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92-451: Delaware is considered a corporate haven because of its business-friendly corporate laws compared to most other U.S. states. 66% of the Fortune 500 , including Walmart and Amazon (two of the world's largest companies by revenue ) are incorporated (and therefore have their domiciles for service of process purposes) in the state. Over half of all publicly traded corporations listed in

184-735: A "conduit", to route the funds to more explicitly zero-tax, and more secretive traditional tax havens. Google does this with the Netherlands to route EU funds untaxed to Bermuda (i.e. dutch sandwich to avoid EU withholding taxes ), and Russian banks do this with Ireland to avoid international sanctions and access capital markets (i.e. Irish Section 110 SPVs ). A study published in Nature in 2017 (see Conduit and Sink OFCs ), highlighted an emerging gap between corporation tax haven specialists (called Conduit OFCs), and more traditional tax havens (called Sink OFCs). It also highlighted that each Conduit OFC

276-501: A corporate haven in the early 20th century. Following the example of New Jersey , which enacted corporate-friendly laws at the end of the 19th century to attract businesses from New York , Delaware adopted on March 10, 1899, a general incorporation act aimed at attracting more businesses. The group that pushed for this legislation intended to establish a corporation that would sell services to other businesses incorporating in Delaware. Before

368-404: A county with oil & gas resources and still ranking in the top 10 of world GDP-per-capita league tables, is considered a strong proxy sign of a corporate (or traditional) tax haven. GDP-per-capita tables with identification of haven types are here § GDP-per-capita tax haven proxy . Ireland's distorted economic statistics, post leprechaun economics and the introduction of modified GNI ,

460-413: A customer finds lost property in the public area of a store, the customer has superior claim to the lost property over that of the store-owner, but if the customer finds the lost property in the non-public area of that store, such as an area marked "Employees Only", the store-owner will have superior claim, as the customer was trespassing when he found it. The status of finders as employees or tenants of

552-448: A handful of large multinational corporations [during leprechaun economics ] have now become so large as to make a mockery of conventional uses of Irish GDP. Lost, mislaid, and abandoned property In property law , lost, mislaid, and abandoned property are categories of the common law of property which deals with personal property or chattel which has left the possession of its rightful owner without having directly entered

644-461: A key plank of Irish policy has become untenable. It is difficult to calculate the financial effect of tax havens in general due to the obfuscation of financial data. Most estimates have wide ranges (see financial effect of tax havens ). By focusing on "headline" vs. "effective" corporate tax rates, researchers have been able to more accurately estimate the annual financial tax losses (or "profits shifted"), due to corporate tax havens specifically. This

736-451: A long period of time (whereby it is presumed that the owner is deceased with no heirs) the funds will escheat to the state. Due to the increasing mobility of the population, 49 states have joined together to operate MissingMoney.com , a searchable database which lists unclaimed funds in these states. Another website at Unclaimed.org allows searches without charge for the remaining 11 states. Many commercial websites also offer this service at

828-438: A nucleus in Delaware with operating companies often in other states. In addition, Delaware has used its position as the state of incorporation to generate revenue from its abandoned and unclaimed property laws. Under U.S. Supreme Court precedent, the state of incorporation gets to keep any abandoned and unclaimed property , such as uncashed checks and unredeemed gift certificates, if the corporation does not have information about

920-508: A plant, over 700 of the 6,000 employees work from home (the largest remote percentage of any Irish technology company). When the EU Commission completed their State aid investigation into Apple , they found Apple Ireland's ETR for 2004–2014, was 0.005%, on over €100bn of globally sourced, and untaxed, profits. The "employment tax" is, therefore, a modest price to pay for achieving very low taxes on global profits, and it can be mitigated to

1012-478: A pot would have been treasure trove whilst one hundred Roman coins which were lost over time in a marketplace would not have been treasure trove, as they were not deliberately hidden as a single hoard. However, the law of treasure trove has now been replaced by the Treasure Act under which this distinction between lost and deposited items does not generally apply. Under American common law, treasure trove belongs to

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1104-452: A result, Delaware corporations are subject almost exclusively to Delaware law, even when they do business in other states. While most states require a for-profit corporation to have at least one director and two officers, Delaware laws do not have this restriction. All offices may be held by a single person who also can be the sole shareholder. The person, who does not need to be a U.S. citizen or resident, may also operate anonymously with only

