Can I avoid taxes with offshore banking?
Most offshore banking centers are at the same time tax havens (low or no tax jurisdictions). Some offshore jurisdictions exempt all incomes from all taxes, while others exempt only those incomes that were generated by sources outside the jurisdiction. Although offshore banking centers do not tax your incomes, your home country may be taxing foreign generated income. So you must check your country’s legislation: if your countries authorities do not tax income generated from foreign sources, then your offshore incomes shall not be taxed, but if they do (like US does), you should report them, otherwise it will be considered as tax evasion.

Is offshore banking legal?
Answer to this question is quite simple: it is legal; nobody is arrested for having offshore bank account. It is absolutely legal service provided by a financial institution that is licensed in full compliance with the legislation of a tax haven.

What can be illegal is when a person holds offshore bank account, receives an income and does not report this income in his home country, if the country’s legislation requires that. In other words using offshore banking is legal, but using offshore banking for illegal operations, such as tax evasion is illegal. Read more…

Is offshore banking safe and secure?
Offshore jurisdictions are politically stable countries with strong economies and developed financial sector. Financial sector is tightly regulated to eliminate risk of bank failures and ensure a good image of a jurisdiction making offshore banking highly secure.

Is my information kept anonymous and confidential?
Most financial institutions in offshore banking centers provide anonymity to their clients. Generally bank secrecy is ensured by a country’s legislation. Degree of bank secrecy varies from one jurisdiction to another; therefore if you are interested primarily in bank secrecy, you should check the legislation first to be sure to what extent your personal information is protected

Which one is the best tax haven? What country is the best option?
It is difficult to answer this question. Simple answer is: “it depends”. It depends what exactly you are looking for. If it is bank secrecy, then Panama may be a good choice.