Is Offshore Banking Dead for Americans?

Offshore banking and offshore asset protection provides individuals with ways to manage their companies and finances as well as assets while still maintaining a fair level of privacy. Furthermore, these strategies ensure that individuals do not lose all their hard-earned assets in legal settlements where their investments are targeted, such as malpractice law suits and divorce cases. Also, the banking system in the United States of America is in a perpetual state of havoc and the law does not think twice about freezing an account whose owner is involved in a legal tussle. It is also for this reason that more and more Americans opted for offshore banking to protect their finances and to provide them with funds for those rainy days.

However, this perfectly legal strategy has for years been used by individuals who take part in illegal activity or who would like to escape the long arm of the revenue and tax collection service. Therefore, most countries have lost millions in tax revenue due to such unscrupulous individuals who would like to evade tax by opening offshore companies. 

It is for this reason that the American government has included a law that requires every individual to declare all the assets that they own, whether these assets are in the country or not, and whether these individuals reside in the United States of America, or in other jurisdictions. By so doing, they have rendered the efforts of individuals to open up private offshore accounts and companies for the purpose of protecting their privacy futile.

Though such laws have seemingly nailed the coffin for offshore banking and other asset protection strategies, these means of asset protection is not buried yet, and we can still revive it in a bid to protect the privacy of individuals while ensuring that their assets and finances are safe from the hands of lawyers who would like a piece of the pie. One could for example open an offshore account using trusts or banking groups as well as other third party deals such as individual trustees. This third party arrangement allows someone else to stand in on your behalf as a signatory and owner of the offshore account, but you should ensure that the person you use in this case is trustworthy. Your offshore banking account could be operated through a power of attorney or nominee directors and if the management is done properly, everything will work out well for you.

This is not all as you should ensure that any transaction that takes place in the bank does not link back to you and you should therefore never send money directly to the account. This is because most governments nowadays monitor transactions outside their borders including the smallest money transfer and if you would like to survive, you should avoid any suspicion by using third party invoicing or pass-through accounts.

Offshore banking and offshore asset protection strategies are not dead for Americans, but the rules have changed and any individual who would like to safely and legally practice this should ensure that they follow the new rules in order to survive.

Article Source: Catherine Faith Omondi