Brass plate company

The name is based on a company whose only tangible existence in its jurisdiction of incorporation is the nameplate attached to the wall outside its registered office.

This is because a very common driver of creating a shell company is often to legally move a business activity to a different location from the "home base".

)[4] Thus the term brass plate company is often used in the pejorative sense (especially in the media) and associated with undesirable nefarious activities (i.e. tax evasion, money laundering or arms trafficking etc.).

[5][6][7] Regulators in these onshore financial centres control the spread of brass plate companies by enforcing stronger tax residency rules that require greater "commercial substance" to occur in the regulator's jurisdiction (also known as the "central management and control" test in UK case law).

CSPs in onshore financial centres are capable of providing local directors, administration and other services designed to meet the minimum "central management and control test" for moderate fees.