Privacy and Confidentiality (not secrecy)

[mstakh.i.mo.mi]

Limited Partnerships / Guernsey Property Unit Trusts (GPUTS) – Both of these provide options for tax transparent structures which can aid planning, particularly where there is a diverse pool of international investors.

Protected Cell Companies – Provides a company which has the ability to appoint different shareholders to different cells and ring fence assets in those cells, and can be an alternative to a Collective Investment Scheme.

Trusts and Foundations – For those investors who have estate planning in mind, Guernsey is a world leader in this area with a well-developed trust regime. Since 2012 Guernsey has been able to offer Foundations for wealth planning and asset holding which are increasingly popular, particularly with clients from civil law jurisdictions. Guernsey Foundations are particularly interesting due to their ‘disenfranchised’ beneficiary legislation.

2. Guernsey Collective Investment Schemes and Listed Real Estate Investment Trusts

Guernsey Collective Investment Schemes (CIS) and The International Stock Exchange (TISE) listed Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), which use British offshore entities as the listing vehicles, offer the following benefits to investors:

improved returns – exemption or potential exemption from UK corporation tax on rental income and from UK capital gains tax on corporate profits at the fund level, through the “transparency election” or an “exemption election”;
reduced or no transaction costs – no stamp duty arises in relation to the sale of shares in or units of a Guernsey entity unlike the SDLT suffered with a UK entity;
Private Investment Fund (PIF) Regime – provides a lighter touch regulation panama mobile database for a CIS and is therefore more cost-effective to use, rather than other more regulated fund structures.
3. Eurobond Exemption to UK Withholding Taxes

The TISE is an internationally recognised stock exchange headquartered in Guernsey, with offices in Isle of Man, Jersey, Dublin and London.

Currently, nearly one third of all UK REITs are listed on the TISE to take advantage of the Eurobond Exemption to UK Withholding Taxes, as non-UK companies issuing debt secured on UK real estate can list the debt on a recognised stock exchange in order to pay interest to non-UK Entities and Persons, without deducting UK withholding tax.

4.

Ultimate beneficial ownership of structures is not currently publicly available, but is required to be disclosed to the Guernsey Registry, and shared to fully meet the obligations of the Common Reporting Standard and Tax Information Exchange Agreements.

In addition, trust and foundation instruments, limited partnership agreements and limited liability company (LLC) agreements are not publicly available, so investors can manage their affairs privately.