1196-502: A superior claim over that of his landlord (especially if the landlord has never been to the property). While employers usually have a superior claim over lost property found by their employees, exceptions to this exist as well, as modern law sometimes grants the employee superior claim if turning over lost property to his employer is not part of his job description (such as if the employee is an interior decorator). Since animals are mobile and are thus capable of becoming lost on their own,

1288-525: A tax code that shields most corporate profits from taxation, is indistinguishable from applying a near 0% rate in a normal tax code. Activists in the Tax Justice Network propose that Ireland's effective corporate tax rate was not 12.5%, but closer to the BEA calculation. Studies cited by The Irish Times and other outlets suggest that the effective tax rate is close to the headline 12.5 percent rate – but this

1380-719: A tax haven ?" For example, when it was shown in 2014, prompted by an October 2013 Bloomberg piece, that the effective tax rate of U.S. multinationals in Ireland was 2.2% (using the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis method), it led to denials by the Irish Government and the production of studies claiming Ireland's effective tax rate was 12.5%. However, when the EU fined Apple in 2016, Ireland's largest company, €13 billion in Irish back taxes (the largest tax fine in corporate history ),

1472-410: A territorial tax system. The U.K. became a "recipient" of U.S. corporate tax inversions, and ranked as one of Europe's leading havens. A major study now ranks the U.K. as the second largest global Conduit OFC (a corporate haven proxy). The U.K. was particularly fortunate as 18 of the 24 jurisdictions that are identified as Sink OFCs , the traditional tax havens, are current or past dependencies of

1564-458: Is theft by finding , which may occur if conversion occurs after finding someone else's property. The rights of a finder of such property are determined in part by the status in which it is found. Because these classifications have developed under the common law of England , they turn on nuanced distinctions. The general rule attaching to the three types of property may be summarized as: A finder of property acquires no rights in mislaid property,

1656-401: Is a broad consensus that Ireland must defend its 12.5 per cent corporate tax rate. But that rate is defensible only if it is real. The great risk to Ireland is that we are trying to defend the indefensible. It is morally, politically and economically wrong for Ireland to allow vastly wealthy corporations to escape the basic duty of paying tax. If we don't recognise that now, we will soon find that

1748-514: Is a theoretical result based on a theoretical "standard firm with 60 employees" and no exports: in reality, multinational businesses and their corporate structures vary significantly. It is not just Ireland, however. The same BEA calculation showed that the ETRs of U.S. corporates in other jurisdictions was also very low: Luxembourg (2.4%), the Netherlands (3.4%) and the US for multinationals based in other parts of

1840-404: Is apparent that he or she has no intention of returning to claim it. Abandoned property generally becomes the property of whoever should find it and take possession of it first, although some states have enacted statutes under which certain kinds of abandoned property – usually cars, wrecked ships and wrecked aircraft – escheat , meaning that they become the property of

1932-450: Is captured on page 34 of the OECD 2018 Ireland survey: This distortion leads to exaggerated credit cycles. The artificial/distorted "headline" GDP growth increases optimism and borrowing in the haven, which is financed by global capital markets (who are misled by the artificial/distorted "headline" GDP figures and misprice the capital provided). The resulting bubble in asset/property prices from

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2024-631: Is encoded into their statute books as their primary BEPS tool. This perceived respectability encourages corporates to use these IFCs as regional headquarters (i.e. Google , Apple , and Facebook use Ireland in EMEA over Luxembourg , and Singapore in APAC over Hong Kong / Taiwan ). While the "headline" corporate tax rate in jurisdictions most often implicated in BEPS is always above zero (e.g. Netherlands at 25%, U.K. at 19%, Singapore at 17%, and Ireland at 12.5%),

2116-407: Is entitled to possession of lost property against everyone except the true owner, and is entitled to keep abandoned property. This rule varies by jurisdiction. Property is generally deemed to have been lost if it is found in a place where the true owner likely did not intend to set it down and where it is not likely to be found by the true owner. At common law, the finder of a lost item could claim

2208-402: Is found in a place where the true owner likely did intend to set it, but then simply forgot to pick it up again. For example, a wallet found in a shop lying on a counter near a cash register will likely be deemed misplaced rather than lost . Under common law principles, the finder of a misplaced object has a duty to turn it over to the owner of the premises, on the theory that the true owner

