No. And the places where it genuinely is favourable are not the places most people expect.
Sint Maarten appears on plenty of lists of Caribbean tax havens, and the reputation does not survive contact with the rate table. Profit tax on company profits is charged at 34.5%. Turnover tax is 5% on revenue and cannot be reclaimed on inputs. Personal income tax is progressive with rates reaching 46.5% at the top. None of that is a low-tax jurisdiction by any ordinary meaning of the phrase.
What Sint Maarten does have is a specific preferential regime for a specific kind of person, and a genuinely favourable treatment of a few particular things. Understanding which is which is the difference between a plan that works and a plan built on a magazine headline.
34.5% on taxable profit, with the annual return due 30 June. That is not a tax haven rate and it is higher than many onshore jurisdictions. A company set up here purely for the rate has misunderstood the position.
Turnover tax at 5% is charged on goods delivered and services supplied inside the territory, and because input tax cannot be offset it compounds through a supply chain. A business with thin margins and local suppliers can find this more consequential than the headline profit tax rate.
Penshonado applies a flat 10% to the total worldwide income of a qualifying resident. It is genuinely favourable, it is genuinely available, and it applies to individuals who meet and maintain its conditions. It has nothing to do with what a company pays.
CaribTax's estate planning guidance notes that Sint Maarten levies no estate duty when assets pass to heirs, and the real estate guidance notes no capital gains tax. Those are real advantages, and they matter most to people holding appreciating assets or planning succession, which is a different profile from someone looking for a low corporate rate.
Individuals with substantial income that can be arranged around a residency, particularly retirees and globally mobile people whose income does not depend on being physically anywhere. For that profile, a flat 10% on worldwide income against progressive rates approaching 46.5% elsewhere is a serious proposition, and the absence of estate duty compounds it over a generation.
It suits people holding appreciating assets, for the same reasons. It suits businesses that want to be here for commercial reasons and are prepared to pay a normal rate to do so. It does not suit a company looking for a nameplate and a low corporate rate, and anyone selling it that way is selling something else.
Structures built on a misunderstanding of which rate applies are the ones that unwind. A person who moves here expecting 10% on business profits, or who sets up an entity expecting the personal rate to apply to it, has built on a premise that was never true and will discover it at the least convenient moment.
The useful question is never whether a jurisdiction is low tax. It is which of its rules apply to your specific position, and whether that position can be evidenced if it is examined.
Not by any ordinary meaning. Company profits are taxed at 34.5%, revenue at 5%, and top personal rates reach 46.5%. It has one strong preferential regime for qualifying individuals and no estate duty, which is a different thing from being a low-tax jurisdiction.
The Penshonado regime, which applies a flat 10% to the total worldwide income of a qualifying resident individual. It is real and it is available, but it applies to people rather than companies, and only to those who meet and maintain its conditions.
For some profiles and not others, and the comparison depends entirely on where your income comes from and what you are trying to achieve. We publish direct comparisons rather than a general answer, because a general answer would be wrong for most readers.
US citizens and green card holders carry reporting obligations regardless of where they live, so relocating adds a position rather than replacing one. Whether the net result improves depends on credits and exclusions, and it is worth modelling before you move.
CaribTax's real estate guidance notes no capital gains tax in Sint Maarten. Whether a particular disposal falls outside that depends on whether the activity amounts to trading rather than passive holding, which turns on conduct rather than on a rate.
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