Post deleted by darwin

Just curious what are the benefits that you have in mind? Are interest rates much higher overseas? Are you looking to take advantage of the falling US Dollar? Or do you just want a stash in case you travel overseas?

well, lets pretend that i've been doing a lot of under the table consulting (6 figures) and i'd rather not let uncle sam take 40+% of it away from me. my bank account has enough and i was told if i deposit much more that i would surely be audited.
Most swiss banks will link up a debit/atm card so you can spend whenever you want. I've searched google for offshore banking but want to hear from people who have experience.

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well, lets pretend that i've been doing a lot of under the table consulting (6 figures) and i'd rather not let uncle sam take 40+% of it away from me. my bank account has enough and i was told if i deposit much more that i would surely be audited.

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You may get audited anyways and if you do the IRS will certainly notice you are spending more money then you claim to be taking in (unless you just plan to sit on it all)- then you will wish you just paid the taxes.

If you don't want to pay your taxes, you need to move to another country and renounce your citizenship.

Offshore tax evasion is not legal. And more than likely your account information would end up being shared with the IRS, anyway - making you liable for your unpaid taxes plus interest and penalties, if not prosecution.

Here's a link to the IRS Offshore Voluntary Compliance Initiative for a little info on what has happened to people participating in what you're describing.

- trs

Gambling, drugs or women are the three best ways to take care of excess cash flow problems.

However they may leave you broke, addicted and with VD.

Hmm. You've got the vote but don't pay your taxes. I pay my taxes but don't have the vote. The World is definitely screwed up.

No taxation without representation!

I offer this in an effort to steer this conversation away from the predictable place and more towards an interesting discussion of how money movement is tracked.

I think that I should get Darwin's vote

I second this. You enjoy the benefits of being in this country, but you prefer to ignore your responsibilities. That's shameful.

i take offense to this
i serve in the military, and find it shameful and depressing that you would choose to do this
get off your high chair, pull your nose out of the air and pay the damn taxes like the rest of us. if you dont like it, leave my country

Hey darwin,

Hope you had your flame suit on for that one. I have to agree with those who have already b*tched you out, but I do want to give you a few things to think about before going down this road.

After a job change last year, I now work for one of the biggest banks in the US. Bank employees are specifically required to take training courses on how to spot attempts at money laundering, tax evasion, and other activities (legal or not) that could raise suspicions. In fact, the passage of the Patriot Act places a whole new set of requirements on US banking institutions regarding even relatively modest transactions. Banks are extremely eager to comply with these regulations, as there have been cases that have led to multimillion dollar penalties and criminal charges against staff who have neglected to report these types of transactions.

You may have already thought of this, but how were you planning on getting that money into your offshore account to begin with? Most likely, you'd arrange a series of wire transfers from your client's accounts to your offshore account. The client's bank must report details of the transaction (dollar amount, payer, receiving bank and account number, etc) to the feds. And, unless your account is in a "noncooperative jurisdiction" (and, no, Switzerland is not on the list), that foreign banking instituition is happy to give details regarding your offshore account ownership to the feds. They match these up, and investigate all transfers over a certain dollar amount, or series of transactions that add up to a certain dollar amount.

Why are the feds so interested? Traditionally, they've been tracing money to crack down on the drug trade, tax evasion, or other illegal activity. These days, their watching more closely than ever to try to track money that might possibly be funding so-called terrorist organizations.

The bottom line is that, unless you have a really complicated scheme in mind to illegally launder your money into that overseas account (let's call a spade a spade), you will get caught. And I guarantee you will wish that you had simply paid your taxes to begin with.

--Dan.

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However they may leave you broke, addicted and with VD.

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What do you mean, "may"?

Me.

2 jobs combined isn't getting me 6 figures, and I have withholding at one and am now paying a lump for the other (or I will before the 15th; I need to go back and redo one of the calculations with what are now hopefully the correct final numbers); Pardon me if I'm not feeling real sorry for you and the not wanting to pay the 40% or whatever.