2300-414: Is likely to return to that location to search for their misplaced item. If the true owner does not return within a reasonable time (which varies considerably depending on the circumstances), the property becomes that of the owner of the premises. Property is generally deemed to have been abandoned if it is found in a place where the true owner likely intended to leave it, but is in such a condition that it

2392-616: Is not easy, however. As discussed above, havens are sensitive to discussions on "effective" corporate tax rates and obfuscate data that does not show the "headline" tax rate mirroring the "effective" tax rate. Two academic groups have estimated the "effective" tax rates of corporate tax havens using very different approaches: They are summarised in the following table (BVI and the Caymans counted as one), as listed in Zucman's analysis (from Appendix, table 2). Zucman used this analysis to estimate that

2484-451: Is not the case at present. Ireland is not just a tax haven at present, it is also a corporate secrecy jurisdiction. Whereas jurisdictions traditionally labelled as tax havens have often marketed themselves as such, modern Offshore Financial Centres robustly refute the tax haven label. This is to ensure that other higher-tax jurisdictions, from which the corporate's main income and profits often derive, will sign bilateral tax-treaties with

2576-627: Is only 70% of GDP. The distortion of Ireland's economic data from corporates using Irish IP-based BEPS tools (especially the capital allowances for intangible assets tool), is so great, that it distorts EU-28 aggregate data. A stunning $ 12 trillion—almost 40 percent of all foreign direct investment positions globally—is completely artificial: it consists of financial investment passing through empty corporate shells with no real activity. These investments in empty corporate shells almost always pass through well-known tax havens. The eight major pass-through economies—the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Hong Kong SAR,

2668-458: The "effective" tax rate (ETR) of multinational corporations, net of the BEPS tools, is closer to zero. To increase respectability, and access to tax treaties , some jurisdictions like Singapore and Ireland require corporates to have a "substantive presence", equating to an "employment tax" of approximately 2–3% of profits shielded and if these are real jobs, the tax is mitigated. In corporate tax haven lists, CORPNET's "Orbis connections" , ranks

2760-573: The New York Stock Exchange (including its owner, Intercontinental Exchange ) are incorporated in Delaware. The statute has been credited with reducing the tax burdens on Delaware residents as revenues from the statute provide two-fifths of the state's budget, but has been controversial for facilitating tax dodging and money laundering by major corporations, as well as providing safe haven to money launderers, kleptocratic foreign rulers, and human traffickers. Delaware acquired its status as

2852-730: The United States , the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws sought to address the problems arising from these types of property through provisions of the Uniform Unclaimed Property Act . The act was first drafted and promulgated in 1981 and a revised version, the Revised Uniform Unclaimed Property Act was introduced in 1995. The act specifically focuses on the problem of unclaimed money in bank accounts and corporate coffers, and

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2944-488: The " capital allowances for intangible assets " BEPS scheme), have the need to perform a "relevant trade" and "relevant activities" on Irish-based IP, encoded in their legislation, which requires specified employment levels and salary levels (discussed here ), which roughly equates to an "employment tax" of circa 2–3% of profits (based on Apple and Google in Ireland). For example, Apple employs 6,000 people in Ireland, mostly in

3036-439: The 2018 Global IP Index. A growing array of tax benefits have made London the city of choice for big firms to put everything from "letterbox" subsidiaries to full-blown headquarters. A loose regime for "controlled foreign corporations" makes it easy for British-registered businesses to park profits offshore. Tax breaks on income from patents [IP] are more generous than almost anywhere else. Britain has more tax treaties than any of

3128-490: The Apple Hollyhill Cork plant. The Cork plant is Apple's only self-operated manufacturing plant in the world (i.e. Apple almost always contracts to 3rd party manufacturers). It is considered a low-technology facility, building iMacs to order by hand, and in this regard is more akin to a global logistics hub for Apple (albeit located on the "island" of Ireland). No research is carried out in the facility. Unusually for

3220-536: The British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Ireland, and Singapore—host more than 85 percent of the world's investment in special purpose entities, which are often set up for tax reasons. This distortion means that all corporate tax havens, and particularly smaller ones like Ireland, Singapore, Luxembourg and Hong Kong, rank at the top in global GDP-per-capita league tables. In fact, not being

