| Lesson
Five
How to gain tax savings with your own business
Tax savings are one
of the benefits gained when you have your own business.
Here is a true story
of one person and the tax savings they gained when they started
their own business.
A dying sun-majestic
orange dropped slowly, in its ancient rite, beneath the sea. The
road darkened and an inky dusk shaded this winding ribbon as it
led higher and higher, rising from the gloom of lush jungle into
a chilled desert air.
Lome, Togo, in the
dying heat of the day, on the rugged National Highway. Leading inland
from the jungles of this African port, the road struggles a thousand
miles upwards over five mountain chains through Togo and into the
landlocked nations of Mali and Niger.
Truck after truck
struggles along the path, rusting, dented hulks, worn and well past
their prime, but still hauling, overloaded, pushed by wearied, blurry
eyed drivers. This mainstream of transportation is pushed past its
limits, the trucks caked in dirt, running on cheap gas and worn
out tires. They groan and grind slowly out of the jungle, up 500
miles of mountain into Dapong, Togo, half way through their journey.
In this African scene
was an opportunity that increased asset protection and privacy and
created tax savings, all at the same time. A couple, in the process
of selling used tires and worn out shoes in Africa learned the ultimate
form of financial privacy, wealth protection and tax savings.
Dangerous Attitude
Change
Before submitting
this lesson let me be frank about problems of confidentiality. You
should never try to attain tax savings by hiding profits or income.
It is smart to be quiet about your wealth, but do not lie to the
tax man!
Forget the moral
issue if you wish. The risks are just too great. The avenues for
maintaining privacy have been enormously thinned. There has been
a terrible onslaught against our privacy in the western world. Tax
authorities and other government agencies, led by the USA, have
steadily and inexorably chipped away at the very concept of keeping
one's assets in unobtrusive ways. There is a growing attitude that
financial privacy itself is something wrong.
The USA Patriot Act
makes this problem even worse on a logarithmic scale as it creates
an attitude shift that has a witch-hunt atmosphere. Today even the
simple act of buying an airplane ticket can automatically cast the
government's eye upon you and create intense scrutiny.
This decrease in
privacy plays into the hands of many government and other officials.
Even worse, new technology has improved the ability of these officials
to make enormous invasions on our privacy increasingly sinister
and effective. If this were not bad enough the trend for government
agencies to keep and use money confiscated or fined from individual
companies gives these agencies motive to misuse the information
they receive.
Take the example
of how many major banks agreed to pay billions of dollars in fines
to the SEC and other government agencies for misleading investors
during the last stock market boom. Part of the deal was that the
fines were kept by the government agencies and that banks did not
have to admit guilt, thus making it harder for investors who had
been cheated to recoup their losses. The banks cheated. Investors
lost unfairly. Our government watchdogs who are supposed to protect
the public quite rightly went after the banks. Yet the government
protected the banks and kept the compensation that should have been
for investors. The investors lost again!
If Big Brother
isn't bad enough, the regular use of lawsuits is so bad that many businessmen
and professionals (especially in the U.S.) live in continual dread. This fear
has also steadily risen in other Anglo Saxon countries such as Canada, Australia
and the UK. Continental Europeans (after the devastating intrusions of two Germanic
invasions) have been a little less keen on exposing their wealth, but even there
the tax authorities have slowly been tightening the privacy wrench.
Fortunately the
same technology employed to strip our rights can also be used to gain enormous
opportunity, privacy and asset protection and tax savings as well. The same telephones,
airplanes, computers and modern forms of communication that are being used by
attorneys and government employees against you can also bring global opportunity
to your doorstep. Global opportunity can also brings tax savings.
Get Your Facts
Straight.
To begin, let's
separate the concepts of privacy, asset protection and tax savings. In the past
thirty-three years of working with thousands of investors, I have learned that
many confuse the three. Understanding the differences is important. There are
many powerful tools beyond privacy that create tax savings and add asset protection.
For example offshore
trusts can delay income tax, reduce estate tax and dramatically enhance the safety
of wealth. However under current laws these trusts are not private at all. In
the U.S. as an example it is entirely legal and effective to use overseas trusts
for the above mentioned purposes, but the reporting requirements are extensive.
The trusts may bring tax savings and provide asset protection but they are not
necessarily private where the tax man is concerned.
The first step
in any structural planning should begin with the question, what is most important
for me, privacy, tax savings or asset protection?
Here is
an incredibly urgent warning about tax savings.
Once you make a decision about what you want it is imperative that you create
your structure in a legal way.
It is vital that
you do not try to attain tax savings illegally by just relying on privacy in any
bank, institution or country. This is certainly not a safe or reliable approach.
Recent legal history suggests that even the most private financial centers have
been uprooted and if not, can be at any time. In fact recent events suggest that
the more private a financial center is, the riskier for privacy the center becomes.
The most private centers are likely to be the most attacked and using these centers
or tax savings devices they offer risks attracting the very attention you wish
to avoid.
While working
in the international banking, insurance, investing and economic business for over
thirty-three years, I have observed an incredible erosion of privacy. I left the
U.S. in 1968 to run an overseas investment company in Hong Kong. At that time
there were numerous ways to legally attain privacy, asset protection and reduce
tax. At that time there was not much interest by taxing authorities on tax savings
gained by those who held assets outside their own country.
