Consider this an intro to offshore banking.<\/p>\n

First question, what are the reasons to have an (illegal) offshore set up?<\/p>\n

\n
1. The main reason, 80% of the 80\/20, is to eliminate paperwork, reporting, and exposure.\u00a0 Yes, with an offshore set up you are LESS likely to run into legal problems.\u00a0 The other huge advantage is the time savings (as well as monetary) when you reduce compliance requirements to zero.\u00a0 Even if you could afford the army of lawyers and accountants to fill out the 100’s of forms, you would still be peppered daily by them as they tried to comply.\u00a0 Set up an offshore business and banking, and all of that disappears.<\/li>\n
2. To delay the payment of taxes.\u00a0 If Manafort made $10MM, then he was able to keep $5MM extra in his account, which he could invest.\u00a0 That was $250K yearly additional income from investment returns.\u00a0 If he was really good at investing, it would be a whole lot more.<\/li>\n
3. To bring in petty cash by using an ATM card.\u00a0 This is nickel and dime type activity for a millionaire.<\/li>\n
4. To buy overseas properties to enjoy, like condos and boats.\u00a0 Somewhat risky.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

   Note that you don’t do this to escape taxes.\u00a0 There is a cardinal rule.\u00a0 Except for what you can get away with with a debit card, any money that comes into the US, you immediately declare as income and pay taxes on it.<\/p>\n

   From reading the indictment, Manafort used offshore accounts to pay for houses and luxuries.\u00a0 This was utterly stupid.\u00a0 He’s nailed on tax evasion since he didn’t declare it as income.\u00a0 What he should have done was not been greedy and created a contract with his offshore company, then invoiced against that contract for “consulting”.\u00a0 Then the offshore company pays you, and you declare it as income.\u00a0 The IRS isn’t going to notice since they are getting paid.<\/p>\n

   The people who did it right were the Clintons, though they had a level of complexity that is only possible for high rollers and violent drug king pins.\u00a0 Here’s a typical example of how it went down:<\/p>\n

   \n
   1. The Clinton Foundation gets a bribe.<\/li>\n
   2. The Clinton Foundation wires $400K to their friends at “Feed Uganda” located in Kampala, outside of US jurisdiction.<\/li>\n
   3. “Feed Uganda” hires “Goldman Sachs Consulting Panama” for $300K for “consulting”.\u00a0 Discovering that would be next to impossible.<\/li>\n
   4. Goldman Sachs New York pays Bill $250K for a 15 minutes speech.\u00a0 Bill reports it as income.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

       <\/p>\n

      So Manafort was an idiot.\u00a0 Or maybe he had assurances from Obama that the FinCen investigation would be buried, but unfortunately for him he got caught up in the Mueller investigation.\u00a0 The indictment looks legit and Manafort looks like a crook.\u00a0 However why the heck was Mueller investigating a tax case?\u00a0 He should have turned it over to the IRS.<\/p>\n

      As for me, I look at the big picture.\u00a0\u00a0 Let us say Manafort made $10MM.\u00a0 He would have had to fork over $5MM in taxes.\u00a0 So I understand WHY he tried to get away with paying no taxes.\u00a0 It was resentment due to the unjust society we have.\u00a0 Will Manafort get $5MM in service for that payment?\u00a0 No, he’ll get 1\/350MM th of a chunk of defense and 1\/350MMth of a chunk of national parks if he ever even visits them.\u00a0 Highways he pays for with gas tax (which is just).\u00a0 No, 99% of the loot will be redistributed, which is theft.\u00a0 So I understand the resentment.<\/p>\n

      Final thing to remember, if you ever set up offshore, remember the golden rule.\u00a0 If money comes into a US bank, declare it as income.<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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