3312-497: The Caribbean "triad" (BVI-Cayman-Bermuda), have elements of corporate tax havens, but also of traditional tax havens. Economic Substance legislation introduced in recent years has identified that BEPS is not a material part of the financial services business for Cayman, BVI and Bermuda. While the legislation was originally resisted on extraterritoriality, human rights, privacy, international justice, jurisprudence and colonialism grounds,

3404-767: The Court of Chancery to the Delaware Supreme Court . Delaware has also attracted major credit card banks because of its relaxed rules regarding interest . Many U.S. states have usury laws limiting the amount of interest a lender can charge. Federal law allows a national bank to "import" these laws from the state in which its principal office is located. Delaware (among others) has relatively relaxed interest laws, so several national banks have decided to locate their principal office in Delaware. National banks are, however, corporations formed under federal law, not Delaware law. A corporation formed under Delaware state law benefits from

3496-628: The Delaware Supreme Court upheld a provision allowing companies to require in their certificates of incorporation all Securities Act of 1933 claims to be filed in federal court. DGCL 203 is particularly known as an antitakeover law. Corporate haven Corporate haven , corporate tax haven , or multinational tax haven is used to describe a jurisdiction that multinational corporations find attractive for establishing subsidiaries or incorporation of regional or main company headquarters, mostly due to favourable tax regimes (not just

3588-453: The EU stated that Apple's effective tax rate in Ireland was approximately 0.005% for the 2004-2014 period. The EU's position was found, on appeal in the EU's court, to be unsupported by the facts. However, the G7 leaders in the wake of reporting about a Microsoft subsidiary's level of taxation in 2020, have proposed an agreement on a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15%. Applying a 12.5% rate in

3680-467: The Netherlands, U.K., Switzerland, Ireland, and Singapore as the world's key corporate tax havens, while Zucman's "quantum of funds" ranks Ireland as the largest global corporate tax haven. In proxy tests, Ireland is the largest recipient of U.S. tax inversions (the U.K. is third, the Netherlands is fifth). Ireland's double Irish BEPS tool is credited with the largest build-up of untaxed corporate offshore cash in history . Luxembourg and Hong Kong and

3772-502: The RUUPA. As a result of the Act, each state that has adopted the act operates an Unclaimed Property fund in which the proceeds from abandoned bank accounts, unpresented checks, etc. are to be turned over to the state after a specified period of time. Depending on state law, the money may be held either in perpetuity (i.e., the funds never escheat to the state; an example would be Texas), or after

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3864-469: The U.K. (and embedded into U.K. tax and legal statute books). New IP legislation was encoded into the U.K. statute books and the concept of IP significantly broadened in U.K. law. The U.K.'s Patent Office was overhauled and renamed the Intellectual Property Office . A new U.K. Minister for Intellectual Property was announced with the 2014 Intellectual Property Act. The U.K. is now 2nd in

3956-518: The U.K.), than a traditional tax haven (e.g. Hong Kong). The Netherlands is fighting back against its reputation as a tax haven with reforms to make it more difficult for companies to set up without a real business presence. Menno Snel, the Dutch secretary of state for finance, told parliament last week that his government was determined to "overturn the Netherlands' image as a country that makes it easy for multinationals to avoid taxation". The United Kingdom

4048-664: The U.S. , like the Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution of 1789, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 , and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 all stipulated that the slaves be captured and returned to their owner. These laws, now superseded by Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of 1865, were demanded by the Southern States of the U.S. but were actively opposed in most Northern states. Activists against slavery and

4140-410: The U.S., a person who discovers an estray will be required to file an affidavit of estray, along with its description, and potentially impound that animal in some way for a period of time. If the estray is branded , the owner can often be identified immediately. The owner of the estray will generally have a limited time frame in which to reclaim their property after a notice of estray is published, but on

4232-457: The United Kingdom and the Netherlands have become more popular for U.S. corporate tax inversions than leading traditional tax havens , even Bermuda. However, corporate tax havens still retain close connections with traditional tax havens as there are instances where a corporation cannot "retain" the untaxed funds in the corporate tax haven, and will instead use the corporate tax haven like

