
The World’s Favorite New Tax Haven Is the United States - temp
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-27/the-world-s-favorite-new-tax-haven-is-the-united-states
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yardie
We've been sailing for a little over a year now. We've encountered many US
flagged boats where there isn't a single US citizen owner, captain, or crew
aboard. This has been the case where the owner is Turkish, Israeli, Emirati,
and lots of middle-east countries.

The super yachts still prefer to use the Marshall Islands, Caymans, or
Gibraltar as their flag of registration.

Our boat is US LLC registered since my wife, a foreign national, can't be a
direct owner for a US registered vessel. Nor can I be registered owner in her
country as a non-citizen. So a US LLC is a convenient neutral mechanism. It's
split 51/49% with me having the controlling shares as required by law.

~~~
zekevermillion
Why would you want a US-flagged boat other than patriotism? (Not being
facetious, actually curious if there's a reason to prefer Amurrican to one of
the more typical flag countries.)

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superuser2
Theoretically, the protection of the US Navy.

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rpgmaker
Watching Captain Phillips one of the things that impressed me the most was how
much money and effort was put into rescuing Captain Phillips and his crew. Of
course much of the pressure was political with Obama just starting out his
presidency but still, it was a clear indication that it pays to be American.

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apaprocki
It has been suspected that for a long time now people have been parking
questionable cash into NYC real estate. Somewhat related to this, the Treasury
dept. will pierce the veil of LLCs making >= $3 million cash real estate
purchases and require the owner identities to be reported. I guess we'll see
if that leads to new tricks...

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/14/us/us-will-track-secret-
bu...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/14/us/us-will-track-secret-buyers-of-
luxury-real-estate.html)

~~~
Spooky23
It's worse than that -- political contributions from LLCs are unregulated in
New York, so who knows who is influencing who.

Once shady money gets established in the US, you can do things like setup LLCs
and trusts domiciled in South Dakota to provide multi-generational tax
exemption. [http://www.sdtrustco.com/About-South-Dakota-Trust-
Company/Wh...](http://www.sdtrustco.com/About-South-Dakota-Trust-Company/Why-
South-Dakota-/Asset-Protection.aspx)

This type of nonsense is a great example of the incredible harm done to the
United States 40-50 years ago when the pro-segregation Democrats joined forces
with the Western republicans (i.e. The ultra-conservative folks dependent on
federal leases to extract minerals/oil/graze cattle) and took over the GOP.

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_Codemonkeyism
I found "Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the World" a very
interesting book on tax havens, and it made the point about the US.

I also found this idea from the book enlighting: All the tax havens around the
US, they don't have 'real' banks, they put the money into NYC banks. Same with
the UK: Tax havens in the cloud/former empire of the UK put the money into
banks in London. The real beneficiary are not those islands, but US and UK
banks.

~~~
xmr
Plainly not true; certainly for banks in the UK overseas and crown
dependencies.

~~~
zekevermillion
This may actually be true due to correspondent banking -- e.g., the Bank of
Drug Dealers and Terrorists based on an oil rig in the Pacific may in fact be
a correspondent with CitiBank (just a fictional scenario of course, I'm sure
Citi would never agree to any relationship with such a sketchily named bank)

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jernfrost
That is rich. So they US wasn't fighting the good fight here, but rather
looking after itself, arm twisting the existing tax heavens so that it could
become the new tax heaven!

Ah well I guess hypocrisy is something the US has mastered to perfection
decades ago.

Well I hope the EU is not going to stand for this. I am tired of American
bullying. Some mutual respect would be nice for a change.

~~~
ethbro
Tired of America bullying?

One of the reasons we probably didn't sign on to the treaty is because
anything that sounds like UN or international agreement is toxic for roughly
half of our voters.

And the primary reason for that (not completely unjustly) is the feeling that
no one else will do the work if we don't. Stuff like [1] and [2] make it kind
of hard to argue.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations#Funding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations#Funding)

[2] [http://sites.uci.edu/energyobserver/2014/03/17/comparison-
of...](http://sites.uci.edu/energyobserver/2014/03/17/comparison-of-russian-
military-budget-with-eu-nato-and-us-budgets/)

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marvel_boy
A lot of startups founded in Spain have the legal headquarter in Delaware
(USA). Anyone knows the reason for this?

~~~
herge
One reason may be to make it easier to raise money. Most VCs know the ins and
outs of corporate law (and corporate law precedents!) in Delaware, making
signing a contract there a lot easier, as opposed to learning the
specificities of Spanish law.

~~~
marvel_boy
I see. Thanks

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novaleaf
Related: but Seattle's $750K+ housing market is dominated by Chinese cash
buyers.

~~~
hackerboos
I see the same thing claimed in Vancouver but there is no conclusive evidence.

~~~
sumedh
I dont know about Vancouver but in Melbourne lot of for sale commercial
properties also have the sign in Mandarin(or Cantonese).

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unexpand
Love the illustration in this article by Steph Davidson adds much meaning to
the context.

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Shivetya
I never understood why when people cheered on the pursuit of US money in
foreign banks why they never understood the big picture. The US government
regardless of party is only looking after one thing, itself. While you may
have talking heads sent out to decry abuse of the system they are their to
misdirect. Politics wants money and not for the public coffers. While they
will bleat all day how this money in foreign institutions is depriving the
people and theft what they really want is control over the people who have the
money so they give it to those they want it given too, themselves. It is the
same when corporations sell themselves over seas, the influence factor is lost
and in turn the ability to extort campaign funds

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raverbashing
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

And people think "whistleblowers", and "think tanks" denouncing "lack of
transparency" in certain locations have only ethics at heart.

~~~
coldtea
Tons of NGOs and activists play foreign policy games -- it's the first line of
attack, before bringing in "democracy" with canons.

