Tag Archives: Territorial Tax

Cuba a Tax & Money Haven for Foreigners

Havana, Cuba is well known for it’s great cigars, exotic  night life, beautiful women and old charm, but there are more….. Cuba has a territorial tax system for foreigners that are resident in the country. However, ordinary Cubans are taxed on their world wide income.

Faced with financial ruin, one of the last communist countries in the world is now undergoing a new revolution, Capitalism is coming back to Cuba…

The extremely low salaries and cost level adds to the attraction. The average salary for state employed Cuban’s is about USD 19 per month. An average pension is USD 5 per month.

Old Havana Cuba

The saying goes in Cuba:

“The government pretends to pay us and we pretend to work”.

To  motivate Cuban’s to work can be a challenge according to new business owners.

The salaries is not enough to survive, and food is rationed so the state provide basic food on quotas to favorable prices, and traditional health care is free. However, pharmaceuticals are in short supply, but foreigners are given preference before ordinary Cuban’s here as well because they have money and can pay. Many Cuban’s receive money almost monthly in support from their relatives abroad (mostly in the US) that escaped the revolution.

 

Street view of old Havana, Cuba.  Courtesy of Wiki Commons.

A large privatization program has been underway in Cuba for some time. The state has begin giving back the homes taken during the revolution to the people, and all types of small businesses have been / are being privatized.

However, there are still travelling restrictions for ordinary Cuban’s and the media and internet use are strictly controlled by the state. Dissidents are not tolerated.

As it was in Eastern Europe at the fall of communism most buildings and infrastructure incuding public transportation systems are “run down” and in need of extensive renovation.  The state is broke and the Cuban’s have no savings.

The key to future investments are in the hands of the more than a million displaced Cuban’s abroad, many living in the Miami area of the United States. They have the money and could come back to Cuba in the future.

Havana city faces a serious drinking water shortage due to gross neglect of the infrastructure for decades. In addition the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) warns that water pollution in Cuba is a serious concern. The standard practices throughout the revolutionary period of virtually non-existent pollution limits, and detrimental agricultural practices,  seem to have taken a significant toll on the Cuban environment.  Cuban bays are widely recognized as being polluted.

New luxury hotels are planned on Cuba to attract foreigners. This hotels will have their own clean water systems.

You can learn more about Cuba in Havana Times and in Havana-Guide,

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Hong Kong’s Stock Exchange Acceptable Jurisdiction Guides

The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx), has published 20 country guides, one for each overseas jurisdiction that has been formally ruled to be acceptable as an issuer’s place of incorporation.

Hong Kong Night Skyline

The country guide for each acceptable jurisdiction sets out, for example, comprehensive and user friendly guidance on how companies incorporated in the relevant jurisdiction can meet the requirement for equivalent shareholder protection standards in the HKEx’s Listing Rules.

Hong Kong Skyline. Picture courtesy of Base64, Wiki Commons.

“These country guides are aimed to enhance applicants’ understanding of the Exchange’s expectations, practices, procedures and considerations when applying the Listing Rules to overseas issuers,” said HKEx’s Chief Regulatory Officer and Head of Listing David Graham.

“The country guides provide guidance on how the Exchange will consider certain matters under the revised JPS. Where appropriate, we have also added our views and analysis based on the experience we have gained from various applications,” he continued.

The Exchange will in the future update a country guide when it is informed of a material change in the laws, rules or regulations in the relevant acceptable jurisdiction. New applicants and listed companies incorporated in an acceptable jurisdiction are obliged at the earliest opportunity to inform the Exchange of such material changes.

The 20 jurisdictions are Australia, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Canada (Alberta), Canada (British Columbia), Cyprus, France, Germany, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Italy, Japan, Jersey, South Korea, Labuan, Luxembourg, Singapore, England and Wales, and the United States, both California) and Delaware. A country guide for Canada (Ontario) will only be published at a later date, as appropriate, when another applicant incorporated in Ontario applies for a listing on the Exchange.

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Hong Kong Promoted As Intellectual Property Trading Hub

The Government has formulated an overall strategic framework for promoting Hong Kong as a premier intellectual property (IP) trading hub in the region.

