Offshore Banking Services – The Privacy Trap
Due to “tax treaties” and other international agreements, often established by one (bigger) nation using simple extortion on another (smaller) nation, banks world-wide are forced to allow government to check their records, any time, for any reason. The rules that are enforced on banks typically make it criminal for a bank clerk to NOT report “unusual activity” for any given client. This basically means that only what already is part of a well-known traditional pattern will be reported to the government.
It is sad that you now have to protect yourself against snooping from your own bank! But that’s reality now. Even in Switzerland.
The way to go about this is that you use a legal entity, like an Offshore Trust, a Private Interest Foundation, or an International Business Corporation (IBC) in-between yourself and the bank. You make this legal entity the owner of your assets, and then you do the banking through the entity, so that your name is not disclosed to the bank.
Why would you do this? In the US, you stand a one in four chance of being sued by a frivolous litigator if your net wealth exceeds only 100,000 dollars. Using a legal entity in a foreign country, like an offshore Trust, will allow you the security of asset protection, by leaving no link between your name and the assets held by the Trust. Similarly, holding a brokerage account under an IBC’s name ensures complete confidentiality and privacy while trading. Your account will be treated as a foreign company as long as you do not open an office or conduct any business in your home country through the IBC.
A serious additional advantage is that a large number of countries will allow you, as a foreigner, to work through a legal entity established in their jurisdiction, and to conduct business on a basis of a freedom granted by law to not report any financial information, thus paying no income taxes.
The problem is that your government might not want you to take advantage of that tax freedom. And if you are a US or UK citizen, this is definitely the case.
You might wonder, with good right, what business your government has controlling your activities outside its jurisdiction! You are not a government slave – or are you?
Well, if you have not learned what it takes to NOT be it, then you ARE…
The sad news is that a lot of people think of this as something they now just have to hide from the government’s eyes. They think they can do that by finding a country that is willing to offer them the secrecy they require.
But that does not help when that same country later on get a visit from the US president, and its banks a couple of weeks later are forced to send out a letter to their foreign clients stating that their accounts are frozen, until they provide acceptable ID proof for themselves.
by Eliasen M