-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 01:00 PM 8/21/97 -0700, Tim May wrote:
Interestingly, many of the strategies for moving assets offshore, to offshore banks and money havens, is not so much to evade taxes as to "protect assets." Protect them from ransom/extortion demands of the _legal profession_ sort, e.g., "deep pockets" lawsuits. For example, somebody finds out that J. Random Cypherpunk is financially well off--perhaps from the increasing number of online credit report records, etc.--and decides to have a convenient "fall" on his property. He then sues for some large amount, either covered by Homeowner's Insurance, or more.
Foreign Asset Protection Trusts (FAPTs) have indeed become popular for protection against general lawsuit and dom rel liabilities. As long as not done in contemplation of bankruptcy, such transfers remain legal. Another popular reason is privacy in general. US domestic accounts can be examined by any federal, state, or local government employee who can sign his name to a subpeona. Any lawyer can also examine account records in the course of discovery proceedings. There are some limits to the above powers but not very substantial limits. For all we know, FINCEN has a nice Win32- based point and click browser that can tiptoe through every bank and brokerage account in America. If they don't have one yet, I'm sure they are trying to get one. If domestic lawyers or governments want the same sort of access to accounts in other jurisdictions, they have to spend many thousands of dollars and months or years of personnel time. Cuts down on their capabilities. DCF -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBNALw/oVO4r4sgSPhAQE/9gP+NNns8O2bGM4gXa6gXQEGtTPzmAbpphVG DgKKn8/+PIK71TINx9bNQylur3Dqj6jiquQT8gKgx4D7oW5H2LHEK/V5mHrHB+e0 zLe3KrdSKfGYQoYLzMG5/WLftGYFVzDPNL+WDkEzQrzgBk+Ac4y1wTbvar8UL2nR XNlVHqw0cPE= =9cgI -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----