Am I the only one that hoped this thread wouldn't turn into a flame against the originator? See, I have no problem with not paying taxes to the IRS. I don't live in the US. So obviously I would have no problems reading about how money is tracked (and hidden) while trying to get it to the destination.

That said there's always the matress way. Hollow matress stuffed with cash. But spending cash is not as easy as it used to be.

This probably points more to the point of what's needed in Canada and the US alike. Tax reform. You guys down in the US have it easy by comparison, so let's not even get started.

Bruno

You guys down in the US have it easy by comparison, so let's not even get started.

Well, we have it somewhat easy compared to canadians, but only because our medical isn't rolled into our taxes. Give it a few years, they're trying to "fix" that. We'll soon be right up there with you. With crappy health care to boot.

Got to hand it to those Swiss bankers for marketing. In fact Switzerland for a long time has not been anything like the most secure place to stash your cash. Places like Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and funnily enough even Belgium had much stronger secrecy laws than the Swiss.

Nonetheless, as most other answers have noted, it's all now disappeared in a haze of post-9/11 surveillance. Globally dispersed cellular terrorism, the campaign against hawala banking, coupled with the extra-territorial implications of the US Patriot Act, and to some extent Sarbanes-Oxley, mean that pretty much every country will now roll over and give up account details on request.

Only countries which explicitly reject signing up to the G7-inspired Financial Action Task Force (and their good friends the US Office of Foreign Asset Control) are likely to refuse any such requests. The countries currently in this category are: Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Cook Islands, Burma, North Korea, Indonesia, Nauru, Philippines, Cuba, Guatemala, Western Balkans, Yugoslavia, Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Sudan.

So plenty of good safe choices there as potential destinations for your hard earned cash.

Regards

Mark

You guys down in the US have it easy by comparison, so let's not even get started.

Well, we have it somewhat easy compared to canadians, but only because our medical isn't rolled into our taxes.

Exactly. Once you figure in the cost of medical insurance, and all the rest of the privatized costs that Canadian taxes pay for, we're no better off down here, than you are in Canada (unless you're lucky enough to work for a company that provides you with top-notch benefits).

Give it a few years, they're trying to "fix" that. We'll soon be right up there with you. With crappy health care to boot.

Good -- crappy health care is still better than no health care, which is about all that 1 in 5 people in the US is able to afford.

As a Canadian, living here in the US, and therefore a person who has used both systems, I can tell you that the one we have here in the US stinks. I say that while working for a company that provides medical benefits that are featured in PBS specials about good medical coverage, too.

But... that's a different topic. I pay all the taxes I'm supposed to.

crappy health care is still better than no health care, which is about all that 1 in 5 people in the US is able to afford.

If they can't afford it now, then how are they going to be able to absorb the 40% tax hike it would take to get it? Or are the "wealthy" supposed to cover the bill for all that as well? We're fast approaching a point when it makes no point to succeed. Why bother if when you're poor, the government gives you everything and when you're rich the government takes everything? I'm one of those rare people that believes the rich are rich for a reason. They worked to get there. Keep in mind that I live in a city where 50% of working age males are unemployed. Amazingly, they all seem bo be getting health carewithout much trouble.

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Well, we have it somewhat easy compared to canadians, but only because our medical isn't rolled into our taxes. Give it a few years, they're trying to "fix" that. We'll soon be right up there with you. With crappy health care to boot.

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I know quite a few people who already have crappy health care and pay close to $1000 a month for it. Crappy subsidized health care is better than the system we have now, which basically is the premiums keep going up until you either decide you don't want it anymore or your just working to keep your health insurance.

Or are the "wealthy" supposed to cover the bill for all that as well?

Perhaps if the government hadn't pissed all of their money away on tax breaks for the obscenely rich, and to fund that small fracas in the Middle East, there'd be plenty of cash from current taxation to pay for it?

