Good Advice, Bad Advice and No Advice

Whatever advice you seek, there is ample choice with very credible firms of offshore service providers, lawyers, accountants, and tax advisers who will help in any transaction, personal or business. This comes with a cost, sometimes significant, and occasionally conflicts with long-standing professional relationships that have been built up over many years.

Advice is something that will set out the consequences of any transaction or scenario, but the final decision will be down to the individual or company that is seeking the advice.

This is why it is critical to find the correct advisers, who fully understand the circumstances as it affects their client going forward. Good professional advisers do not always have empathy, and when things go wrong, they are not always culpable.

Complex schemes for anti-avoidance and avoidance of tax are still marketed and expensive and do have a high degree of risk associated with them. It is only when things do not work or future generations find themselves in difficulty with tax authorities or family, that in hindsight, the risk was not worth it. This carries a high degree of cost in defending previous actions and recourse cannot always be made against advisors who promoted the scheme.

As the regulatory and legal framework becomes more complex, in most countries, there are generally more safeguards now than in past years. It is historic advice and the passage of time that clouds issues.

Advice given decades ago, without remedial action, is a prime cause of investigation and dispute. And simply ignoring the problem will make matters worse.