Offshore investing refers to a wide range of investment strategies that capitalize on advantages offered outside of an investor's home country. We will briefly touch on the advantages of offshore investing. There is no shortage of money -market, bond and equity assets offered by reputable offshore companies that are fiscally sound, time-tested and, most importantly, legal.

Advantages
There are several reasons why people invest offshore:

Tax Reduction - Many countries (known as tax heavens offer tax incentives to foreign investors. The favorable tax rates in an offshore country are designed to promote a healthy investment environment that attracts outside wealth. For a tiny country with very few resources and a small population, attracting investors can dramatically increase economic activity.

Asset Protection - Offshore centers are popular locations for restructuring ownership of assets. Through trusts, foundations or through an existing corporation individual wealth ownership can be transferred from people to other legal entities. Many individuals who are concerned about lawsuits or lenders foreclosing on outstanding debt elect to transfer a portion of their assets from personal estates to an entity that holds it outside of their home country. By making these on-paper ownership transfers, individuals are no longer susceptible to seizure or other domestic troubles. If the trustor is a U.S. resident , their trustor status allows them to make contributions to their offshore trust free of income tax.

Confidentiality - Many offshore jurisdictions offer the complimentary benefit of secrecy legislation. These countries have enacted laws establishing strict corporate and banking confidentiality. If this confidentiality is breached, there are serious consequences for the offending party. An example of a breach of banking confidentiality is divulging customer identities; disclosing shareholders is a breach of corporate confidentiality in some jurisdictions. However, this secrecy doesn't mean that offshore investors are criminals with something to hide. It's also important to note that offshore laws will allow identity disclosure in clear instances of drug trafficking, money laundering or other illegal activities. From the point of view of a high-profile investor, however, keeping information, such as investor's identity, secret while accumulating shares of a public company can offer that investor a significant financial (and legal) advantage. High-profile investors don't like the public at large knowing what stocks they're investing in. Multi-millionaire investors don't want a bunch of little fish buying the same stocks that they have targeted for large volume share purchases - the little guys run up the prices.