4324-518: The World. When Gabriel Zucman , published a multi-year investigation into corporate tax havens in June 2018, showing that Ireland is the largest global corporate tax haven (having allegedly shielded $ 106 billion in profits in 2015), and that Ireland's effective tax rate was 4% (including all non-Irish corporates), the Irish Government countered that they could not be a tax haven as they are OECD-compliant. There

4416-468: The annual financial impact of corporate tax havens was $ 250 billion in 2015. This is beyond the upper limit of the OECD's 2017 range of $ 100–200 billion per annum for base erosion and profit shifting activities. The World Bank , in its 2019 World Development Report on the future of work suggests that tax avoidance by large corporations limits the ability of governments to make vital human capital investments. Modern corporate tax havens like Ireland,

4508-518: The appropriate governing body under which the organisation holding the money falls under. This can include states in Australia or the Commonwealth. Money is unclaimed money if it is money whose owners is not identifiable. Owners of unclaimed money can apply to the governing body where the unclaimed money is being held, however, in some cases, the owner is required to go back to the organisation who lodged

4600-474: The build-up in credit can unwind quickly if global capital markets withdraw the supply of capital. Extreme credit cycles have been seen in several of the corporate tax havens (i.e. Ireland in 2009-2012 is an example). Traditional tax havens like Jersey have also experienced this. The statistical distortions created by the impact on the Irish National Accounts of the global assets and activities of

4692-600: The corporate tax haven specialist to promote "respectability" and maintain OECD-compliance (critical to extracting untaxed profits from higher-taxed jurisdictions via cross-border intergroup IP charging), while enabling the corporate to still access the benefits of a full tax haven (via double Irish , dutch sandwich type BEPS tools), as needed. We increasingly find offshore magic circle law firms, such as Maples and Calder and Appleby , setting up offices in major Conduit OFCs, such as Ireland. A key architect [for Apple]

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4784-858: The corporate tax haven. This gives the haven more respectability (i.e. not a " brass plate " location), and gives the corporate additional "substance" against challenges by taxing authorities. The OECD's Article 5 of the MLI supports havens with "employment taxes" at the expense of traditional tax havens . Mr. Chris Woo, tax leader at PwC Singapore, is adamant the Republic is not a tax haven. "Singapore has always had clear law and regulations on taxation. Our incentive regimes are substance-based and require substantial economic commitment. For example, types of business activity undertaken, level of headcount and commitment to spending in Singapore", he said. Irish IP-based BEPS tools (e.g.

4876-722: The corresponding escheatment . In July 2016, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws revisited the 1995 version of the Uniform Act again and ultimately passed the Revised Uniform Unclaimed Property Act (RUUPA) of 2016. As of September 2020, only five states have enacted a version of a law inspired by the RUUPA: Tennessee, Kentucky, Utah, Colorado, and Vermont. Other states have adopted similar laws but with significant deviations from

4968-410: The expiration of such time another person or entity will be designated the new title owner of the property. Fees for impounding the estray will often accumulate which the property owner will be responsible for paying. The status of a stray domestic animal (for example, a feral cat or a free-ranging dog ) is highly dependent on local jurisdictions. Given the significant number of feral dogs and cats,

5060-422: The extent that the job functions are real and would be needed regardless. "Employment taxes" are considered a distinction between modern corporate tax havens, and near-corporate tax havens, like Luxembourg and Hong Kong (who are classed as Sink OFCs ). The Netherlands has been introducing new "employment tax" type regulations, to ensure it is seen as a modern corporate tax haven (more like Ireland, Singapore, and

5152-467: The finder of a lost dog or cat may have little or no restrictions to claiming the animal as their own property. Like animals, fugitive slaves in the United States (runaway slaves) were a type of property that was capable of relocating to other places. Slave owners depended on others to identify and return their property; some slaves would be branded if a slave was known to run away. Numerous laws in

5244-507: The finder unless the original owner reclaims. Some states have rejected the American common law and hold that treasure trove belongs to the owner of the property in which the treasure trove was found. These courts reason that the American common law rule encourages trespass . Under the traditional English common law, treasure trove belongs to the Crown , though the finder may be paid a reward. In

5336-558: The fugitive slave laws, such as members of the Underground Railroad , routinely violated the laws and refused to return slaves to their owners. Of the five laws agreed upon in the Compromise of 1850 , the fugitive slave laws were by far the most contentious, although many of the issues were split along regional lines with Northerners and Southerners diametrically opposed. In Harriet Beecher Stowe 's 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin ,

