An End to Offshore Accounts For Americans?
A reader forwarded me some information on a piece of US legislation – boringly entitled the “Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act” (H.R.2487), or more commonly known as the HIRE act – which could have serious implications for US individuals seeking to open an offshore bank account.
I won’t repeat it all here, but suggest you have a read of the original blog post I was referred to.
My thinking on this is as follows: The primary intent of this bill is to force ‘offshore financial organisations’ to withhold funds and provide information on US clients. In other words, placing yet another burden on offshore banks etc. to comply with onerous regulations when it comes to their US clients.
The most likely consequence of this will be such banks and financial organisations simply refusing to open accounts for US citizens – as it won’t be worth their trouble.
Does this legislation represent to introduction of capital controls? Not in the strict sense – but more a clandestine way of discouraging the movement of funds offshore.
I’ve received a number of emails from concerned readers and members as to the likely effect of this and will say the following: first and foremost, this is just a continuation of totalitarian policy of the US government, which will likely get worse as economic conditions get worse.
Yes, as with Swiss banks right now, most overseas banks will want to stay clear of American clients. So what options remain?
I would imagine that there will still be certain offshore banks that will accept funds – as a result of seeing an opportunity created by other banks who refuse such clients. Of course this will not provide any financial privacy, but it will provide a location of funds outside the USA.
Another more useful option would be to move one’s funds out of the country by purchasing gold bullion. This type of account is currently non-reportable and sending funds overseas to buy such gold is perfectly legal (at present!)
So if I were an American, I’d be moving on this now, and getting my available cash out of the USA by purchasing gold for storage outside the US. Don’t forget, in the current economic climate gold is money.
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They aren’t smart enough to accomplish this. All is needed is a “Banking Passport” in a different name from a different country. Open a offshore company, and have all profits deposited directly into that account. This way the money is never known by any US authorities and does not have to be “Moved Off”.
Mick,
I am not sure to understand what you mean with “different name”. You don’t need that. Banks are required to collect information on beneficial owners. If you have a 2nd (non-US) passport with your true name, you just have to use this 2nd passport when dealing with the bank. You won’t be identified as a US citizen and the bank won’t report anything to the US authorities.
I query; what is a U.S. Individual or a U.S. Person? Internal Revenue Code (1992) at page 6864 defines “Person–The term “person” shall be constued to mean and include an individual, a trust, estate, partneship, association, company or corporation.”. Nowhere is individual defined so they leave it to our imagination to assume and presume that they are referring to people. Let me assure you they are not. All references to person whether it be in the IRC or any code, statute, rule, regulation, ordinance, etc. is always in refernce to a fiction of law, a fictional entity, a strawman.
When the judge calls a case “The STATE OF OHIO VS. JOE SMITH; is MR. SMITH present?” What he is really saying is “We have charged the fictional entity JOE SMITH (all caps name) with a violation of public policy because we have no law. Is the surety, Joe Smith (man) here to do the time and pay the fine for the fiction, because–after all we’d look pretty stupid trying to put a fiction in jail.” They assume and presume that we agree to be the surety for said fiction because we have never rebutted the presumption.
If you are unfamiar with your strawman then I suggest you look in your wallet and see if you can find one article of ID–Drivers license, credit cards, membership cards, etc. where your appelation is not in all caps. Then look at every communication from any fictional entity such as govt. power company, insurance company, etc. and see how they spell your appelation—all caps. Inaccordance with Gregg’s Manual on English Grammer, only fictions use all caps or initials such as JOE SMITH or Joe J. Smith.
How do we rebut the presumption of suretyship? There are many ways. How you sign your name is one way. More on that if there is interest.
Interesting, but irrelevant to the issue of freedom. All appeals to law, which may use obtuse language to define personhood or not, miss the point. Law is a branch of the state. The state makes or breaks the law. The state is above the law. If enough people were successful in attaining freedom from coercion by using legal strategies as implied in the strawman idea, then the state would simply either ignore or amend the law.
The state is nothing more than brute force. Its laws are invariably used to enslave, and if anyone contests it by attempting to step outside the “rule of law”, then the state has the power to crush such an individual. And regularly does.
Freedom cannot be attained by appeal to the state (via its courts) for any interpretation of a law which it itself put on the books.
As long as you live in a society wherein the government’s goal is to control (Democracy) rather than to protect and serve (Libraterian priciples), then please let me know how you intend to progress to any degree of freedom. You will never do it through the ballot box.
The key here is to comprehend who you are and who the state is. If you don’t understand the web of control they have created through the use of ‘terms of art’ or legalese then I think it is just about impossible to enjoy even a modicum of freedom. They enslave us by keeping us ignorant of the law.
Yes, they do rule by a certain degree of brute force but more so through intimidation. Fear is a most compelling force. The saving grace is that a fiction can never reach parity with a real man, that is, a real man who has knowledge of the law.
Absolutely, you will never achieve freedom via the ballot box. Morality cannot be decided my majority rule. And freedom cannot be achieved by a political mechanism which includes the ability to violate people and their property via the monopoly of violence. I’m an advocate of Andrew Galambos’s Science of Freedom – and am convinced the only way forward to a free society is to remove the mechanics and implementation of property protection from the political (coercive) sphere completely.