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As determined by a working group, which conducted many rounds of stakeholder consultation over the past few months, Hong Kong’s overall strategy on IP trading encompasses four strategic areas – “namely, enhancing its IP protection regime; supporting IP creation and exploitation; fostering IP intermediary services and manpower capacity; and pursuing promotion, education and external collaboration efforts.”

Courtesy of  Paramount Pictures, Wiki Commons.

The working group will, in 2014, explore specific policies and other support measures under each strategic area for promoting Hong Kong as a regional IP trading hub. In the meantime, two sub-groups formed under the working group will continue to deliberate on ways to spearhead further developments in certain specific areas, focusing particularly on the more specialized subjects of IP valuation, and IP arbitration and mediation.

Some of the initiatives under way and in the pipeline include the setting up of the Original Grant Patent system as a strategic step to help Hong Kong develop as an innovation and technology hub; a review of copyright to strike a balance between its protection and the freedom of expression; and the launch by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council of an online IP trading portal in January 2014 to enhance Hong Kong’s online IP trading volume, capabilities and connections.

A survey on IP trading and manpower in Hong Kong will also be conducted in 2014 to provide statistical and other relevant information to support the working group’s further deliberations.

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Hong Kong Attracts Start-Up Entrepreneurs

Invest Hong Kong (InvestHK) has announced the launch of its StartmeupHK Venture Program 2013 to attract local and overseas entrepreneurs to set up or expand their business in Hong Kong.

Victoria Peak HongKong

Picture courtesy of Tietew

InvestHK, the Government department established in July 2000 to take responsibility for foreign direct investment, and to support overseas and Mainland Chinese businesses that want establish themselves or expand in Hong Kong, has set up the Venture Program that features a global competition for innovative and high-impact entrepreneurs, culminating in December this year when 12 shortlisted finalists will be provided with access to business partners, financial capital, market knowledge and marketing opportunities.

The Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development, Gregory So, said: “Make no mistake, start-ups and entrepreneurs make significant contributions to Hong Kong. What InvestHK is doing to promote Hong Kong as a premier start-up destination in Asia and attract start-up entrepreneurs will help build the city’s start-up ecosystem – an ecosystem where overseas and local entrepreneurs can meet, exchange ideas, discover synergies and access markets, capital and talent together.”

Simon Galpin, the Director-General of Investment Promotion, confirmed that, in the past two to three years, InvestHK has seen a rising number of entrepreneurs setting up business in Hong Kong. The percentage of such projects in InvestHK’s portfolio has risen from less than 10 percent to over 15 percent in 2013.

“These businesses may start small and employ only a few people in the beginning, but they also create jobs through outsourcing some of their activities to local service providers. In fact, some of these businesses grow very quickly, employing 50 or more people within one to two years,” he added. “And just as, if not more, important are the innovative business ideas and skills they bring to Hong Kong, which lend further competitive advantage to our economy in the long run.”

InvestHK’s runs a dedicated website offering a one-stop portal to the start-up community in the city, and is the first such Hong Kong Government portal on start-ups for entrepreneurs. It points the way to various government incentives and incubation schemes.

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Hong Kong Offer Tax Exemption to Hedge Funds

In a media interview, Philip Tye, Chairman of the Hong Kong branch of the Alternative Investment Management Association, which represents the hedge fund industry, confirmed that the extended tax exemption proposed in his last Budget by Financial Secretary John Tsang should strengthen Hong Kong’s position as an international asset management center.

800px-Wan_Chai_Hong_Kong

Picture of Hong Kong by Samuel Louie, retouched by Carol Spears.

In an article on the website of the South China Morning Post, Tye said that “the proposed reform plans would now make Hong Kong more attractive for fund companies to domicile their funds here. This will create job opportunities and benefit the hedge fund industry as a whole.”

To attract more private equity funds in Hong Kong, Tsang’s proposal is to extend the profits tax exemption for offshore funds to include transactions directly in private companies that are incorporated or registered outside Hong Kong (for example in Mainland China) and do not hold any Hong Kong properties nor carry out any business in Hong Kong. That would allow private equity funds to enjoy the same tax exemption as offshore funds.

In addition, while, at present, investment funds established in Hong Kong can only take the form of trusts, the Government is considering legislative amendments to introduce the open-ended investment company into Hong Kong. That should also encourage more traditional mutual funds and hedge funds to domicile in Hong Kong.

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