All services related to Gibraltar Company incorporation, management and administration, are licensable by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission. This means that a Gibraltar Company cannot purport to conduct any of the following activities without a financial services licence in Gibraltar:
- Company registration, management services, sales or termination of companies
- Bank account, payment transactions and financial services
- Tax planning services for a company or a private person
- Company financial management services and accounting
- Legal services to a private person or company
- The identity of the Directors and Shareholders of Gibraltar companies are required to be filed at the Gibraltar Companies Registry although these can be Nominees.
It should also be noted in the first instance, that there is no such thing as a Gibraltar “non-resident” or “offshore” Company. All Gibraltar companies are automatically deemed to be resident in Gibraltar for tax purposes and are issued with Tax Identification Numbers in Gibraltar. Some companies, however, will have their income treated differently by the Gibraltar Tax Authorities according to whether it is deemed assessable for taxation in Gibraltar or not. In essence, those companies that can satisfy the criteria described below which would allow them to be treated as “Non-Resident Controlled” with “no Gibraltar-source income”, will not be assessed for taxation on income in Gibraltar.
Prior to being able to progress any proposed application for incorporation of a Gibraltar Company we would always need to be provided with a clear understanding of the proposed business to be undertaken by the Company, so that we can be in a position to pre-approve its proposed activity.
For the record, it should be noted that as a matter of principle, FORM-A-CO has never knowingly sought to entertain clients seeking to undertake a number of activities that are not necessarily illegal in any one particular jurisdiction, but which, by their very nature, may result in “reputational risk” to our firm or to this jurisdiction. Examples of these are the following:
- Dealing in medications, pharmaceuticals, health products etc.
- Pornography, adult content material
- Dating agencies, contact websites
- Dealing in arms or arms parts that may be used in weapon production.
- Timeshare
- Travel Agencies
- Gaming, gambling, lotteries, raffles
- Financial Services, financing, leasing
- Unregulated consultancy or trading in gold, precious metals, precious stones or financial instruments.
- Any form of unregulated business related to the taking of investments, eg. Binary Option Trading, DLT, Bitcoin, Blockchain etc.
- Citizenship and/or immigration or visa application assistance programs to third-party jurisdictions
- Parallel trading
- Tobacco, wines and spirits
- Mercenary or contract soldiering
- Security and riot control equipment, or any device that could lead to the abuse of human rights or be utilised for torture
- Technical surveillance or bugging equipment
- Industrial espionage
- Dangerous or hazardous biological, chemical or nuclear materials
- Trading in human or animal organs
- Adoption agencies
- Pyramid selling schemes
- Religious cults or their charities
- Clubs, Associations, Federations, NGOs etc.
- Private educational establishments, eg. Academies, Universities or Institutes
- Generic web-hosting services for multiple undefined activities.
- Call-centre marketing services for undefined products or services, or “boiler-room” enterprises.
Mail Forwarding Services
Please note that we do not encourage the use of our Registered Office address for the forwarding of any business mail related to the companies under our mutual administration. However, if any such mail were to stray into our offices, we would be happy to arrive at an understanding for the forwarding of such mail to you on a periodic basis. Alternatively, individual clients should feel free to contact us directly if they want to adopt any one of the forwarding services described on our weblink below:
Services
Our typical Annual Domiciliation services are automatically inclusive of the following:
- The provision of a Company Secretary
- Registered Office Services for the year
- The preparation and filing of an Annual Return for the Company
- The filing (only!) of a Balance Sheet for the Company.
* N.B. Our client accounting services for the preparation of Balance Sheets and/or the submission of Tax Returns would be charged for separately upon the client electing to subscribe to these services.