Cayman Islands: Ten reasons to register an aircraft in the Cayman Islands
Article by Wanda Ebanks, Sherice Arman, Shari McField, Manuela Belmontes and Mark WesternMaples Group From MAPLES GROUP
We have highlighted below ten of the key reasons owners, financiers and operators regard the Cayman Islands as the jurisdiction of choice for aircraft registrations.
1. The Cayman Islands – Political Stability
The Cayman Islands provides a safe, stable and ‘friendly flag’ jurisdiction for registration of aircraft and boasts a highly developed legal system and a respected system for perfecting security over aircraft.
As an overseas territory of the United Kingdom, the Cayman Islands benefits from a high level of political, social, economic and judicial stability, while at the same time exercising a high degree of autonomy, having been a stable parliamentary democracy since 1831.
The Cayman Islands enjoys a stable system of government, consisting of a 19 member Legislative Assembly elected by the people every four years which enables the Cayman Islands largely to self-govern on local affairs, and a Governor who is the formal representative of the UK government. The Governor has power over certain domestic issues (for example, controlling Cayman Islands internal security matters, dissolving the legislature, assenting to laws and acting as a liaison between the Cayman Islands and the British government).
The Cayman Islands’ main industries are financial services and tourism. The government’s primary source of income is indirect taxation, such as import duty on certain goods and fees obtained from the operation, licensing and regulation of various entities in the Cayman Islands. The absence of any form of direct taxation (save for import duties) in the Cayman Islands (such as income, sales or capital gains tax) fosters a favourable tax neutral regime which has made the Cayman Islands an attractive jurisdiction in which to conduct cross-border global business.
Internationally, the Cayman Islands is ranked within the top 20 financial centres in the world. It boasts a GDP of US$49,227 per capita1 and is rated Aa3 by Moody’s2.
The Cayman Islands is widely recognised as one of the leading jurisdictions for compliance with, and cooperation on matters of, anti-money laundering, tax information and financial regulation. It was one of the first jurisdictions to partner with the US and sign up to a Model 1 intergovernmental agreement with respect to FATCA, and was one of the early adopters of the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard for the automatic sharing of tax information3. Since then, the Cayman Islands has introduced the International Tax Co-operation (Economic Substance) Law, non-public beneficial ownership registers and Country by Country Reporting. In addition, it is a signatory to 36 bilateral agreements and arrangements on the exchange of tax information.
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Footnotes
1 Cayman Economy at a Glance 2017 https://www.eso.ky/caymaneconomyataglance.html
3 http://tia.gov.ky/pdf/International_Exchange_of_Information_Instruments.pdf
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
