everybody it's Bruce here welcome to my channel traveling with Bruce I hope you
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ok let's go to the video alright hey everybody how you doing it's Bruce here
with traveling with Bruce today's video I want to talk to you about the paradise
papers we're hearing all about the Paradise Papers these tax revelations
offshore taxation revelations and we're talking about offshore jurisdictions
like the Cayman Islands and Switzerland and Monaco Guernsey and and on and on
goes the list but today I wanted to kind of mention to you folks I used to live
in the Cayman Islands so I have a bit of knowledge hunt the honey offshore
financial scenario how that works and what it's like to live in the Cayman
Islands sigh I have a view of the Caymans from a different angle than
almost all of you out there the Cayman Islands became an offshore banking
center in the 1960s at one time the Cayman Islands and Jamaica were
connected because they were part of the British overseas territories and they
had a they had a pub a site Jamaica citizens got to vote Cayman
citizens got the border residents on each Island and the the decision was the
question was where the cayman islands going to join up with Jamaica and and B
one country or what are they going to go with separate ways Jamaica wanted to
become an independent country like Canada is an independent country we're
still part of the Commonwealth Jamaica is still part of the Commonwealth but
Jamaica is its own standalone cup country where the Caymans decided to
remain to be part of the as a British protectorate and British territory in
what become her own server country so to speak and so they had their own in their
own ways their own local laws but the Supreme Court of the Cayman Islands is I
think you have to go to the High Court in England the UK so in 1960 the the
vote was had and held and the Cayman citizens decided the stains of British
protector Jamaicans decided to go their own way and shortly thereafter it was
determined that for the Cayman Islands in the future was international banking
offshore tax free country with with international banking
so and it was a smart move because they cayman islands it has really nothing to
offer as far as factories raw materials oil and gas gold mines diamonds are no
resource system that came when i was i'm showing you some photos here from
satellite imagery of the cayman island so you'll notice that the island looks
like a giant letter L laying on its side it's got the Serpent's head at the top
and the island has to bring everything in that it needs you know toilet paper -
hamburger two cars fuel for your car spare parts for four air conditioning
systems full blown everything roofs nails bolts nuts and bolts I mean
everything everything you see on the island that has been built every
building that's been built every roadway that's been laid all of the raw
materials to do it are virtually imported onto the island and has to be
every day so the island had to have some kind of a trade some kind of a business
to live off of and tourism can only do so much the Cayman Islands
you know artist famous is Mexico for example and because they don't have the
land available they can't build you know 36-hole golf resorts all over the place
and make it a golfer's paradise it's not going to work that way so the Cayman
Islands was so is known for scuba diving and four wonderful beaches and that kind
of thing but in the 60s it was decided that to make a living
a real year-round solid living seven-day-a-week type thing the banking
sector would be enhanced and offshore banking was created and now here we are
in 2017 2018 almost you know it's 57 years later and the the Cayman Islands
is probably the third or fourth largest banking center offshore banking center
in the world on a planet but it competes with Switzerland for business there are
thousands of expatriates people like myself I'm Canadian there are a lot of
Brits a lot of Europeans who have moved to the
island on the work-permit to work for law firms or work for accounting firms
or investment companies and they help offshore corporations or or
international corporations I should say as a clearinghouse to conduct business
they give an example it's not uncommon for example to have say on a company in
Germany I say the government of Germany too to want to build a large bridge over
a river and you know it's eight lanes of traffic and it's also going to hold rail
line at the same time and you're talking about a two billion dollar deal well to
build a two billion dollar complicated structure like that you can't turn to
just one construction company and say here you guys build it and you go to a
contractor you print out for bidding the contractor wins the bid and the
contractor now goes and binds the sub trades to build out this mammoth project
which might take three years to build you might have a hundred different
companies involved from from architectural and engineering and steel
and concrete and software and accounting insurance you're gonna need insurance
during the construction and after this is a complicated thing because you're
incorporating an entire infrastructure plan into this into this unit and these
companies are probably from 20 different countries of the world so you have
Swedish companies Finland have US corporations Canadian UK Italian
Japanese Chinese you name it and so you need a place to go to settle up the
books when you are doing this contract and it may well be that that every month
or so funds are distributed to the subcontractors as their work progresses
and you have to go to a place where you can do all this work where you have
competent accountants competent legal teams to represent everyone's interests
in competent banking facilities where the funds can be transferred from say
the German government and transferred out through the
subcontractor to the or the contractor to the subcontractors it's a very
complicated scenario and it requires an army of specialists so you've got you've
got accountants in each of the home countries along with lawyers and then
you have the you know the the home base which is the let's say in this case
Germany I'm just using a fictitious example here and then you have the
Cayman Islands where you have the same representatives from the same firms
located so KPMG to use an accounting firms initials they may have offices in
all of the countries that these different entities come from but they
also have an office in the Cayman Islands and so the law law firm there
and and the accounting firm there they act on behalf of all of these different
