California Asset Protection Attorney, Sebastian Gibson
Tax Haven Asset Protection Advice and An Analysis of Bank Secrecy Today from a Trusted Asset Protection Law Firm
If you’ve been searching for California asset protection lawyers or offshore asset protection attorneys in California and haven’t found the asset protection attorney in which you can be confident when retaining a lawyer for your asset protection, voluntary disclosure, offshore trust protection and family limited partnership matters in California, Sebastian Gibson is the asset protection attorney you’ve been looking for.
California Asset Protection Lawyer
With over thirty years of experience handling international matters, with law degrees in both California and in Great Britain, and years of international experience in London as well as decades of experience in California, California asset protection lawyer Sebastian Gibson brings a wealth of experience to the table and was chosen one of the 2011 Top Lawyers by Palm Springs Life Magazine.
Offshore tax haven asset protection has undergone as dramatic a change as bank secrecy has in the past decade. For U.S. citizens and residents who have been swept up in the changes, many today still are unaware of the risks they face by failing to become tax compliant.
Today under the watchful eyes of the U.S. authorities, even the simple use of a wire transfer from a foreign bank account to the U.S. triggers a Suspicious Activities Report from the receiving bank to the IRS.
In March 2009, nearly all of the foreign tax haven jurisdictions agreed to exchange foreign banking information with other foreign governments and the U.S.
In April 2009, it was reported that the IRS was in the process of developing additional John Doe summonses on some of the other offshore banks identified by the IRS that were believed to be helping Americans evade taxes. Also in April 2009, the G20 heads of state resolved to take action against non-cooperative jurisdictions.
There are also other treaties, protocols and Tax Information Exchange Agreements between the U.S. and other countries. Liechtenstein has entered into such an Information Exchange Agreement. Switzerland and the U.S. have signed a new Treaty protocol.
In 2009, after serving a "John Doe" summons on First Data Corporation, which processes credit and debit card transactions, a settlement was reached with First Data which is believed by some to have resulted in the IRS obtaining account information on U.S. merchants depositing business receipts to foreign accounts.
Press reports have indicated that over the past year or two, the IRS has also obtained information on additional foreign financial entities, their bankers, advisors and promoters that may be used to seek additional treaties or cause additional summonses to be served by Department of Justice. Even with facts such as these which make it clear bank secrecy is a thing of the past, many clients who relied on faulty offshore asset protection advice from promoters and banks cannot accept the situation they find themselves in.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, an organization based in Europe has also been pursuing its own investigation of tax havens.
The Obama administration meanwhile has been sending Tax Information Exchange Agreements to Caribbean and Central American jurisdictions under which the U.S. Treasury Department can request assistance from foreign banks simply when there is an IRS audit of a U.S. taxpayer. These Agreements are reportedly non-negotiable and preempt a jurisdiction’s secrecy laws.
Tax Information Exchange Agreements obligate a foreign country’s banks to assist U.S. tax authorities in criminal and civil investigations. Most countries have signed these agreements as failure to do so can ostracize a country’s banks from international financial banking. Those countries which haven’t yet signed one of these agreements probably soon will be.
Foreign financial institutions that had or have Q1 status who failed to exercise due diligence under applicable rules that require them to know their customers or who knowingly and intentionally facilitated tax evasion by U.S. taxpayers today may not only face revocation of their Q1status, but may also face criminal prosecution.
If that weren’t enough, there are also Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties which require signatory countries to disclose bank account information to the U.S. in connection with the investigation of serious crimes such as tax fraud. These treaties close prior loopholes and state that secrecy laws of the foreign jurisdiction may not be the basis for refusing to provide the information requested by U.S. tax authorities.
For anyone to believe that their foreign bank account won’t be discovered with all of these information sharing agreements and monitoring in place, would be a huge mistake. Tax compliance by owners of foreign banks is critical no matter where the owner lives.