5428-407: The haven's base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) tools. CORPNET show each corporate tax haven is strongly connected with specific traditional tax havens (via additional BEPS tool "backdoors" like the double Irish , the dutch sandwich , and single malt ). Corporate tax havens promote themselves as "knowledge economies", and IP as a "new economy" asset, rather than a tax management tool, which

5520-408: The haven, and also to avoid being black-listed. This issue has caused debate on what constitutes a tax haven, with the OECD most focused on transparency (the key issue of traditional tax havens), but others focused on outcomes such as total effective corporate taxes paid. It is common to see the media, and elected representatives, of a modern corporate tax haven ask the question, "Are we

5612-489: The haven; as long as these jurisdictions have bi-lateral tax treaties with the corporate haven. This makes modern corporate tax havens more potent than more traditional tax havens , who have more limited tax treaties, due to their acknowledged status. The Cayman Islands, BVI, Bermuda, Jersey and Guernsey are more properly now known as IFCs or OFCs. Tax academics identify that extracting untaxed profits from higher-tax jurisdictions requires several components: Once

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5704-601: The headline rate is not what triggers tax evasion and aggressive tax planning. That comes from schemes that facilitate [base erosion and] profit shifting [or BEPS]. Under BEPS, new requirements for country-by-country reporting of tax and profits and other initiatives will give this further impetus, and mean even more foreign investment in Ireland. If [the OECD] BEPS [Project] sees itself to a conclusion, it will be good for Ireland. Local subsidiaries of multinationals must always be required to file their accounts on public record, which

5796-441: The headline tax rate), and/or favourable secrecy laws (such as the avoidance of regulations or disclosure of tax schemes), and/or favourable regulatory regimes (such as weak data-protection or employment laws). Unlike traditional tax havens , modern corporate tax havens reject they have anything to do with near-zero effective tax rates , due to their need to encourage jurisdictions to enter into bilateral tax treaties which accept

5888-457: The individual state's Unclaimed Property Office, then published in a local newspaper and then finally the property is turned over to the State for safe keeping until its rightful owner makes a claim. The states sponsor a free public site that reports only a portion of the unclaimed property available in the United States. There are commercial sites as well that provide the same information or portions of

5980-448: The information for a fee. Some consumer reporting sites that conduct the research and assist consumers will do so without charge or expense to the consumers. In Australia, unclaimed money laws provide a one to two year reporting period each year whereby unclaimed bank accounts, superannuation, deceased estate inheritances, insurance, shares, dividends, utility deposits, unpresented cheques and other forms of "unclaimed money" are reported to

6072-519: The internal affairs of Delaware corporations are usually filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery , which is a separate court of equity , as opposed to a court of law . Because it is a court of equity, there are no juries; its cases are heard by judges, called chancellors. Since 2018, the court has consisted of one chancellor and six vice-chancellors. The court is a trial court, with one chancellor hearing each case. Litigants may appeal final decisions of

6164-425: The introduction of these regulations have had the effect of putting these jurisdictions far ahead of onshore regulatory regimes. Modern corporate tax havens, such as Ireland, Singapore, the Netherlands and the U.K., are different from traditional "offshore" financial centres like Bermuda, the Cayman Islands or Jersey. Corporate havens offer the ability to reroute untaxed profits from higher-tax jurisdictions back to

6256-424: The issue of runaway slaves was a central theme. These property and fugitive slave issues, along with other events related to slavery , would propel the U.S. into civil war . Unclaimed property laws in the United States provide for two reporting periods each year whereby unclaimed bank accounts, stocks, insurance proceeds, utility deposits, un-cashed checks and other forms of "personal property" are reported first to

6348-466: The landlord to immediately claim the property for themselves to do as they wish. Treasure trove is property that consists of coins or currency hidden by the owner. To be considered treasure trove and not mislaid property , the property must have been deliberately hidden or concealed, and sufficiently long ago that the original owner can be considered dead or not discoverable. For example, under historic English law, one hundred Roman coins found buried in

6440-424: The landowner complicates matters because employees and tenants have legitimate access to non-public areas of a landowner's property that others would not, without trespassing. Employees and tenants, however, still usually lose superior claim over lost property to their employers or landlords if the property is found within the scope of their employment, or outside the actual leased area, respectively. For example, if

