshore schemes such as offshore umbrella companies.

Offshore Schemes Legal – Tax Systems of Countries

Jonathan Schwartz, a barrister at Temple Tax Chambers and a professor in international tax law, said “All laws influence and tax laws are no different. The tax behaviour of companies is largely driven by the tax systems they engage with.

“Tax administrators must apply the law as it exists rather than what they, or anyone else, might think it ought to be”.

Offshore Umbrella Companies Legal

That makes a lot of sense. There’s no point in Governments or MPs moaning about companies behaving immorally, when avoiding tax, when they just follow the tax rules created by Governments. It is their laws that make offshore schemes legal.

Usually the companies are just using schemes that the Government created, like special tax dispensation for the film industry, so that they come to the UK rather than go elsewhere.

The UK Government complain about companies avoiding paying tax whilst, at the same time, progressively cutting Corporation Tax. This is with the purpose of undercutting other countries. It is their stated intention to have the lowest Corporation Tax of all the G8 countries.

David Cameron’s Legacy

Then there’s David Cameron whose family money came from his father Ian’s use for himself, and others, of offshore schemes. There’s Chancellor Osborne who has an offshore family trust worth £4.5m.

Then there’s Margaret Hodge herself, the hammer of the multinationals like Google, whom she calls immoral. She has been exposed as owning part of an offshore company.

Stemcor paid her dividends of £50,000 last year. Her stake is worth over a million pounds. Tax was paid at less than 2%. Google would have been appreciative.

Said Mike Dean of Milestone International Tax partners “The companies under fire are doing nothing wrong legally, morally or ethically. They are, in fact, using the tax system in the way intended”.

Therefore, its Government laws that make offshore schemes legal like offshore umbrella companies.

Gain an Advantage

It is Governments who have been trying to ‘cheat’ and gain an advantage on other countries, in certain areas, that has caused this problem. Offshore schemes and offshore umbrella companies are just taking advantage of all of this.

So, it is Governments who make offshore schemes legal.

See our Offshore Umbrella Company Directory

offshore umbrella company list

Offshore Umbrella Company List

Offshore Umbrella Companies returns for UK Contractors

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Offshore Umbrella Companies Returns

Offshore Umbrella Companies Returns

Offshore Umbrella Companies returns are the best returns a contractor can get. Those using them are able to keep the most of the money they earn of all contractors.

The returns can be as high as 90% depending on income.

It’s usually reckoned that a contractor using an onshore umbrella company will pay around ten grand a year tax more than one using a limited company.

However, offshore returns dwarf even that of limited companies. Indeed, it could make another ten grand’s difference again to the UK Contractor.

Difference in Take Home Pay

So, the difference between the annual take home pay between a contractor in an offshore company and one in an onshore one can be as much as £20,000 a year.

That’s a difference, over 15 years or so, of around £300,000. Once you’ve added in the extra earning potential of having that extra money to invest, it could be quite a substantial sum we are talking about.

On the Stock Market you are able to get an average return of around 12% a year, including dividends.

Extra Money Calculation

If you calculate how much your extra 20 grand a year would come to over 15 years at 12% interest a year, your money would be worth an extra £835,000 over that 15 years.

Of course, if you are better than the average Stock Market punter you could make even more.

So, it is clear that Offshore returns are much higher than for those using onshore companies. Using them would make contractors a million quid richer in 16 and one-third years, I calculate. That’s not to be sniffed at.

If you are going to be a successful and rich contractor you should maximise your returns from your earnings.

Apply for Offshore Umbrella Companies

So, to find out more, or to apply for one, click on Offshore Umbrella Companies List to get the best offshore umbrella companies returns and offers.

Begging Letters Sent Out by HMRC on Offshore Umbrella Companies

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Begging Letters from HMRC to UK Contractors

Begging letters from HMRC

As regards Offshore Umbrella Companies HMRC is to continue sending out threatening begging letters to contractors. This is an attempt to get money from them for using offshore schemes that are completely legal.

Said one offshore umbrella company owner “To be honest it’s HMRC scare mongering. They know they can’t legally demand retrospective taxes. However they sent out 30,000 letters in 2013 and will again this year”.

They cannot hope to process that number of contractors, especially when their staff numbers have been cut. However, they are hoping to scare contractors into sending them money.

Tax Avoidance, Not Tax Evasion

Their big problem is that offshore umbrella companies are tax avoidance rather than tax evasion. One is legal and one is illegal.

What HMRC really need to do, if they want all that tax money, is to get the Government to change the laws to make it illegal.

However, despite what they say, the Government have little interest in shutting this down. They are not keen for comedians like Jimmy Carr to use tax avoidance schemes or indeed common or garden contractors.

Legal Tax Avoidance

Most of their donors use tax avoidance. Indeed Cameron’s own money came that way as his father was a setter-up of offshore avoidance schemes and was into it earlier than most people. So, this is where Cameron’s inheritance came from.

George Osborne has an offshore family trust worth around £5m. They probably teach Tax Avoidance at Eton.

Most of the offshore tax avoidance islands around the world are British colonies where the hedge funds ‘reside’.

Isle of Man

Offshore Umbrella Companies for contractors, which are mostly in the Isle of Man, are allowing contractors to do the same as the ‘knobs’ and avoid tax.

