A little over 30 years ago, any U.S. citizen having a substantial amount of cash that he wanted to hide from the IRS had no problem doing so. All he had to do was take it
out of the country, (entirely legally back then), deposit it secretly in a Swiss bank,
and then arrange to have the bank return it as a foreign "loan". He could then defy the IRS to say it was not. That was only one of the many sophisticated array of illegal ploys that were made due to the proliferation of Swiss banks in the U.S. and U.S. banks in both Switzerland and The Bahamas.

Unfortunately, those days are over. From the US, from Switzerland, The Bahamas and everywhere else on the world banking map.

However, there are still a number of people who are convinced that they can still obtain an offshore "secret numbered bank account. This assumption is false.

Today, numbered secret bank accounts exist only in the imagination of novelists, B-movie screen writers, and in the gullible minds of an unknown number of uninformed folks who allow themselves to be suckered in by bogus offshore promoters.

Nearly every nation has adopted some form of "know your customer" laws requiring bank account applicants to provide proof of their identity, the source of their funds and other personal information. Cash transfers of $10,000 or more are reported electronically to the government. U.S. citizens must report on their IRS Form 1040 if they have an offshore account, and if activity therein exceeds $10,000, a U.S. Treasury Form TD F 90-22.1 must be filed. Lying and failure to file these reports are separate felonies.

In previous articles, we have given information on ways to establish offshore, fully legal bank accounts in nations that guarantee financial privacy by law (unlike the US or UK), where only a court can give access to your records, and then only after a showing of a serious crime. (It should be noted that, in Switzerland, it's not a crime to hide money from an ex-spouse. And, foreign tax evasion is not a crime, so a US divorce attorney and the IRS usually can't pry information from a Swiss bank).

If you would like more information regarding asset protection, trusts, family limited partnerships or the subject of this article please call or email our office.