5 Ways Virtual Office Services Can Accommodate Offshore Asset Protection

There are several benefits that come with offshore banking. Whether you’re a European business looking for a zero tax haven like Wyoming, USA — or a North American seeking an offshore domicile for your company — there are a number of ways a virtual office can help protect your company assets.

A virtual office service can help make the process of running a business much easier, providing a legitimate office address that you and your customers can actually visit, in-country or international toll-free phone numbers, virtual reception and call center teams, call forwarding and online chat services.

Why go offshore in the first place? Diversification of your company assets

While it’s no longer a smart idea to look to set up shop overseas to avoid paying local taxes on business profits, or use offshore banks to hide your personal assets, offshore banks still offer a variety of incentives.

Consider the US banking disaster that took place during the last depression in 2007. Banks needed to be bailed out by the government to keep their doors open, and to ensure their customers had access to THEIR own hard-earned money.

Many offshore banks keep all or the majority of their customer’s money on-site, and are run privately, where other larger countries have government-run banks, and nobody really knows where the money goes once a deposit is made. You need your money when you need your money. Plain and simple.

Were the banking system to collapse in your home country, governing banking security agencies (if they exist where you are) will only guarantee so much of your money, and it could take days, weeks, or months before you have access to any funds.

This could conceivably destroy a business overnight — particularly for a startup — unless you have your money spread out on different continents.

5 ways a virtual office service makes offshore asset protection easier

While not everyone will benefit in the same ways by employing a virtual office service, legitimate virtual service providers can make your life easier by legitimizing your offshore business presence and make things like banking, paying taxes, and servicing local or international clients easier.

This is a necessity if you wish to purchase real estate holdings in the country you do business in. Also, it’s best and often necessary to have a local address to register an overseas LLC and business bank account.

1. Legitimacy

One of the most obvious ways a virtual office service helps your overseas asset protection needs is by legitimizing the business, giving you a local presence. If you do your due diligence and work with a reputable service, you’ll get a space in an official office — an address and unit number you can use to register your LLC with the local government, and obtain an offshore bank account to protect and diversify your company holdings.

2. Phone number

Virtual office services offer a local and/or international phone number. Not only does this legitimize your business, it solidifies your offshore entity and can help grow your reputation and the size of the company itself. Customers certainly will be impressed when they see you’re a truly international operation.

3. Add-on services offered

Some virtual office services offer nothing more than an address to register your LLC to. The more competitive brands offer every conceivable service you might need when running an overseas business. Services like call forwarding, virtual reception, phone and online support, mail forwarding and more come standard with most providers.

Most will allow limited access to the office itself, for times when you find yourself in-country and must pop in to use the office amenities or entertain clients or overseas staff.

4. Save money

One of the simplest ways to protect your assets is to not spend money needlessly on commercial real estate property, including buying or leasing an office you simply don’t need to access very often. Commercial real estate is in the thousands of dollars per month in most of the trendy offshore locations, and you certainly want to have an office in a respectable business district.

A virtual office cuts overhead by tens of thousands of dollars a year, with money spent on buying/renting a property, furnishing it, maintaining and cleaning it.

5. Move whenever you want

Another bad way to protect your assets is to sign lengthy leases or agreements you simply can’t get out of if the need arises to move, such as when a relationship with a landlord isn’t working out, etc.

A virtual office can be rented on a month-to-month basis, so you’re never tied to a single location at any time.

There are many other benefits to using a virtual service provider to accommodate your offshore asset protection plan, but these 5 are certainly the most prominent for businesses of all sizes.