As regards offshore umbrella companies HMRC would love this to be changed. However, there is no way that the Tories will annoy their benefactors and sponsors by killing off this golden goose. It is annoying for them that contractors and comedians can’t be kept out.

So, as regards offshore umbrella companies, HMRC just have to send out begging letters to thousands of contractors. They may or may not be using offshore umbrella companies. They hope to can scare them into sending them money.

For a list of Offshore Umbrella Companies you should click Offshore Umbrella Companies List

Margaret Hodge an Offshore Tax Avoider too

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Stemcor and Margaret Hodge

Margaret Hodge

It turns out that Labour MP, Margaret Hodge, is a tax avoider too.

You couldn’t make it up. The newspapers revealed, not long ago, that two senior managers at HMRC were putting their salaries through Limited Companies to save tax. This was whilst they were hunting down genuine contractors who were doing so.

They have now revealed that the Hammer of Google, Facebook, Starbucks etc., Labour MP Margaret Hodge, has a share in an offshore fund as well and is an offshore tax avoider.

The newspapers revealed that Chancellor Osborne is an offshore tax avoider and has an offshore family trust worth £4.5m. They also revealed that David Cameron’s father Ian was an offshore tax avoider He made most of his money (and David Cameron’s inheritance) from offshore funds.

The new revelation is that the Chairperson of the Committee which looks into tax affairs and tax avoidance has a share in an offshore fund. Margaret Hodge is an offshore tax avoider too.

Stemcor Offshore Company

She has a shareholding in Stemcor – which paid just 0.01% tax last year. Google and Amazon would be proud of that. Hodge claimed in a grilling, by Michael Crick, that she just had a small shareholding in the company run by her brother who is an offshore tax avoider.

However it turns out that her shareholding is 1.26% of the company. That would mean that she would have been paid out £56,939 in dividends last year. Her shareholding is now worth £1.8m. That’s hardly a tiny, tiny amount as she claimed.

Stemcor have confirmed that it doesn’t even include shareholdings in her children’s names. It turns out that she owns several million pounds worth of shares when you include her children’s shareholdings. They will now pay no inheritance tax on it.

She was asked to explain what other purpose that there could be other than avoiding tax for her share in the trust? She hadn’t replied so far.

It’s always been the case that those in the know have been using these tax avoidance schemes. It’s to save paying their full whack of taxes.

The top Tories have been offshore tax avoiders for a long time. Now it looks like Labour MPs are at it too. They are using them while bashing multinational companies and genuine contractors who now use offshore umbrella companies.

To see some examples of offshore umbrella companies for contractors see Offshore Umbrella Companies

Offshore Schemes have Government foaming at mouth

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Offshore Schemes for contractors

Offshore Schemes

The Government has fulminated about offshore schemes where big companies are able to avoid paying tax in the UK. David Cameron has criticised ‘clever accountants’ who set up these offshore schemes for their clients to avoid paying UK tax.

Margaret Hodge of the Public Accounts Committee has attacked the big Accountancy companies for setting up these schemes at a Public Enquiry.

However, one wonders who should be in front of this Public Enquiry, the big Accountancy companies or the Government. After all, it is the Government who are in charge of the law. The big Accountancy companies just follow the laws that the Government set up.

Offshore Schemes for UK contractors to save tax

Offshore Schemes for UK contractors to save tax

Thatcher Government

Perhaps the Committee should investigate members of the Thatcher Government. The Committee could ask them why one of the first pieces of legislation they put through in 1979 after being elected was to allow people to send money offshore without it being taxed. Why was that so urgent?

There’s a lot of talk also about trying to shame companies like Starbucks into paying more tax than they legally have to.

Perhaps they should put David Cameron in front of the Committee to ask him if he would hand over to HMRC a big chunk of his own inheritance which came from the offshore schemes set up by his father Ian, who was one of the early practitioners of such schemes.

George Osborne

Perhaps they can bring Chancellor George Osborne before the Committee. They could ask him if he would promise to that he and his family will pay not just the tax that they have to but the amount of tax that they would have had to do if their £4.5m family trust has been set up in the UK rather than set up offshore.

Contractor Tax Avoidance sches on Isle of Man

Contractor Tax Avoidance schemes

So, the problem for the Government is that these offshore schemes are mainly used by their supporters and backers. There’s not a huge amount of Labour backers with offshore trusts.

These offshore schemes are used by people like David Cameron’s father-in-law Lord Astor and the Conservative Party’s main sponsor and fundraiser Lord Ashcroft. However, it was Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Government who brought in the laws allowing people to send money offshore untaxed.

Multinational Companies

What they don’t appear to like is multinational companies getting a slice of what was set up just for the upper and business classes in Britain to avoid paying UK Tax. The upper and business classes in Britain have been taking advantage of this for more than 40 years. However, they are now outraged that companies like Starbucks, IBM, Google and Microsoft are using them.

What really annoys them is that freelancers, many of them in IT, are using offshore schemes to avoid UK tax. IT Contractors mainly come from the middle and working classes. They didn’t set these laws up for them.  So, will Cameron and Osborne change the laws which have helped their supporters and sponsors for many, many years – or is this just a knee jerk reaction to a media frenzy.

We shall see. For the moment these offshore schemes remain perfectly legal.