Cyprus discloses information about owners of offshore companies

A Cyprus company remains a convenient European tool for international trade, asset ownership and holding purposes. The company and its accounts make it possible to combine local support, European payment details and a clear company-management procedure. The result depends on how accurately the company structure, contracts and banking service correspond to the real business model.

Corporate information and the ultimate beneficial owner in Cyprus

A Cyprus company operates within the European corporate and banking system, so information about the legal entity, ownership structure and ultimate beneficial owner should be consistent between corporate documents, official registration data and bank KYC/KYB.

For a business owner, the issue is not formal “publicity” or “confidentiality” as abstract concepts, but which information must be correctly prepared for the registrar, bank, auditor and other participants in a particular corporate procedure.

The holder of a business bank account is not a nominee Cyprus director, but the person you specify in the Power of Attorney and bank signature card when opening the account for your offshore company with a Cyprus bank — TAXC Limited note. Lawyers may have said that this is fully confidential, but Cyprus is a European country.

Since 2004, law firms involved in company registration business in Cyprus have also been required to keep in their files a very full amount of information not only about shareholders and directors but also about the real owners of companies, including reference letters for shareholders, proof of addresses and other information, acting under the “Know Your Customer” principle.

Thus, Cyprus once again demonstrated its intention to become a full European state — and in the EU, after the events of 2001, information about company directors and owners became increasingly accessible through official procedures. This means that partners can often see that a “respectable investment” Cyprus company is managed by a Cyprus citizen who at the same time manages many other companies, and business partners may draw conclusions from this quite quickly.

Cyprus will soon raise tax rates: this is the price of EU membership

TAXC Limited reminds you of one fact that is often overlooked when choosing Cyprus for a company: the agreement on accession to the EU provided a six-year period for full adaptation of Cyprus legislation, including tax legislation, to EU standards.

This meant that tax rules and incentives were expected to change as Cyprus adapted its legislation to EU requirements. Historical forecasts about future corporate tax, VAT, withholding tax and foreign-income incentives should therefore be read in the context of the period in which they were written.

For example, Mr Michalis Sarris, then Minister of Finance of Cyprus, stated that the country planned to apply to join the European Economic and Monetary Union. According to Mr Sarris, the government was preparing the necessary documents. The Council of Ministers of Cyprus decided to join the EMU by February 2008.

We also remind you that the Government of Ukraine agreed a new Convention for the avoidance of double taxation with the Republic of Cyprus. The main difference of the new Convention was that payments involving Cyprus companies would no longer be based on the previous zero-rate approach in Ukraine.

There is an alternative to Cyprus: change the jurisdiction for your business