I am a USC and have a BVI company that aside from forming the company nothing ever happened. I'll spare the long story but it was formed, nothing ever happened, no bank account, nothing, there is no nominee either. It was formed in 2018. The second year (2019) it did not get renewed (mostly because the osp/agent never sent an invoice or asked for renewal and this company was long out of my mind as a failure to launch) and eventually it was struck apparently in 2020. In late 2020 someone from OSP/agent reached out and asked I do an Economic Substance filing because the company was still technically considered active for a few days in 2020 after which apparently some Economic Substance rules went into effect. This is actually when I first found the company was struck also. So I paid the Economic Substance filing fee and filed it for the 2020 year, was easier than debating the issue as it was a couple hundred dollars for the 1 year and I thought it was a 1 time thing.
No-one from the OSP/agent reached out to me this year to ask for a filing but being the end of the year I thought I should ask just to make sure, and they replied that "It is up to me if I want to file it.... but the current legislation reads that it should be filed for each of the years the company is struck before the company finally gets completely removed from existence". Once a company is struck it is is inactive and no allowed to do business of any sort (it never did any business in the first place) and eventually after being struck for 7 years it finally rots and falls out of the registry completely. Of course they are asking for some big fees to process it for the next 6 years. Frankly it's more in fees than I spent to create the company that was never used or did anything.
So back to my question, if I choose (as they say it is my choice) not to do the filing what happens? I've read that there are penalties that quickly get into the 6 figures and potential jail time? Although I can see this as being relevant to some real big companies in non-compliance this seems ridiculous for a small company that never did any business or anything. It also seems ridiculous that I should have to file and pay each year for a struck company. The first thing they do if you don't file is strike your company. Seems like a circular problem.
So in reality, if I don't file this what does that really mean? I find it hard to believe they could come to me my home country and collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties for a company that all I ever did was pay the $2k fee to create it and never did anything else or come take me to prison in the BVI. However does this mean I just can't ever take a vacation or visit the BVI as they might do that there? Not that I think I'll ever want to create another BVI company, but will this blacklist me somehow as someone not allowed to create a BVI company again? Other countries?
It really seems ridiculous and like extortion in this scenario. Again I would understand if I was a big operating company with bank accounts and money failing to comply but this makes no sense to me. It also sticks out to me that if I never asked about this year the osp/agent certainly wasn't reaching out to me to ask me to do it.
Thanks in advance if anyone can provide some insight. Has anyone here ever just let their BVI company rot and die and not do the ES filings?
No-one from the OSP/agent reached out to me this year to ask for a filing but being the end of the year I thought I should ask just to make sure, and they replied that "It is up to me if I want to file it.... but the current legislation reads that it should be filed for each of the years the company is struck before the company finally gets completely removed from existence". Once a company is struck it is is inactive and no allowed to do business of any sort (it never did any business in the first place) and eventually after being struck for 7 years it finally rots and falls out of the registry completely. Of course they are asking for some big fees to process it for the next 6 years. Frankly it's more in fees than I spent to create the company that was never used or did anything.
So back to my question, if I choose (as they say it is my choice) not to do the filing what happens? I've read that there are penalties that quickly get into the 6 figures and potential jail time? Although I can see this as being relevant to some real big companies in non-compliance this seems ridiculous for a small company that never did any business or anything. It also seems ridiculous that I should have to file and pay each year for a struck company. The first thing they do if you don't file is strike your company. Seems like a circular problem.
So in reality, if I don't file this what does that really mean? I find it hard to believe they could come to me my home country and collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties for a company that all I ever did was pay the $2k fee to create it and never did anything else or come take me to prison in the BVI. However does this mean I just can't ever take a vacation or visit the BVI as they might do that there? Not that I think I'll ever want to create another BVI company, but will this blacklist me somehow as someone not allowed to create a BVI company again? Other countries?
It really seems ridiculous and like extortion in this scenario. Again I would understand if I was a big operating company with bank accounts and money failing to comply but this makes no sense to me. It also sticks out to me that if I never asked about this year the osp/agent certainly wasn't reaching out to me to ask me to do it.
Thanks in advance if anyone can provide some insight. Has anyone here ever just let their BVI company rot and die and not do the ES filings?
