What are the advatages of offshore banking and how to set an accout ?
Money to invest , don’t want to have to pay taxes on ./limited income
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 13th, 2010 at 9:53 am
Offshore banking is a term used when referring to depositing or investing money in banks in jurisdictions that offer tax advantages over your local jurisdiction. Unfortunately, in order to effectively shelter income and investments offshore, you need to have a very capable tax advisor who can steer you through the ins and outs of such investments. For most people, the cost of hiring such a tax advisor would be so high that it would wipe out any tax-related gains from parking money offshore. In addition, even with a good tax advisor, the IRS is likely to pay special attention to US taxpayers claiming that income is exempt from US tax due to a tax treaty or other foreign tax shelter, which means that you can expect to deal with audits that will cost you still more money. Finally, if you try to put money offshore and don’t do it properly, you can face an unforgiving legal battle. The IRS doesn’t care if you believed what you were doing is proper – if they think you are trying to circumvent US tax law and can prove that you’ve done so illegally, you will be prosecuted, you will almost certainly have to pay back taxes plus substantial penalties, and you may have to serve jail time.
Offshore banking is for very sophisticated investors with lots of money and a lot of professional expertise on their side. It is not something to take lightly, and I’d suggest you just pay your taxes and get on with your life. I’m not saying its fair, but its reality.
Plus, while it sucks that some rich guy may be able to shelter some of his income, the vast majority of Americans pay their taxes in full when due. When you try to cheat the system by taking your money out of the US, you are doing a civic disservice to everyone else who is forced to ultimately pick up the slack for your scheming to avoid taxes. Money to build roads, pay for education, healthcare, unemployment insurance, etc. has to come from somewhere – if not from you, then from me and the other honest taxpayers out there.
May 13th, 2010 at 10:45 am
The above is a very good explanation of the pros and cons of offshore accounts. But in the last part where its writer mentioned where tax money goes, the conformist yes-man forgot to include the cost of insane wars, destroying countries and then building them up again and making all their officials millionaires by bribes..
May 13th, 2010 at 11:23 am
you might want to start with this, from the Sovereign Society: