You have just landed a job in a foreign country and in a few weeks time, you and your family members have to relocate to the new workstation. Under the new environment, it is probable that you won’t have gathered enough information regarding the merits of off-shoring your finances. After all, most governments discourage their citizens who work onshore from investing in foreign countries. Rather, they encourage them to invest inwards.
There are numerous reasons for this. For one, the government encourages its citizens to honor their reporting responsibilities, especially when it comes to taxes. The reason for this is simple; they want to keep an eye on their citizen’s money and assets where they could easily be monitored, hence preferring them being onshore where it is easy to do so. Nevertheless, when you are posted abroad, this monitoring becomes impossible as you are out of your government’s direct jurisdiction. This being the case, you can easily be able to invest in the country you are in, or in any other country you may deem appropriate to invest in, thus the importance of understanding the offshore investing procedures of diverse foreign countries.
When you relocate to a foreign country, your tax status entirely changes. This is financially beneficial and has a positive impact on an expatriate wealth. As a result, you or any other expatriate worker needs to explore the various offshore investing options available. There are numerous offshore investment options available to expatriates where they could safely keep their money.
When earning your money onshore, many of us take our banking solutions and needs for granted. Basically, almost all of us operate a type of a bank account where we can safely store our money and also easily manage it. These onshore bank accounts can be managed in several ways; online, through the phone or by visiting the banking institution and requesting for assistance. These accounts are minimally structured so as to make them easy to operate. However, if you relocate to a foreign country to earn a living, you will soon discover that your old bank account isn’t going to serve you appropriately as you would have expected. There are many reasons for this; for one, you are living in another country that has its own unique currency and banking regulations.
Replacing your old bank account with an offshore bank account will certainly make things easier for you in terms of your day to day management of your banking affairs. It is not advisable to remit all your foreign earning into your new station’s local banking institutions. Why so? They have different taxation regimes and you as an expatriate worker don’t fit into it. Other reasons why you should not remit all money into their fiscal institutions are mostly political, economical and security issues.
The other issue is about the account’s inflexibility. You may open a new onshore account in your new working station, only to realize that it is not as flexible as your old bank account. To counter this banking impediment, most of the expatriates opt to have an offshore account, or what is generally referred to as an international bank account. This account allows them to safely, securely and privately manage their money irrespective of where they are stationed in the world, or in whichever currency they are paid in.