contractors but certain contractors to use different accounting firms they use
their own lawyers they have their own auditors and everybody has to be
satisfied that everything has been done aboveboard and the German government
wants to know that everything's been paid for properly so that that's why the
Cayman Islands exists that's why Switzerland exists that's why
monte-carlo exists so this is an area where the government doesn't take a
piece of the action to settle up the accounts the money can come in and then
be redistributed and be sent back out and there's a nominal fees involved but
the government of the Cayman Islands is a winner because hundreds of thousands
of lawyers and accountants and bankers and investment advisors live in the
Cayman Islands and they spend money there they raise families there they
have children there they buy cars they buy homes and they buy groceries and the
local economy thrives and because of such a beautiful place
if you mentioned to an accountant or to a lawyer hey would you like to be placed
on a two-year contract a Georgetown Cayman Island so you know your children
are six and eight years old they can go to private school there and on the
weekends you get to hang out at the beach there's a whole bunch of
accountants elsei or lawyers I'll say yeah I'll take that to your car
yeah you betcha and the same thing with Switzerland and Monte Carlo and other
places you've got teams of professionals that are coming in for a number of years
and some stay longer some stay shorter and then they move on but the island as
a whole in this case the Cayman Islands benefits and grows the island itself is
a gorgeous place most of you out there if you've ever been to the Cayman
Islands you've probably been there because you were on a cruise cruise ship
companies the Norwegian Royal Caribbean Carnival Hall in America and others they
visit the Cayman Islands often because it's a beautiful place there's a number
of things you can do there like Stingray City or you can go to the turtle farm or
you can head for Seven Mile Beach and hang out on the beach all day it's a
safe place it's a clean place the Islanders are great they they they
welcome the tourists in with open arms and so that's how most people know of
the Cayman Islands especially Americans another way that you know of what the
Cayman Islands is the movie the firm with Tom Cruise and I think Gene Hackman
but unfortunately that movie did not did not do a lot of good for the Cayman
Islands reputation as a as an offshore a banking center or a place to do business
because it tied the Mafia and all kinds of nefarious activities to the Caymans
this the visuals were good they had beautiful photos and aerial aerial shots
of the island and that kind of thing was pretty but the you know it made the
island appear like it was a money laundering Center and it's not what it
is the the banking regulations in the Caymans are pretty strict if you flew in
on a private jet with a bank full of cash and no one will take it you gonna
have a tough time depositing in it in bankers look very suspiciously up on
people walking in to their branch without a suitcase full of cash it's
fiction most cash most money is transferred in and out of the Cayman
Islands like everywhere else electronically the Americans do it
Canadians European countries we transfer money ourselves electronically maybe 20
bucks at a time for 200 bucks at a time but in the Caymans and in Switzerland
and other banking centers money moves electronically all the time there are
currency traders after stockbrokers there's all kinds of legitimate going
business going on and that's the kind of business that Caymans want beautiful
island beautiful place you ever get the chance to go you'll love it I hope
you've enjoyed some of the photos I put on this this video more yet it really is
a stunning area it's only about an hour 20 minutes south of Miami by my jet to
fly American Airlines you can fly out of New York fly out of Philadelphia tampa
orlando Houston as flights and then there are flights out of Toronto as well
on Canon so the Cayman Islands is a nice place to go I call it sort of the
higher-end neighborhood it's uh you're not going to
be Cayman Islands for a cheap one week all-inclusive Hallman not a chance you
go to Cuba for that you'll go to Dominica and perhaps with
that but if you want to go for a really nice high-end vacation for a one week or
two weeks take Cayman Islands a beautiful place to visit for the day
cruise ship for sure but you will be stunned to find out how much a hotel
room is per night in the high season the game of the house it's incredibly
expensive the Cayman Island dollar by the way is worth a dollar twenty
American the American dollars only worth eighty says the Caymans has so much
wealth that for every Caymans all were that's printed there's the equivalent
amount of US cash in Cayman Islands of thank you system so they'll never be a
run on the king of dollar Cayman dollar walls Good Morning America that's what
Americans all of a sudden before they realize their dollar only goes 80% of
the way to buy something it's quite something so there's no taxation in the
Cayman Islands but it's an expensive place to live because our import duties
on everything comes and that's how the government makes its
planning to pay for all of its bins it has health care it has school systems
it has water systems that electricity just like any other nation but it makes
its fees from import fees and that's why food is more expensive toilet paper is
more expensive everything that's brought in this mover and that's how it works so
you don't pay taxes off of your paycheck but you as you spend your money in
paying taxes as a consumption tax and that's how the islands of balances its
books anyway there's a brief recap of the Cayman Islands it's more from an
Islanders perspective than an outsider right now you're watching probably CNN
coverage of BBC coverage of the scandal the Queen is hiding her money in the
Cayman Islands secret Kings ik queen is the queen of the Cayman Islands her her
face is on the money it thinking enough she can do whatever she wants it's
nothing illegal about that and it's okay to park your money offshore if you
haven't have enough of it as long as you declare to the tackle Sam if you make
any money and repatriate it back to the United States accountants know the rules
so the lawyers and the Caymans will be around for a long long time anyway
thanks for watching my video today this is Bruce if you like my video give me a
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thank you