I live in a Nordic country that signed a tax agreement with Seychelles. Do I worry?

[xiiskgp]

A Nordic country that I live in signed a TIEA (tax information exchange agreement) with Seychelles.


In Seychelles I have a company setup, it has a nominee shareholder and nominee director, I am only the beneficial owner.


I have also made direct payments to that company as well from my Nordic bank account.


Should I be concerned and ditch Seychelles for a country such as Hong Kong or am I worrying too much?

 

[Zqq]

You should be cautious but there is no immediate need to ditch the Seychelles, though it is something to consider.


TIEAs only allow for release of information if there is reasonable suspicion. This means that as long as you manage your company in a way whereby the authorites in your country of tax residence never find out about it, you're fine.


Do your own risk assessment and decide whether you are fine with the risk or if you want to go for a company in Hong Kong or other non-TIEA jurisdiction.

 

[hugger]

A Nordic country that I live in signed a TIEA (tax information exchange agreement) with Seychelles.
In Seychelles I have a company setup, it has a nominee shareholder and nominee director, I am only the beneficial owner.


I have also made direct payments to that company as well from my Nordic bank account.


Should I be concerned and ditch Seychelles for a country such as Hong Kong or am I worrying too much?

In order to properly advise you, please give us more information:


1. where are the majority of your customers located? Europe, USA or Asia?


2. Also do you sell a "physical" product that can be easily tracked (through shipping records, etc)? "Product" sales are much easier to be assessed by the IRS for tax purposes.


3. Or do you sell a service (over the internet)?


4. Who is the signatory to your Seychelles company bank account? (If the signatory is the Nominee Director and/or the Nominee Shareholder then you do NOT control that bank account !!)


5. Why did you send money (make direct payments) to the Seychelles company?


By doing so, you have alerted your local Tax Authorities to your connection to a tax haven based company.


(If they ask you about your connection to this company, what are you going to say? Are you going to lie and say that you are NOT connected to the Seychelles company? Or are you going to say that the Seychelles company is your company? Either answer will come back to bite you in the a*s).


The current situation is not looking good. But if you can answer the questions above, then there MAY be a way out of this mess.