Tax evasion is clearly being fought on many fronts and as countries cooperate with each other to root it out, bank secrecy will crumble as well. The question among those studying banking secrecy today, is not whether bank secrecy in Switzerland will survive, it’s whether secrecy will survive in counties such as the Cayman Islands. If the IRS and the OECD have their way, it won’t survive there either.
A further consequence of the crumbling of bank secrecy and taxpayers being required to be tax-compliant is that their honesty in reporting to the IRS renders their information available to judgment creditors and litigants as well. Taxpayers who think that they can hide their assets from judgment creditors while being tax compliant with U.S. tax authorities are mistaken. A taxpayer who correctly discloses information on their U.S. tax returns about tax haven bank accounts and offshore assets, as they must, will have to make that information available to litigants and judgment creditors who can obtain access to the taxpayer’s tax returns by means of the issuance of subpoenas.
Indeed, a judgment creditor in either federal court or in state court is entitled to post-judgment discovery and can subpoena copies of a defendant’s tax returns, bank statements, and other financial data. The judgment creditor can be put under oath, and if the creditor lies or refuses to answer questions put to him or her, be held in contempt of court or prosecuted for perjury.
We expect before too long, one bank after another will be handing account information of undeclared U.S. account holders. If the UBS case is any example, such handovers may occur without any warning whatsoever to the owners of those accounts. If it comes to a choice between being prosecuted or handing over information to U.S. authorities, the UBS case makes it clear, a bank will choose self-preservation over bank secrecy.
Before this occurs, however, more U.S. taxpayer information may be given up by whistleblowers who want to reap their reward before it’s too late to receive one for stolen account data. With the passage of U.S. whistleblower laws, the news of which has spread like wild fire throughout the international banking industry to it’s very lowest paid clerks and employees, an entire new source of data has come into the hands of tax authorities from Germany to the U.S. Rewards given out by the IRS are 15 to 30% of the amounts the IRS collects in taxes, penalties and interest. It has been reported that in the year 2008, for example, informants provided information on $65 billion in unreported income to the IRS.
A taxpayer who hid income or a foreign account doesn’t only need to worry that some underpaid clerk in the country where he or she has a foreign bank account will call up the IRS. That taxpayer may be at risk from their friends, companions, estranged relatives, children or spouse, business partners and anyone else they let in on their secret who could use a little money from the federal government for being a snitch.
Taxpayers who mourn the death of bank secrecy and who think that tax haven asset protection without secrecy is of no value, are sadly mistaken. Indeed, in many cases, individuals who are tax compliant are more than happy to tell a claimant, a litigant or a judgement creditor exactly where their assets are located in order to show that they are legally protected and fully reported to the IRS. With nothing to hide, and with the extent of the asset protection there for all to see, such an individual’s openness can often discourage a claimant’s lawyer from ever filing suit.
In compliance with IRS requirements, as a tax haven asset protection law firm, we must advise you that any U.S. federal tax advice and our bank secrecy analysis contained in this informational article is not intended to be used nor is it published in order for it to be used and you may not use it for the purpose of avoiding penalties or fines under the Internal Revenue Code. It is not intended to be used nor is it being published in order to promote, market or recommend any specific transaction, tax-related matter or estate planning tax scheme to any party.
California Asset Protection Attorney, Sebastian Gibson
Sought out to be a writer for California’s two largest and most prestigious legal newspapers, California asset protection attorney Sebastian Gibson’s articles have been published in the Los Angeles Daily Journal and the San Francisco Daily Journal. Today thousands and thousands of people visit this website and his blogs monthly for useful advice and thousands more follow him on Twitter for his humor.
One of the best asset protection attorneys for people in California to follow for his humor and wit, one of the funniest California asset protection lawyers as well as one of the top humorous California asset protection attorneys people follow on Twitter, California asset protection attorney Sebastian Gibson has been called "brilliant," "hilariously funny" and a "legend."
It matters more than you think who you call for your asset protection and other legal matters. When it matters most, call California asset protection lawyer Sebastian Gibson. When it’s time to hire a California asset protection attorney, hire a legend.