6532-582: The listing agent through whom the company is registered named. Delaware charges no income tax on corporations not operating within the state, so taking advantage of Delaware's other benefits does not result in taxation. At the same time, Delaware has a particularly aggressive tax on banks that locate in the state. However, in general, the state is viewed as a positive location for corporate tax purposes because favorable laws of incorporation allow companies to minimize corporate expenditures (achieved through legal standardization of corporate legal processes), creating

6624-714: The location of the owner of the property. Abandoned property provides Delaware with about half a billion dollars annually. Delaware charges a franchise tax on the corporations incorporated in it. Franchise taxes in Delaware are higher than in most other states which typically get revenue from corporate income taxes on the portion of the corporation's business done in that state. Delaware's franchise taxes supply about one-fifth of its state revenue. In February 2013, The Economist published an article on tax-friendly jurisdictions, commenting that Delaware stood for "Dollars and Euros Laundered And Washed At Reasonable Expense". Jeffrey W. Bullock , Delaware's Secretary of State, insists that

6716-482: The loss of property that is a valuable animal has its own set of rules. A valuable animal that becomes lost usually does so by leaving its owner's real property and arriving on another property owner's land; such an animal is legally termed an estray . Estrays are normally confined to domesticated animals , like livestock , and not wild animals. Since common pets are not considered valuable animals, dogs and cats are never considered estrays. In many jurisdictions of

6808-424: The lost property is found by a tenant inside the walls of his leasehold, or by an employee embedded within the soil of an estate owned by his employer, the landowner (as employer or landlord) of the property where it was found usually has a superior claim of right over that of the finder. However, this is not always the case, as a long-term tenant who finds lost property within the leased area of his leasehold may have

6900-423: The money as unclaimed. Unclaimed Money Professionals or Unclaimed Money Agents also can assist owners to claim back their unclaimed money. Due to the strict requirements to claim unclaimed money back in Australia, people may need the assistance of a professional or licensed private investigator to locate support documents for their claim of payment. Property is generally deemed to have been mislaid or misplaced if it

6992-499: The possession of another person. Property can be considered lost, mislaid, or abandoned depending on the circumstances under which it is found by the next party who obtains its possession. An old saying is that " possession is nine-tenths of the law ", dating back centuries. This means that in most cases, the possessor of a piece of property is its rightful owner without evidence to the contrary. More colloquially, these may be called finders, keepers . The contradiction to this principle

7084-548: The property within a certain period of time (for example, this is defined by the UK's Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977 as three months from the date of finding), the property is returned to the finder as their own or is disposed of. In Britain , many public businesses have a dedicated lost property office (LPO), which in the United States would be called a lost and found , where lost property can be reported and reclaimed free of charge. The common law may apply many exceptions to

7176-401: The relaxed interest rules to the extent it conducts business in Delaware, but is subject to restrictions of other states' laws if it conducts business in other states. Pursuant to the " internal affairs doctrine ", corporations which act in more than one state are subject only to the laws of their state of incorporation with regard to the regulation of the internal affairs of the corporation. As

7268-421: The right to possess the item against any person except the true owner or any previous possessors. The underlying policy goals to these distinctions are to (hopefully) see that the property is returned to its true original owner, or "title owner". Most jurisdictions have now enacted statutes requiring that the finder of lost property turn it into the proper authorities; if the true owner does not arrive to claim

7360-552: The rise of general incorporation acts, forming a corporation required a special act of the state legislature. General incorporation allowed anyone to form a corporation by simply raising money and filing articles of incorporation with the state's Secretary of State. Because of the extensive experience of the Delaware courts, Delaware has a more well-developed body of case law than other states, which serves to give corporations and their counsel greater guidance on matters of corporate governance and transaction liability issues. Disputes over

7452-409: The rule that the first finder of lost property has a superior claim of right over any other person except the previous owner. For example, a trespasser 's claim to lost property which he finds while trespassing is generally inferior to the claim of the respective landowner. As a corollary to this exception, a landowner has superior claim over a find made within the non-public areas of his property, so if