I don't know whether 'Western Balkans' you refer to includes Croatia, but I must warn our potential tax evader that our banks must report every cash transaction over $10000-ish to a government agency, which, in turn, will spill the beans to Uncle Sam if asked (or even if not asked, I am not sure). We have pretty strict laws against money laundering.

However, there might be a way to use off-shore jurisdictions to lower the tax burden legally. To do that, one has to own a company in a country with low taxes, and either do the business from such a company, or make it charge his on-shore company for services (prefferably real ones). Of course, to make it legal, one's own country and the tax-heaven one must have an agreement on avoiding double taxation.

That said, I agree with flame-throvers here. Income and profit taxes are simply part of cost of doing business. It is strange that even in the atmosphere of widespread patriotic breast-beating this simplest way of supporting one's country is something many of breast-beaters try to avoid (I have seen plenty of such cases around me). As to stopping the government from squandering taxpayers' hard earned money, that's an entirely different question.

Now, to climb down from the moral high ground, I believe many of us had commited petty tax evasions (missdeclaring an imported item, charging an extra meal or two to company expense account, things like that). So perhaps we should get easy on casting proverbial stones...

Or are the "wealthy" supposed to cover the bill for all that as well?

Yes.

Look, you have two choices here. Pay your taxes that allow the government to help the needy or condemn them to a squalid life.

Also, way too many people see paying taxes as supporting people they don't want to support. This is not what taxes are for. Taxes strengthen the nation's infrastructure. What would happen if you suddenly lost your job and then got sick or had to continue to pay for medications that suddenly increased their prices tenfold? This happened to me, and it was hard. What if I got very sick and was unable to pay for needed medical procedures? I could have died. If the government would have had basic insurance, then that wouldn't happen. If I'd gotten that sick, I would no longer be able to support this country's economy. Unless you see this as an appropriate solution to unemployment, this is a pitiful solution.

I'm not saying that tax money is spent in a manner that I approve of. In many cases, it isn't. But not paying taxes is not an appropriate solution.

I agree, personally I work for a software developement company heavily funded by government contracts. I see how your hard earned tax money is blatantly squandered every day. How bout that social security we've been paying ever since we started working? Guess what, it's not gonna be there...
My point is yeah I pay my taxes and play by the rules will I ever really be able to retire someday for all my hard work? Hell no, not unless I get something else in place, if this guy wants to roll the dice, hey go for it and hope you don't get caught.

I agree, we live in a civilization where we are supposed to work together to help everyone survive. I know that I pay more taxes than the average person and that part of my money goes to other people.

It is kind of like the school vouchers concept. Parents who want vouchers don't want to contribute to the greater good of the country's educational system - just their own family. Well, I don't have any kids in school - so why should I pay those (education) taxes at all? Parents even get to write their kids off and pay less taxes. So in the end parentless people pay for kids education more than the parents do.

If I ddin't care for the greater good of the educational system, that would be my complaint, but I do because I (like most residents) was a recipient of it myself at one time. There is nothing wrong with spreading the wealth.

our banks must report every cash transaction over $10000-ish to a government agency

Same in the UK, except since 1st March even businesses that *accept* large cash or cash equivalent payments must regsiter with Customs & Excise and impement procedures to verify the identity of those making payments.

Gareth

So in the end parentless people pay for kids' education more than the parents do.

But don't forget - those educated kids will grow up and their payroll taxes will be paying your (presumtive - but that's a different debate) social security. You'll likely get back much more from them than you paid to educate them, just as our payroll taxes are supporting current retirees. It's the ultimate pyramid scheme!

-jk

I guess it’s all about how high the dollar value is. While what he is thinking of doing is wrong, I’m sure most of the people flaming here have skipped reporting sales tax for a few on-line purchases. Add that up and I'm sure it would be a large amount.

I would love to be "rich" someday but I will have no motivation to accomplish that if it is then all taxed away. Top heavy taxation is not the way to a prosperous country. We all need to pay a far share. Just because some are perceived to be “rich” does not mean they should be penalized. I guess it is hard to suppress our covetous nature.