Offshore accounts for Irish contractors

[malahider]

Has anybody any opinions on using Offshore Accounts, through Channel island companies, while actually contracting in Ireland, as an Irish citizen. Is it legal? Can money earned as a dividend be transferred back into Ireland?

 

[ubiquitous]

This type of offshore account is not illegal if used properly. However, offshore accounts carry a certain notoriety given the widespread abuse of same for tax evasion purposes in the past. Hence, if you go down this road, you can expect that the compliance people in Revenue will be keeping a very close eye on your activities and your chances of being subjected to ongoing Revenue Audits (with all the hassle and business disruption that they entail) will be increased exponentially as a result.

 

[Glenbhoy]

These have generally been used by non-irish persons working in ireland. I don't think that in normal circumstances Irish citizens can avail of them in the same way.
This is because, normally, an irish citizen will be ordinarily tax resident here, thus he will be liable to tax on worldwide income, there are normally double tax arrangements in place with other countries to avoid double taxation.
I also seem to remember a change in the law in the last budget, which, did away with the remittance concept which is how these schemes work anyhow (maybe it was only talked about?).
Anyway, I don't remember the details, but I do remember looking at these schemes in the past and deciding that they were'nt an option for me. If you want to give some more specifics, then maybe I can be more specific with my answer.
Residence for tax purposes, industry sector, how much money do you plan to remit etc....