, but I have seen comments to the effect that there are legitimate and above board reasons for people based in UK/Europe to have offshore accounts in places like Switzerland, Lichenstein, Monaco or British offshore tax havens, Jersey, Isle of Man etc.
Yeah I don't doubt that, but I would be interested in learning what these reasons are. Here are two that I can think of
a. Liability insurance (way to hide your money so that you can avoid getting taken to the cleaners, not sure how legit this is)
b. If you live in an unstable country- if I was a rich Russian I would hide my money to avoid Putin taking it.
c. If you live in one country but work in another, and want to make sure you don't have to pay personal income tax on all your earnings in every country where you work. The best way is to have your registered base of operations in one country, contract your services out as necessary in whatever countries require your work, and draw your personal paycheck from that company. This happens in construction all the time.
d. If the kind of business you conduct is subject to different rules in different countries, such that heavy taxes or fees apply if you register assets such as cargo ships or airplanes. Pick the country with the fewest restrictions, and register your assets there even if you live somewhere else. It's called "flag of convenience". Nobody really believes Liberia is a big oil producing state populated exclusively by wealthy tanker owners although you could be excused for thinking so by looking at a list of ship registrations. Liberia benefits by getting an extremely small slice of a very large business, without a substantial amount of overhead associated with collecting it. Win for the small country which gets a low maintenance revenue source it wouldn't otherwise have; win for you.
e. If you do business (never mind live) in a country with a history of nationalizing assets owned by citizens of rival countries, you can fly under the radar better if you look neutral.
f. Related to the liability issue: if you do business in a country that has a history of messed up tort law such that you stand a very good chance of having assets seized or frozen following a decision by a kangaroo court, put those assets out of reach in a nation that has a history of protecting property rights. This applies in just about all developing countries.
g. If you are not a publicly traded company and most of your personal wealth is tied up in your business, and you regularly do business or live in a country known for corruption or predatory taxation.
h. If you have an opportunity to earn a lot of money in a short period of time by doing business overseas (say you've got an opportunity in sports, the arts, or something else that won't last long) but live in a country with a higher marginal tax rate, such that it would be better if you received your personal income in smaller amounts over a short period of time. You stash the money in an overseas account, invest it perhaps, and then instead of paying an extremely high tax on the lump sum, you draw it out slowly and pay tax only on what you actually receive. This is perfectly legal and it allows you to receive a greater share of the income you earn. It's roughly on par with taking your (local) lottery jackpot winnings as an annual payment instead of as a lump sum.
