Isle of Man has zero percent corporate tax on (most) money earned outside the Isle of Man, which includes money earned in the UK. If you're a non-resident citizen of the UK, you can deposit your dividends from your Isle of Man company in your UK bank account, tax free. For the time being, IOM companies have GB VAT numbers, and a banking system that integrates seamlessly with the UK one, as well as a postal system (qu…
> For the time being, IOM companies have GB VAT numbers, and a banking system that integrates seamlessly with the UK one, as well as a postal system (quick, which country is 15 Hope Street, Douglas, IM1 1AQ, British Islands?). This makes the sales process to UK and EU companies painless. I bet that's been used for VAT fraud with EU companies.
The Isle of Man is not in the UK
51–60 of 211 posts
Re: The Isle of Man is not in the UK
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For the time being, IOM companies have GB VAT numbers, and a banking system that integrates seamlessly with the UK one, as well as a postal system (quick, which country is 15 Hope Street, Douglas, IM1 1AQ, British Islands?). This makes the sales process to UK and EU companies painless. I bet that's been used for VAT fraud with EU companies.
How would that be easier than VAT fraud in the UK proper?
"Carousel fraud", involving moving goods in and out of the EU and reclaiming VAT, maybe? Or the private jet / yacht scheme I mentioned above.
I remember when Amazon shipped all their CDs from Jersey to avoid VAT too.
Re: The Isle of Man is not in the UK
#53I’m relatively familiar with the geography, but why oh why, in an article with this headline and subject, is there not, before anything else, a map indicating the UK and the Isle of Man?
it's on the bbc website? the British public do generally have a good idea where IOM is.
plus the subheader:
>Despite being ringed on all sides by the UK – Northern Ireland to west, Scotland to the north, England to the east and Wales to the south – the Isle of Man is not actually part of it.
does tell you quite well where IOM is.
feels like complaining that an article on the NYTimes about Connecticut vs Pennsylvania doesn't show a map of the USA indicating where the states are.
Re: The Isle of Man is not in the UK
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For the time being, IOM companies have GB VAT numbers, and a banking system that integrates seamlessly with the UK one, as well as a postal system (quick, which country is 15 Hope Street, Douglas, IM1 1AQ, British Islands?). This makes the sales process to UK and EU companies painless. I bet that's been used for VAT fraud with EU companies.
How would that be easier than VAT fraud in the UK proper?
The more complex steps it has, the harder to investigate.
Re: The Isle of Man is not in the UK
#55"The Island's climate is temperate and lacking in extremes, due to the influence of the surrounding Irish Sea. In winter thunderstorms, snowfall and frost are infrequent, and even when snow does occur it rarely lies on the ground for more than a day or two.
February is normally the coldest month, with an average daily temperature of 4.9 C (41 F), and July and August are the warmest - with an average daily maximum temperature of around 18 C (63 F). In summer April, May and June are the driest months whilst May, June and July are the sunniest.
Wind generally travels southwesterly, although the rugged topography means that local effects of shelter and exposure are very variable. Sea fog affects the south and east coast at times, especially in spring, but is less frequent on the west coast.
Rainfall and the frequency of hill fog both increase with altitude - the highest point of the Island (Snaefell at 2,036 ft) receives some two and a quarter times more rainfall than Ronaldsway on the southeast coast, where the annual average is 34 inches (863 mm)."
That's why the Isle of Man is a tax haven. It's beautiful if you like bleak islands.
Re: The Isle of Man is not in the UK
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you separate avoidance of tax with competition between taxation venues? The IOM (and other small jurisdictions) cannot compete with larger countries on manufacturing and other big industry, but their small size and low cost of government allows them to be very competitive with Tax. If an individual is able to move his finances out of a country to a more competitive jurisdiction, isn't' that the fault of the or…
> If an individual is able to move his finances out of a country to a more competitive jurisdiction, isn't' that the fault of the original country rather than the more competitive one? If the "competitive jurisdiction" allows people to "move their finances" there without actually living or doing real business there, then that "jurisdiction" is in fact a parasite.
Indeed, and the countries that want that money can use force and other means of persuasion to take it. International law is a farce.
“The strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must.”
The US or other Great Powers can force less powerful countries to do what they want, when they want to. If that’s protecting the holdings of US companies in Latin America or dictating the tax policies of other countries the disrespect for other’s sovereignty is the same.
Re: The Isle of Man is not in the UK
#57> Independence is a strong part of the character of the people of the island. We’re not part of the UK, or the British Isles – we’re Manx
It should be noted that this is more aspirational than reality. It's not just the currency that's tied to the UK's pound, a lot of legislation is normalised between the two. The tax situation aside, it's more a part of the UK than some Manx residents like to think (and even the tax serves a purpose for the UK). This is unsurprising as most residents come from the UK and it is almost completely dependent on the UK. That said Tynwald (Manx government) can and does make laws that differ. Relatively recently its abortion reforms were in the news.
A geeky aside: Linux enthusiasts may know the Isle of Mann as the home of Mark Shuttleworth (creator of Ubuntu).
Re: The Isle of Man is not in the UK
#58Jesus Christ everyone, just pay some taxes
The Manx do pay tax, up to 20% income tax and 17.5% VAT (sales tax). Yes, it's low, but a little place with no need for military is cheap to run. There's plenty of countries with lower rates than that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates
The UK spends just over 2% of GDP on defence. It's not a big part of the budget. Total government spending is around 40% of GDP.
Re: The Isle of Man is not in the UK
#59Isle of Man has zero percent corporate tax on (most) money earned outside the Isle of Man, which includes money earned in the UK. If you're a non-resident citizen of the UK, you can deposit your dividends from your Isle of Man company in your UK bank account, tax free. For the time being, IOM companies have GB VAT numbers, and a banking system that integrates seamlessly with the UK one, as well as a postal system (qu…
After living in the UK for a year and encountering this tax system firsthand, I'm convinced that one of the main reasons for Brexit is that rich people in England are worried that EU tax harmonization could one day take away their sweet loopholes and convenient neighborhood tax havens.
I've personally benefitted from the system as a "resident non-domiciled" foreign citizen. But on the whole it's not fair to British taxpayers, and it's not fair to the rest of Europe to be a punching bag for this secret agenda whose enacters care more about continued personal enrichment than national or European economies.
Re: The Isle of Man is not in the UK
#60You could tell, because there's no way their motorcycle race would be allowed in the UK. I was halfexpecting this article to tell us they still used pre-decimalized currency.
The TT is the only reason I know of the Isle of Man. The current lap record is 16 minutes 42 seconds at an average speed of 135mph!