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The Internet has yet to have much direct impact on the conduct of
offshore business from the Bahamas, but as with all other aspects of
business activity, no one can doubt that there will be an impact, that
it will be soon, and that it will be substantial.
Offshore Activities
The natural bonding of the Internet and Offshore stems from the
fact that both, as their nature, manage to avoid tax. Businesses which
can operate on the Internet without, so to speak, touching ground in a
high-tax jurisdiction will naturally migrate to offshore jurisdictions;
while business that already have offshore existence will find it highly
convenient to be able to use the Internet to trade with their high-tax
customers without having to make a landing in their countries.
As a major offshore jurisdiction with tens of thousands of offshore
enterprises already installed, including many investment funds and
banks, it is only a matter of time before the Bahamas becomes a centre
of e-commerce activity. The islands' geographical location, good
telecommunications links and sophisticated business infrastructure add
to the inevitability of an e-future for the Bahamas.
By locating websites in the Bahamas to carry out functions
previously based in high-tax jurisdictions such as sales and marketing,
treasury management, supply of financial services, and most of all, the
supply of digital goods such as music, video, training, software etc,
businesses can take advantage of low rates of taxation for increasingly
substantial parts of their operation.
In many countries, the distribution of goods from a warehousing
facility does not constitute the carrying on of a trade or business in
that jurisdiction, so that even for physical goods, in many case it
will be possible to avoid a permanent establishment (taxable presence)
altogether in many high-tax jurisdictions where trading activities
currently take place.
For information about the impact of e-commerce on a number of the
main offshore activities which take place in the Bahamas, click on a
link below to go to our specialist E-commerce site Offshore-e-com.com
Sales and Distribution of Physical Products
Sales and Distribution of Digital Products
Banking and Financial Services (including Investment Funds)
Corporate Support Functions
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