With a population of 60,000 and a company of 65,438+more than 10,000, how was this "tax haven" made?

Benjamin Franklin said that two things are inevitable in life, death and taxes. But for some rich people who are already rich and free, the fun of life lies in how to reasonably bypass the law and find a perfect way to pay less taxes or even avoid taxes, besides investing a lot of money in the pursuit of eternal life.

The "tax haven" represented by Cayman Islands is an indispensable part of this perfect way. In this place, the government does not levy any direct taxes, and corporate profits, capital gains and personal income do not need to be taxed. As long as you simply fill in the registration information, you can register the company, and you don't need an office or even an actual employee. These companies nominally located in the Cayman Islands can control entities thousands of miles away, thus legally avoiding taxes.

The lure of "what you earn is what you get" and "less tax = more money" has made the Cayman Islands the best company registration place in the world, and the name of "tax haven" has followed. However, since ancient times, taxation has been an important source of national fiscal revenue and a sharp weapon to adjust the gap between the rich and the poor. When the wealth that should be redistributed slips away along the wall of law, for whom does the door of "heaven" open?

Who created the "tax haven"

Looking back along the development of offshore finance in Cayman Islands, we can vaguely see the figure of dollars shuttling through it, which is a helpless self-help of a colony without even autonomy in the context of the decline of Britain and the rise of the United States.

After the end of World War II, the European economy fell into depression for several years. Most of the former industrial cities were in ruins, with high unemployment rate and stagnant agricultural production. The war emptied the treasury of most countries, and even the money for rebuilding transportation facilities could not be taken out. Coupled with the barrier of the Iron Curtain of the Cold War, the food trade between East and West Europe was almost completely interrupted, and millions of refugees could only live in temporary camps and live on a little relief food.

The scenes in America and Europe are completely different. The superior geographical position and the opportunity to participate in the war limited the influence on the United States, but it became more prosperous because of the war economy. In order to contain the Soviet Union and open up new markets, the United States decided to systematically provide economic assistance to European countries. This plan, which is centered on political purposes and wrapped in a thick layer of dollar sugar, is called Marshall Plan.

Marshall Plan made a lot of dollars flow into western Europe, especially Britain, and got up to 26% aid funds. At the same time, under the pressure of the Cold War, the dollar foreign exchange of eastern European countries was also transferred to banks in western European countries. /kloc-in the 1950s, influenced by the pound crisis and American onshore financial supervision, a large amount of dollars continued to flow into Europe, and the "Eurodollar" began to form in Western Europe, and London began to vigorously develop its financial industry.

However, this does not stop the decline of British national strength.

In the1960s, the British colonies became independent one after another. Jamaica, far from the Caribbean, declared its independence on 1962, and its affiliated Cayman Islands came under the direct jurisdiction of Britain. But what can Britain do for the Cayman Islands when it is still busy? 1972, Britain decided to devolve more autonomy. In other words, let the Cayman Islands make a living independently.

Cayman Islands, an area of only 264 square kilometers, can only get their hands on fishery resources. This uninhabited island has existed as a colony since Columbus discovered it in 1503. Without the support of the sovereign state, the Cayman Islands can only rely on the sky for food.

In desperation, the Cayman Islands began to imitate London, trying to get a slice of offshore finance. However, the Cayman Islands does not have any financial foundation. How can it attract transnational capital injection? Caymanian officials racked their brains and finally thought of starting with taxes. Through legislation, the Cayman Islands has created an extremely relaxed business environment. It does not levy any direct taxes on companies and individuals, and does not even require companies to actually operate in Cayman. It only needs to pay a little money and leave a mailbox to register a company in Cayman. In order to compete with other offshore financial markets, the Cayman Islands has also learned from the practices of Swiss banks and set up strict confidentiality measures to protect the detailed information of registered enterprises.

The zero tax rate policy is tantamount to plating a layer of gold on the Cayman Islands. Don't need any publicity. Naturally, the company came all the way with money to register. In just a few years, the Cayman Islands has attracted thousands of registered companies and trust funds, and even Citibank can't help registering on the island.

For other countries and regions, hundreds of years of colonial history is a shame, but for this region that has never been independent in history, colonialism has shaped its culture, law and even way of making a living-English-speaking countries, Anglo-American systems and economies are completely dependent on big countries, and there is no place like this to reassure Anglo-American multinational companies.

