The litigation explosion are forcing professionals and small business owners to focus on ways/strategies to protect their savings, investments and other accumulated assets that may become attractive to potential contingent fee trial lawyers.
Presently, well over half the world’s wealth moves around internationally, taking advantage of business opportunities. National political boundaries, from a financial point of view, are becoming virtually transparent. Many Americans have come to the realization that the only way for them to protect their assets is to hold international assets. This offshore asset protection strategy has nothing to do with tax evasion and everything to do with the creation and protection of wealth.
In the United States, the legal system is often stacked in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendant. The corporate veil is routinely ignored. This encourages the filing of spurious lawsuits.
For a mere filing fee, a contingent fee lawyer and his client risk very little to see how things turn out.
The possibility of being on the receiving end of a ruinous judgment can instantly result in the loss of a lifetime’s accumulation of hard work. Lawyers for plaintiffs only prosecute cases they believe will pay off. The largest growing business in America is contingent fee lawyers, just look in the yellow pages of your phone book.
The Internet has facilitated an exponential rate of detailed information about your personal and/or your business accounts, property ownership, investment holdings, income, savings, and many other facts about you, your business, your associates, your buying/spending habits, and so forth.
Most trial lawyers will tell you, that forming U.S. based corporations for asset/wealth protection is not worth the certificate it’s written on. Judges will inform you that if any asset is within their jurisdiction anywhere in the U.S. they have the power to redistribute your wealth.
SO WHY USE OFFSHORE ASSET PROTECTION?
Many international jurisdictions impose less governmental regulatory restrictions and reporting, less taxes on their assets and income, greater flexibility and disclosure requirements. Individuals, professionals, entrepreneurs, and their companies adopt an aggressive policy to safeguard and preserve their wealth/assets from predators and their very clever lawyers, while significantly reducing their costs of doing business.
An offshore asset protection Corporation or other offshore Foreign Limited Liability Company (FLLC’s), or International Business Company (IBC’s) or other legal entities can conduct any type of business in the United States. You sacrifice nothing by having a corporate veil with real teeth. An International Business Company (IBC) is an offshore corporate legal entity that does not have to comply with a U.S. based judgment.
Judgments are not enforceable in non-United States jurisdictions. U.S. contingent fee lawyers and their clients have a significant jurisdictional problem: only citizens of the tax haven jurisdiction can practice law. U.S. lawyers or their clients will have to hire a local law firm and pay up-front legal fees, post bonds, pay court costs, and pre-pay other expenses to pursue their claims. Generally speaking, the local authorities frown upon foreign-generated claims/judgments. “You are in your home-country.”
The need for international diversification arises because of perceived shortcomings in the U.S. judicial, legislative, and political processes. Once the plaintiff see the uphill battle involved, plus the enormous costs out of his/her own pocket, he/she may either re-evaluate the merits of filing a lawsuit or settle for a fraction of the settlement he/she may have received in a U.S. Court. This fact alone can become your catalyst for good financial offshore asset protection planning and save thousands off your liability insurance premiums.
Foreign asset protection is the Rolls Royce of asset protection planning. For most Americans it would be overkill. For an asset protection fortress within the United States, the Cadillac of asset protection is the Irrevocable Trust combined with a Limited Liability Company.
Helpful resources: Many readers also review Offshore Asset Protection Trust, Domestic Asset Protection Trust, and official IRS estate and gift tax guidance while sorting through timing, control, and long-term protection choices.
What readers usually compare next
Readers looking at Offshore Asset Protection usually compare timing, control, and exposure before deciding what to do next.
Three practical points to keep in mind
- Jurisdiction matters because offshore planning depends on the law, trustee design, and enforcement rules.
- Timing matters because stronger offshore structures are usually built before a claim is close at hand.
- Control matters because the structure has to balance practical access with real protection.
Helpful next steps
Readers often continue with Offshore Asset Protection Trust, Domestic Asset Protection Trust, and Asset Protection Trust. When the question turns from reading to implementation, many readers move from these guides to a direct planning conversation.
