British Virgin Islands company law Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==History== The first companies legislation in the British Virgin Islands was the Companies Act, 1884. However the great leap forward for company law in the jurisdiction occurred in 1984 with the passing of the [[International Business Companies Act|International Business Companies Act, 1984]]. That legislation was passed specifically to try and promote the incorporation of [[offshore company|offshore companies]] as a method of economic development in the wake of the cancellation by the [[United States of America|U.S.]] of the double taxation treaty which had existed between the two countries prior to that time.<ref>{{cite book|title=British Virgin Islands Commercial Law |edition=2nd |year=2012 |publisher=[[Sweet & Maxwell]] |isbn=9789626614792 |at=para 1.010}}</ref> The International Business Companies Act was enormously successful, and resulted in the registration of a large number of companies. However, in the early 2000s the British Virgin Islands came under external pressure to repeal statutes such as the International Business Companies Act which provided for "ring-fenced" taxation (i.e. entities which were exempt from taxation in the British Virgin Islands provided they did not engage in business within the jurisdiction). This led ultimately to the repeal of both the Companies Act and the International Business Companies Act and their replacement with the BVI Business Companies Act, which provided for equal tax treatment of all companies.<ref>{{cite book|title=British Virgin Islands Commercial Law |edition=2nd |year=2012 |publisher=[[Sweet & Maxwell]] |isbn=9789626614792 |at=para 1.014}}</ref> The change had relatively little impact on incorporation rates as the British Virgin Islands imposes virtually no form of [[direct tax]]ation. Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page