Two
Facts Create Dramatic Change
The first sad
fact is that tax authorities are now very interested in where and when citizens
place gain tax savings on their money abroad.
In the past authorities
did not feel there was much they could do. Second, they did not feel that much
of the population used overseas devices. Technology has now made it easier and
easier for investors to hold assets globally and consequently tax collectors worldwide
have become much more concerned about keeping track of where investors hold their
wealth and the methods they employ for tax savings.
Plus banks all
over the world have become more dependant on their ability to operate via, New
York, London, Frankfurt and Tokyo. This has made all banks (even if they have
no branch in any of these countries) vulnerable to authorities in each center.
Swiss bankers, for example, have had their privacy laws totally whittled away
by the simple fact that they must keep deposits in the U.S. if they want to deal
in U.S. dollars.
Many readers will
not want to read this fact, but it is a fool's paradise to rely on privacy for
tax savings.
In recent years
three easy ways to gain tax savings were to hold assets aboard in overseas shares,
mutual funds or insurance policies. These avenues have now been reduced. For example,
in 1995, the U.S. closed the window on foreign tax deferred annuities. Offshore
mutual funds are also under greater scrutiny. Without gaining the important QEF
election (Qualified Electing Fund) from offshore funds for tax purposes, American
investors are stuck with an asset that will be taxed as income, not capital gains.
The controlled foreign corporation legislation, and in particular, PFIC, or Passive
Foreign Investment Company rules tax overseas funds in this way. Since virtually
most offshore fund companies will not provide QEF tax statements to U.S. investors,
all efforts to diversify offshore on a tax savings basis are futile. U.S. investors
can still hold overseas funds or annuities but there is no tax savings (and in
some cases there is a tax penalty) in doing so.
Plus the attack
on privacy continues. The IRS has initiated the strategy of using a subpoena to
gain records of overseas banks relating to their customers that are U.S. residents
who hold overseas credit cards, so that spending records can be matched with tax
returns. And the U.S. Treasury Department has stated that it is trying to change
rules relating to the tax savings gained from holding life insurance policies
abroad.
These facts mean
that any investor today must obtain his or her tax savings in ways that do not
increase government attention and in ways that are not likely to change. The trick
is to find the perfect legal structure that hold assets that provide tax savings
in a private, asset protected way that governments are likely to encourage .
For an example
of this perfect structure we return to Lome in Africa. The National Highway through
Togo is the only link to the landlocked countries of Niger and Mali. The road
is rough and trucks have worn out their tires by the time they reach the city
of Dapong, half way up the road. A couple developed this perfect structure because
he learned that used tires would sell briskly in Dapong.
However, when
they checked out shipping used tires from the U.S., they found freight costs too
high. Then they realized there was also a good market in Togo for used shoes as
well. They knew that Americans hardly ever wear out their shoes. They then had
a brilliant idea to stuff the used tires full of used shoes! Thus, they were able
to ship the used shoes inside the used tires and establish a thriving, successful
business.
There is more
to this story than meets the eye. First this true tale shows how many ways there
are to make money abroad. Who would have thought of selling used tires and shoes
from America in Africa? But second and more important this story shows that everyone
can have his own international business and may gain tax savings as well as profit.
The story shows that anyone from any walk of life can get into a real international
business. This man and his wife were not business people. They were missionaries.
They started the business to raise money for their mission.
Circle of 100
This brings us
to the Circle of 100. In short If you have a non U.S. business that does not do
business in the U.S. that is not controlled (50% shareholders are not U.S. citizens
or residents) by U.S. shareholders, that company not only has no U.S. tax liability,
but does not even have a U.S. tax filing requirement. (Non U.S. citizens and residents
should check their tax laws.) This is a powerful way to generate tax savings.
The key is having
an overseas business that is 50% owned by non U.S. residents.
Some people don't
want a business partner. (Keep in mind if you don't have a partner you get the
IRS as your partner by default.) In this case, I recommend donating half the company
to non U.S. charities. The more the better. Donate half a percent to 100 charities
around the world spread around the world!
This is the simple
explanation but the structure is somewhat more complex. If this is of interest
to you, an excerpt from my course International Business Made EZ. See GaryScott.com
Age or circumstances
do not matter either. In fact if you are active in a business you love, you will
probably live longer. For example the couple in Africa who started the tie and
show business were in their 80's. Now they have moved to Ecuador and started a
farm (also good for tax savings) and they have now set up a twenty-year business
plan!
Having your own
business has become easier than ever before. Rapid improvements in technology
have made right now perfect for small businesses. Low cost telephone communication,
travel and transportation make global business easy. For example Merri and I now
have over 22,000 readers in 82 countries, but still operate from our home in one
of the most remote parts of North Carolina and Ecuador.
So if you are
looking for the perfect tax savings, that will last and is not likely to be clobbered
by Congress the minute it works well, look at doing a real international business.
You can enhance your tax savings, gain enormous privacy, freedom and asset protection
and improve the wealth and fulfillment in your life.
Gary Scott |