Driven by globalization, the number of multinational enterprises has increased dramatically, and the Cayman Islands has become a world-famous offshore financial center. However, people prefer to call it a "tax haven" rather than this elegant personal capital.

Who holds the ticket to the "tax haven"

On April 2, 2020, Luckin Coffee exposed financial fraud in the US Securities and Exchange Commission, amounting to 2.2 billion yuan. Ruixun's share price plummeted and it was suspended from the market on June 29th. 15 In July, the Grand Court of Cayman appointed Alexander Lawson and Wing Sze Tiffany Wong as joint liquidators to promote the debt negotiation and restructuring of Credit Suisse.

Registered in Cayman, listed in the United States, and actually operated in China, this is not the initiative of Luckin Coffee, but the choice of many Internet companies.

1999, Sina plans to go public overseas. However, according to the law of 1993, which prohibits foreign businessmen from interfering in telecom operation and telecom value-added services, the Ministry of Information Industry believes that foreign businessmen can provide technical services instead of network information services (ICP). This is equivalent to encouraging enterprises to carry out overseas financing. Following this idea, Sina divested ICP business and did not participate in the listing, and the rest reorganized to open a holding company in Cayman Islands as the main body of the listing. As a result, Sina met the laws of China and the United States at the same time, and successfully listed on Nasdaq in 2000.

This model is called "Sina model".

In the following years, Internet companies such as Netease, Sohu, Kong Zhong, Shanda, Baidu, Focus Media, Tencent and Alibaba went public one after another. Learn from the Sina model and land in overseas capital markets one after another. Behind these popular China stocks, there is a holding company registered in Cayman. On June 10, 2003, Netease's share price rose to an all-time high of $70.27, and Ding Lei became the richest man in Chinese mainland by virtue of his shares. Only seven months later, Shanda Network went public, surpassing the market value of NCSOFT, a Korean online game company, to become the world's highest online game stock, and Chen Tianqiao therefore squeezed out Ding Lei and became the new richest man in China.

With the development of Internet scale in China, similar stories of making wealth emerge one after another. At the end of 20112, the number of netizens in China reached 5130,000, making it the country with the largest number of netizens in the world. Soon, the wave of mobile Internet roared, and a new round of "Cayman Holdings-Overseas Listing" was launched.

These are only a tiny part of the huge capital vortex rolled up by 654.38 million registered companies in Cayman Islands.

From the day it became an offshore financial center, the fate of the Cayman Islands was closely related to the US dollar.

According to statistics, 90% of the companies registered in the Cayman Islands are closely related to the New York financial market, which is 2,574 kilometers away-either they want to rush into the capital market through Cayman Holdings, or they want to set up a Cayman subsidiary, adjust their accounting statements and avoid taxes skillfully. Of course, under the premise that the US dollar is still the world currency, affecting new york's financial market is equivalent to affecting the whole world.

In the 1970s, economist milton friedman put forward "shareholder capitalism". He believes that when shareholders become the main body of power in the enterprise, it becomes the highest purpose of enterprise management to find ways to raise the stock price and increase shareholders' income. In order to achieve this goal, professional managers are often promised equity rewards and become another form of shareholders. In this way, as long as the company's statements look good, it can strongly push up the stock price. It is conceivable that tax avoidance is also an important means to reduce costs and increase profits.

When Friedman put forward this view, it happened to be the beginning of the development of Cayman Islands and other offshore financial centers around the world. Decades later, offshore finance in Cayman Islands is more prosperous than before, and his views are still being proved.

In 20 18, Tesla suffered a huge loss of $ 10 billion, but at the same time, as CEO, Musk got $2.284 billion in the form of stock options, which is 40,668 times the average salary of Tesla employees.

Apple has been shaping its corporate image with environmental protection. However, in order to avoid corporate tax in the United States, Apple chose Ireland, which is similar to Cayman Islands, to set up a subsidiary, and transferred all intellectual property rights to Ireland, thus cleverly avoiding taxes through account operation. When it was disclosed in 20 17, Apple already had $252 billion in offshore cash. This year, Cook's annual salary was $65.438+45 million, which was 207 times the average annual salary of Apple employees.

