Friday, November 16, 2007

Going offshore to protect your Strategic Capital and privacy

Individuals and corporations – Protect Your Strategic Capital and "go offshore" (place assets outside of their home countries) for three simple reasons: privacy, protection from lawsuits, and regulatory advantages.

Privacy

Financial privacy has become a thing of the past. Every transaction made at a bank or ATM, by law, must be recorded and filed. Credit agencies maintain enormous databases of sensitive information that is used and shared by other organizations and agencies. Asset collectors routinely advertise their ability to locate bank accounts, brokerage accounts, real estate and business holdings. Should asset collectors find substantial wealth, the individual or corporation becomes an easy target for a lawsuit.

Unless deliberate steps are taken to insure privacy, sensitive and confidential information could easily get into the wrong hands. Placing bank and brokerage accounts offshore will keep them off the asset collector's radar screen. Credit agencies and government agencies don't have access to foreign account records or transactions. Domestic property may be titled in the name of a foreign corporation or trust. This insures that asset collectors can't find it. By taking advantage of these methods an individual or corporation becomes a smaller target and the likelihood of being sued is reduced. Utilizing offshore tools to protect privacy could mean the difference between keeping versus losing what is rightfully yours.

Protection From Lawsuits

Tens of thousands of lawsuits are filed PER WEEK in the U.S alone. Juries award ever-increasing sums to successful plaintiffs. Ex-spouses, ex-business partners, disgruntled employees or predatory attorneys may file suit if they believe a potential defendant is an attractive target. Losing such a lawsuit could cause a lifetime's worth of savings, investments and real estate holdings to be lost. In light of this, placing assets offshore is a wise and effective means of protection from ruinous lawsuits.

Regulatory Advantages

Domestic businesses and operations are often plagued by excessive regulation. Valuable resources are diverted away from the productive process in order to monitor compliance with a myriad of restrictions. Curing this problem is as simple as moving to friendlier shores. Offshore jurisdictions are intentionally business-friendly and have regulations that are straightforward, simple to understand and inexpensive to comply with. Moving a business offshore and enjoying a more pleasant business climate may require nothing more than forming an offshore corporation and transferring assets from the domestic corporation to the foreign one.

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