7544-470: The scale of the multinational flows rivals their own domestic economies (the IMF's sign of an OFC ). The American Chamber of Commerce Ireland estimated that the value of U.S. investment in Ireland was €334bn, exceeding Irish GDP (€291bn in 2016). An extreme example was Apple's "onshoring" of circa $ 300 billion in intellectual property to Ireland, creating the leprechaun economics affair. However Luxembourg's GNI

7636-524: The state has struck the right balance between curbing criminality and "paying deference to the millions of legitimate businesspeople who benefit" from hassle-free incorporation. On June 30, 2013, Delaware Governor Jack Markell signed amendments to the Delaware General Corporation Law. The new legislation took effect on August 1, 2013, except for the ratification of the defective corporate acts amendment which took effect in 2014. In 2020,

7728-644: The state. In the United States, property left behind by a tenant is generally presumed abandoned after anywhere from 1 week to 1 year, and if unclaimed, may be disposed of or sold to recoup storage costs; in some states the difference may be kept by the landlord, in others returned to the tenant, and in others it must be turned over to the state or county. Virginia requires only 24 hour storage for evictions. Maryland allows individual counties to set required storage times. Colorado allows immediate disposal (but not sale), while Georgia and Texas allow it to be immediately placed outside and claimed by anyone, and Arkansas allows

7820-660: The three countries [Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Ireland] on the naughty step—and an ever-falling corporate-tax rate. In many ways, Britain is leading the race to the bottom. The U.K.'s successful transformation from "donor" to corporate tax havens, to a major global corporate tax haven in its own right, was quoted as a blueprint for type of changes that the U.S. needed to make in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 tax reforms (e.g. territorial system, lower headline rate, beneficial IP-rate). Some leading modern corporate tax havens are synonymous with offshore financial centres (or OFCs), as

7912-434: The tools requires advanced legal and accounting skills that can create the BEPS tools in a manner that is acceptable to major global jurisdictions and that can be encoded into bilateral tax-treaties, and do not look like "tax haven" type activity. Most modern corporate tax havens therefore come from established financial centres where advanced skills are in-situ for financial structuring. In addition to being able to create

8004-408: The tools, the haven needs the respectability to use them. Large high-tax jurisdictions like Germany do not accept IP–based BEPS tools from Bermuda but do from Ireland. Similarly, Australia accepts limited IP–based BEPS tools from Hong Kong but accepts the full range from Singapore. Tax academics identify a number of elements corporate havens employ in supporting respectability: Make no mistake:

8096-401: The untaxed funds are rerouted back to the corporate tax haven, additional BEPS tools shield against paying taxes in the haven. It is important these BEPS tools are complex and obtuse so that the higher-tax jurisdictions do not feel the corporate haven is a traditional tax haven (or they will suspend the bilateral tax treaties). These complex BEPS tools often have interesting labels: Building

8188-451: Was Baker McKenzie , a huge law firm based in Chicago. The firm has a reputation for devising creative offshore structures for multinationals and defending them to tax regulators. It has also fought international proposals for tax avoidance crackdowns. Baker McKenzie wanted to use a local Appleby office to maintain an offshore arrangement for Apple. For Appleby, Mr. Adderley said, this assignment

8280-444: Was "a tremendous opportunity for us to shine on a global basis with Baker McKenzie." Several modern corporate tax havens, such as Singapore and the United Kingdom, ask that in return for corporates using their IP-based BEPS tools, they must perform "work" on the IP in the jurisdiction of the haven. The corporation thus pays an effective "employment tax" of circa 2–3% by having to hire staff in

8372-413: Was highly connected to specific Sink OFC(s). For example, Conduit OFC Switzerland was highly tied to Sink OFC Jersey. Conduit OFC Ireland was tied to Sink OFC Luxembourg, while Conduit OFC Singapore was connected to Sink OFCs Taiwan and Hong Kong (the study clarified that Luxembourg and Hong Kong were more like traditional tax havens). The separation of tax havens into Conduit OFCs and Sink OFCs, enables

8464-504: Was traditionally a "donor" to corporate tax havens (e.g. the last one being Shire plc 's tax inversion to Ireland in 2008 ). However, the speed at which the U.K. changed to becoming one of the leading modern corporate tax havens (at least up until pre- Brexit ), makes it an interesting case (it still does not appear on all § Corporate tax haven lists ). The U.K. changed its tax regime in 2009–2013. It lowered its corporate tax rate to 19%, brought in new IP-based BEPS tools, and moved to

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