Applications » Nominee services

Nominee services are usually provided by an intermediary in order to hide the beneficial owner’s business. Nominee services are related to nominee shareholder and nominee director. In the regular situation the nominee services should also involve a post box service (office address for correspondence purposes). Nominee services are suitable for large corporate structures for tax planning purposes and frequently involve international element. For instance, the ultimate beneficiary is based in other country rather than the company itself.

Nominee shareholder services are usually carried out basing on declaration of trust, whereas the nominee declares that he holds shares on behalf of other person and he is not entitled to make decisions in the company, to neither vote at a meeting of shareholders, nor receive dividends, unless specifically instructed by the client. The nominee has no rights to sell shares unless required by the client. However, the client and nominee may agree on specific duties that the nominee should carry out. Such duties are often assigned to lawyers and attorneys at law that are professionals in the field and may protect the client`s interest.

Nominee director also called 'shadow director', who usually appears only for official records, whereas the company is virtually governed by the client by power of attorney. On the basis of authorization the client may open a bank account and acquire full company management and control.

Advantages of nominee services
The advantages of using nominee services appear in cases when a businessperson wants to keep his privacy and decreases the visibility into official records or does not want his name to be associated with the concerned company. Moreover, there can be a situation, when a person has restrictions to exercise the planned activity or when the law requires a local management, for example, a local secretary in Hong Kong.

When a quick action is necessary to register a company abroad, in case the client cannot travel, it is often more convenient to temporarily appoint a local company manager. If the intention is to open a company in overseas jurisdiction, such as BVI, Belize, Hong Kong, it might be physically complicated to arrive in person.

Nominee services usually guarantee confidentiality and anonymity. However, a disclosure sometimes happen at bank or in investigation authorities during court proceedings.

The nominee services are widely used for tax planning and asset protection purposes. If ultimate beneficiary of completely corporate structure is based in low tax countries, he should enjoy the benefits of low tax system for the received dividends from the earned profits.

Other advantage derives from the registration country and is often referred to financial statements and reports. In some tax haven jurisdictions there is no need for submitting the annual, therefore, low auditing and bookkeeping requirements that provide certain advantages, if the person is willing to increase privacy and confidentiality and hide his/her assets.