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For international entrepreneurs and crypto investors, cross-border planning often begins with a bold ambition: relocate to a smarter jurisdiction, incorporate locally, and enjoy predictable, rules-based tax treatment. Yet the most decisive variable is frequently overlooked—and it’s deceptively simple: who actually manages the company, and where?
In contemporary tax practice, residency recognition is fact-driven. On the personal side, authorities examine where you really live, work, and keep your “centre of vital interests.” On the corporate side, they look at the place of effective management—the jurisdiction where real strategic decisions are taken. Since 2017, the OECD Model has even tightened treaty tie-breaker mechanics for dual-resident entities, pushing cases toward competent-authority resolution with explicit attention to effective management and comparable factors. In other words: substance beats slogans; governance beats stationery. OECD
This is where a local manager becomes pivotal. A locally empowered gérant (manager) with day-to-day authority is not a cosmetic accessory; it’s the operating system that anchors corporate residency in the chosen jurisdiction—convening board meetings, executing contracts, supervising banking, keeping minutes, and ensuring that decisions are genuinely taken on-island. In jurisdictions such as Saint-Barthélemy, which combines French legal protection with local fiscal autonomy, the role of the local manager is the bridge between aspiration and recognition. Without it, you risk requalification; with it, you build audit-proof coherence. legifrance.gouv.fr+1
Think of residency like navigation by stars: if your personal and corporate constellations don’t align around a local manager, your fiscal compass drifts.
Personal tax residence governs where you are taxed on worldwide income. Treaties and domestic law converge around facts: days of presence, habitual abode, and the centre of vital interests (family, home, work). For cross-border families, tie-breaker rules in treaties consider permanent home, vital interests, habitual abode and, if needed, nationality—then, ultimately, competent-authority agreement. None of this is decided by intentions; it is decided by evidence. OECD
Corporate tax residence turns on where the company is actually managed. The OECD Commentary describes the place of effective management as where key management and commercial decisions are, in substance, made. France’s tax doctrine mirrors this via the siège de direction effective (real seat of management): not where a company is registered on paper, but where the senior functions and control truly occur. Minutes, signatories, contract execution, treasury control and meeting location are determinative indicators. OECD+1
Since 2017, dual-resident entities no longer default to a mechanical POEM tie-breaker under the OECD Model; instead, competent authorities resolve on the basis of POEM-like factors (management location, board control, etc.). That shift elevates governance detail—and thus the role of a local manager—from “helpful” to “decisive.” OECD
What the local manager changes in practice
Metaphor: a local manager is to residency what a keel is to a yacht—unseen by onlookers, but the very thing that keeps everything upright when the wind (or an audit) picks up.
Requalification of corporate residence. If contracts are approved from abroad, strategic calls are made at your old home desk, or the CFO function runs offshore (from the “wrong” shore), tax authorities can re-domicile your company to the jurisdiction of effective management. French guidance and case law consistently “look through” the registered address to where decisions truly occur, often relying on a bundle of indicators (emails, meeting locations, signatures, treasury control). bofip.impots.gouv.fr+2bofip.impots.gouv.fr+2
CFC exposure despite foreign incorporation. Controlled Foreign Company rules under EU ATAD and OECD BEPS allow home countries to attribute low-taxed foreign profits to domestic shareholders. A company formed abroad but effectively controlled domestically may therefore not shield those profits. A local manager with real authority is part of demonstrating non-artificiality and mitigating CFC inclusions. eur-lex.europa.eu+1
Banking friction and reporting mismatches. CRS requires annual automatic exchange of financial data; banks demand consistent evidence of entity residence and controlling persons. When management is ambiguous, expect onboarding failures, blocked wires, or enhanced due diligence. With CARF bringing crypto reporting online (first exchanges expected in 2027), the proof burden only rises. Governance that is local, formal, and continuous becomes a compliance asset. OECD+2OECD+2
Treaty protection uncertainty. With the 2017 OECD Model change, dual-resident entities rely on competent authorities to agree the residence outcome. If your file lacks hard evidence that management really occurs locally, you risk denial of treaty benefits or years of limbo. A robust local manager is how you stack the evidentiary deck in your favour. OECD
Regulatory and reputational spillover. In France, the “siège de direction effective” doctrine has supported reassessments when facts showed control was French-based, including recent appellate decisions scrutinising where commercial, legal, tax, accounting and logistics were organised. The signal to cross-border founders is clear: substance now speaks louder than statutes. Deloitte Société d'Avocats
Short rule: If you “manage abroad” without someone managing locally, you don’t truly manage abroad.
Why do sophisticated investors pair a move with Saint-Barthélemy and a local gérant? Because the island offers a rare mix: French legal infrastructure plus local fiscal autonomy—and explicit statutory criteria for recognizing local personal residence.
Fiscal autonomy under French law. Saint-Barthélemy exercises its own competencies in “impôts, droits et taxes” (taxes, duties and levies) under the Code général des collectivités territoriales, giving the island the power to shape its local tax environment (within the French constitutional framework). That local competence is the legislative basis for the island’s distinct tax regime and administration. legifrance.gouv.fr
Five-year rule for individual tax domicile. Statute provides that individuals cannot be considered fiscally domiciled in Saint-Barthélemy until after at least five years of residence—a clear, bright-line test that rewards continuity. For globally mobile families, this provides a predictable timeline for establishing personal residence that matches corporate governance. legifrance.gouv.fr
Corporate residency via effective management. Under French doctrine (and mirrored internationally), the real seat follows effective management. In practical terms, board meetings held on-island, contracts executed locally, and a local manager empowered to act all build the evidence base. This is precisely where a gérant becomes essential: they are the day-to-day fact pattern that tax authorities evaluate. bofip.impots.gouv.fr
Banking, notarial and compliance ecosystem. Despite its Caribbean setting, Saint-Barth runs on French legal standards (e.g., notarial conveyancing) and EU-grade financial compliance. That means audit-legible records, rigorous KYC/AML, and straightforward treaty interpretation—with CRS already in place and CARF on deck. The island’s governance culture rewards good files. OECD+1
Analogy: Saint-Barthélemy is a Caribbean harbor with European moorings—calm waters, but a dock built to French architectural codes.
A local manager is not (only) a name in the articles. They are the operational keystone for residency recognition:
A. Governance that lives locally
B. Compliance that anticipates audits
Discretion, compliance, and excellence in Saint-Barthélemy.
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