Offshore financial centre in the context of "Labuan Territory"

The Cayman Islands (/ˈkeɪmən/) is a self-governing British Overseas Territory in the western Caribbean. It is the largest by population of all the British Overseas Territories. The 264-square-kilometre (102-square-mile) territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located south of Cuba and north-east of Honduras, between Jamaica and Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. The capital city is George Town on Grand Cayman, which is the most populous of the three islands.

The Cayman Islands is considered to be part of the geographic Western Caribbean zone as well as the Greater Antilles. The territory is a major offshore financial centre for international businesses and wealthy individuals mainly due to the state charging no tax on income earned or stored.

Turks and Caicos Islands (/ˈtɜːrks/ and /ˈkeɪkəs, -koʊs, -kɒs/) are a British Overseas Territory consisting of the larger Caicos Islands and smaller Turks Islands, two groups of tropical islands in the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean and northern West Indies. They are known primarily for tourism and as an offshore financial centre. The resident population in 2023 was estimated by The World Factbook at 59,367, making it the third-largest of the British overseas territories by population. However, according to a Department of Statistics estimate in 2022, the population was 47,720.

The islands are southeast of Mayaguana in the Bahamas island chain and north of the island of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Cockburn Town, the capital since 1766, is situated on Grand Turk about 1,042 kilometres (647 mi) east-southeast of Miami. They have a total land area of 430 square kilometres (170 sq mi).

A tax haven is a term, often used pejoratively, to describe a place with very low tax rates for non-domiciled investors, even if the official rates may be higher.

In some older definitions, a tax haven also offers financial secrecy. However, while countries with high levels of secrecy but also high rates of taxation, most notably the United States and Germany in the Financial Secrecy Index (FSI) rankings, can be featured in some tax haven lists, they are often omitted from lists for political reasons or through lack of subject matter knowledge. In contrast, countries with lower levels of secrecy but also low "effective" rates of taxation, most notably Ireland in the FSI rankings, appear in most § Tax haven lists. The consensus on effective tax rates has led academics to note that the term "tax haven" and "offshore financial centre" are almost synonymous. In reality, many offshore financial centers do not have harmful tax practices and are at the forefront among financial centers regarding AML practices and international tax reporting.

An Irish Section 110 special purpose vehicle (SPV) or section 110 company is an Irish tax resident company, which qualifies under Section 110 of the Irish Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 (TCA) for a special tax regime that enables the SPV to attain "tax neutrality": i.e. the SPV pays no Irish taxes, VAT, or duties.

Section 110 was created in 1997 to help International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) legal and accounting firms compete for the administration of global securitisation deals, and by 2017 was the largest structured finance vehicle in EU securitisation. Section 110 SPVs have made the IFSC the third largest global Shadow Banking OFC. While they pay no Irish tax, they contribute €100 million annually to the Irish economy in fees paid to IFSC legal and accounting firms.

The Panama Papers (Spanish: Papeles de Panamá) are 11.5 million leaked documents (or 2.6 terabytes of data) published from April 3, 2016. The papers detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities. These documents, some dating back to the 1970s, were created by, and taken from, the former Panamanian offshore law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca, and compiled with similar leaks into a searchable database.

The documents contain personal financial information about wealthy individuals and public officials previously private. Their publication made it possible to prosecute Jan Marsalek, a person of interest to a number of European governments and revealed his links with Russian intelligence, and international financial fraudster Harald Joachim von der Goltz. While offshore business entities are legal (see Offshore Magic Circle), reporters found that some of the Mossack Fonseca shell corporations were used for illegal purposes, including fraud, tax evasion, and evading international sanctions.