Dear ,

As a purveyor of offshore investing information, we're only as good as the questions we answer. This newsletter is intended to be a conduit for sharing ideas about how to invest offshore. Therefore we invite you to send us questions and comments and we'll address them here in this newsletter. You can submit your question as an anonymous reader, just let us know your country of residence, so that the answer to your query can serve to help other readers in the future. Our responses will come from one or more of the offshore experts within our network.

To help you benefit from this newsletter, it's useful to know more about InvestOffshore.com. We are offshore promoters, not service providers. Our mission is to introduce you to professional advisers who are best-suited to help you invest offshore. Some of the service providers we promote pay commissions for new customers we introduce, many however do not. We believe that our readers should be well-informed and make decisions based on what's best for them, which is why we publish a broad range of information from various sources that we have found to be fair and honest.

In this issue of Invest Offshore News we'll share excerpts from new reports (available upon request), we have on the following topics:

• Offshore Company Formation
• Private Trust banking
• Offshore Investing

Multi-tiered International Structures - For individuals with a certain level of income, accumulated wealth, and/or investment activity, the most sensible manner to situate their activity is through a multi-tiered international business structure. By necessity, these are always custom made to fit the persons needs, but generally involve corporations, LLCs, and trusts across many jurisdictions.

The use of various holding companies and trusts greatly increases the privacy of the client and may provide tax advantages; however, due to the increased cost involved generally should not be considered for those trying to protect under $500,000 in assets or $250,000 in annual income.

Asset Protection Strategies

• Hidden - This strategy entails your placing your assets in a jurisdiction with good privacy laws. Many people use this strategy knowingly or unknowingly break the law by not reporting these assets to courts or revenue agents. If and when they are caught, they face serious charges. Some jurisdictions pass laws revealing clients who had relied on this strategy (Switzerland), and some sign treaties that retroactively reveal clients' information going back 3 years (Panama).
• Bulletproof - This strategy relies on effective use of the law, usually in your own jurisdiction. Many people who have relied on sound legal arguments, constitutional arguments, and trust contracts have been disappointed to learn that the court doesn't always agree. Their assets get seized, and sometimes they get arrested. Even if they are right, they can spend a fortune trying to prove it in court.
• Hidden & Bulletproof - All the structures we recommend employ this strategy relying not just on one or the other. In this way, the security and privacy of the assets are increased exponentially. Any attack on a clients' assets would be discouraged due to privacy laws of our chosen jurisdictions, and then further complicated by the solid legal framework of the structure. The idea is to arbitrage international law and bureaucracy to create necessary complexity which has the dual benefit of making the structure adhere to applicable law AND difficult to discern from the outside.

Request more information about Companies and Structures.

After 9/11, the international banking environment changed. With the passing of the Patriot Act in the United States and similar legislation around the world, banking privacy started to be eroded. This trend has continued to this day. Every day we hear of some jurisdiction signing on to the OECD rules eliminating banking privacy or of some government signing a TIEA (tax information exchange agreement) with the U.S. or an E.U. member state.

In response, innovation created a new concept called cloud-banking, to provide an alternative banking solution which maintains the customers' privacy while obeying all international rules and regulations. This is done through trust banking. Client funds are held in trust for the client in the name of one or more of the trust companies that form the cloud-banking Group of companies in various banks and brokerages around the world; however, the clients' personal information is kept with a Trust Company in an entirely separate jurisdiction under attorney client privilege safeguarding the clients' privacy.

The most private banking account available anywhere in the world

With the Offshore Bank Account we recommend you can:

• Send and receive wires with nothing but an account number displayed noting your identity.
• Retrieve money from ATM's around the world with a debit card containing little or no personal information of tax ID number.
• Control a number brokerage account for investing in every major market and exchange in the world with no tax reporting.
• Hold precious metals in a numbered account at respected repositories.
• Form international business and trust structures specifically designed for your needs.
• Manage it all online

Request more information about Private Trust Banking.

Tax is the driving force behind 'offshore', but for the great majority of well-off individuals considering offshore investment, tax is not directly an issue. They reside in high-tax areas such as the EU, the US, Canada or Japan, they pay their taxes, and if they make 'offshore' investments, it is in pursuit of higher returns, and without any intention to evade taxes in their home countries.

Some investors are outside the jurisdiction of high-tax areas, either because they live elsewhere, or because they are temporarily non-resident for work reasons. Such investors can often avoid having to pay taxes on their investments, whether on or offshore, but that is due to the investor's circumstances, not the location of the investment.

Why an 'offshore' investment is superior to an onshore investment?
The first reason is because it is less regulated, and the behavior of the offshore investment provider, whether he be a banker, fund manager, trustee or stock-broker, is freer than it could be in a more regulated environment. Any G8 regulator will immediately say, oh, of course, if it's unregulated, then it is riskier. Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?
Who can benefit?
An offshore (i.e., non-US) mutual or commodities fund, which intends to trade on the US markets and/or appoint a US investment advisor, should be organized to comply with certain structural and administrative 'rules', in order to avoid its income and trading profits being subject to US federal corporate income tax and US federal branch profits tax.
Do Regulations Forbid Foreign Investment Or Banking?
Absolutely not. The U.S. and Canada encourage international trade and investment. As such, there are virtually no regulations forbidding citizens from doing business or having bank accounts in other countries. Should the U.S. or Canada ever forbid foreign banking or investing, international trade would quickly grind to a halt. This would cripple the world economy. Therefore, neither the U.S. nor Canada will ever forbid foreign business, banking or investing. Rather, sophisticated and knowledgeable individuals and corporations all over the world have used and will continue to use offshore tools.

Request more information about Offshore Investing.

RSS Blog Feed