Pushing up the stock price and grabbing wealth, one world, one game, the Cayman Islands is like a hidden button, firmly connected to the global market. After all, regardless of nationality, the smell of capital is always the most sensitive.

People who live in tax havens.

So, how do people live in this "tax haven" where global companies flock?

Like most tropical islands, sunny coconut groves and clear water and sand are the standards of Cayman Islands. On the main island of Grand Cayman, there is the most beautiful beach in the Caribbean-Seven Mile Beach, which used to be seven miles long, but the actual length has been shortened to six miles due to the rising sea level.

According to the laws of Cayman Islands, this beach is public property, but locals know that luxury resorts and luxury hotels have been built not far from the beach, and their area is still expanding. This seems to be a cruel metaphor: in Cayman, there is always some kind of confrontation between public interests and foreign interests.

The population of Cayman Islands is about 65,700, including 100 ethnic groups, and 90% of the people use English. The per capita GDP is about 56,000 US dollars, ranking first in the Caribbean. Due to the huge offshore financial system, there are more than 654.38 million companies registered in Cayman Islands, and the number of companies exceeds the population.

There is no real industry, no available natural resources, and most of the registered companies are "paper companies", which can't contribute any income. How does the Cayman Islands support such a high GDP?

The answer is indirect tax. In Cayman, the reputation of "tax haven" is only for paper companies. Although there are no direct taxes such as personal income tax, capital gains tax and enterprise income tax, there are quite high indirect taxes. For example, there is almost no physical industry in the Cayman Islands, and most of the materials are imported. Every commodity will be subject to import tax of 5%-22%, and pure imported goods such as automobiles will even be as high as 100%.

This is only a fraction of the cost of living in the Cayman Islands. Here, double-income families want to find a nursery for their children before work, even the cheapest one costs $6,000 a year. Broadband service is essential in the information age, but the broadband fee in Cayman is the highest in the world, with 140 USD per month. If you rent a house, a simple one-bedroom apartment costs $2,000 a month. Want to buy a house in Cayman? In 2020, the average house price will be close to $654.38+$00,000.

By September 2020, the accumulated education loans of Cayman Islands residents exceeded $5 million, auto loans exceeded $70 million, and real estate loans exceeded $2.2 billion. The national household debt accounted for 4 1% of the Cayman Islands' GDP. On the surface, this figure seems to be much lower than that of Britain and America. But if the huge wealth of immigrants is taken into account, the pressure on real Caymanians will be much greater than the data shows.

After all, this is an area where the legal minimum hourly wage is $6, while in Britain, where the cost of living is lower, the figure is 65,438 +00.5 (about $65,438 +04.4).

Taxation, like blood, maintains the normal operation of a region. How can we completely disappear? The beauty that "tax havens" show to foreign companies is based on the high cost of living of local residents. Sadly, when the Cayman Islands lost British support in the1970s, there was no second way to go.

All this seems to be the gift of the times, but in fact it has already won the price secretly.

To some extent, the Cayman Islands can be regarded as a microcosm of the gap between the rich and the poor in contemporary society-

A few steps from the seven-mile beach, the rich enjoy the most beautiful scenery and live in the most luxurious resorts and hotels in the world. Paul allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, and Tiger Woods, the sports star, both stayed on the coast of Cayman Islands for a long time. Well-known companies that changed the world, such as Google, Apple, Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola, also registered their companies here.

However, walking to the north of Qilitan, there are locals who have long endured high living costs. It is difficult for them to save any savings for their children, cars and houses. Abnormal taxation and industry make it difficult for the Cayman Islands to fully pay the pension for the elderly. For many Caymanians, to maintain their pre-retirement life, they must work hard until they are 80 years old.

In the Cayman Islands, the number of newly registered companies is more than the new population every year. However, these companies only regard this place as a transit station or treasure house, and never want to take root here. Few people thought that there used to be many turtles here, some people called it "Turtle Island", and crocodiles often appeared, so it was officially named "Cayman". Nowadays, the number of turtles and crocodiles has been greatly reduced, and Cayman has been simplified into a word full of money, which appears repeatedly in various documents of multinational companies.

People always refer to the Cayman Islands, Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Jersey and other low-tax or zero-tax areas as "tax havens", but forget that in this highly capitalized world, the door of "paradise" is never open to most people.