Brian Mulroney & the World’s Number One Tax Haven – Part 4 :CRA SOTW
Alan Baggett
Since Brian Mulroney’s escapades (which included stashing cash in a US
safety deposit box) many folks have asked me which country is the best
when it comes to hiding your money from the Canada Revenue Agency?
Really Alan, where is the Worlds Number One Tax Haven? Where would you
put your money?
Luxembourg? The Caymans? Singapore?
Nope, it’s none of these.
Brian Mulroney got it right when he put some of his brown bag $225,000
(or perhaps it was $300,000) in the United States. Why? Because the
United States is the world’s number one tax haven – unless you’re an
American of course.
Or you’re a Canadian.
Because if you’re not an American and you’re not a Canadian and you’re
not a foreign national living in the U.S. then the Number One tax
haven on this earth is the United States of America. U.S. banks are
every bit as secretive as Swiss banks when it comes to foreigners.
They report nothing to foreign governments so you will not have to pay
tax on any interest accrued should you chose to go that route.
So you won’t have to use a safe deposit box like Brian Mulroney did to
stash your monies. Nope. You can openly stash your money in an
interest paying account and the only people who will know, outside of
the Americans, will be the people you choose to tell. Because under
American law, non-U.S. citizens living outside the U.S. who deposit
money in American banks, their income does not have to be reported to
anyone. The lone exception being Canada who the U.S. has a pact with
to trade banking information.
So how does this help you then? Being a Canadian citizen and residing
in Canada – the only nation that the U.S. sends foreign banking info
to?
It’s quite simple really.
Do you know a trusted someone residing overseas who is not an American
or a Canadian citizen? A family member? A friend? A business contact?
It can be anyone you trust just so long as they’re not an American or
Canadian citizen and they do not reside in the United States. If you
do, you simply ask them to open an account (not in your name) in a
U.S. based financial institution then you send them money to deposit
on your behalf into that account.
And by doing it yourself, it means the cost is minimal. If you check
out some of the firms who specialize in helping folks secret their
assets overseas, normally they charge several thousands of dollars to,
in some cases, over $100,000 dollars to open accounts and act on your
behalf. How many among us can afford that?
Best of all, your money is not only in the easy to convert American
currency it’s close to home – not half way around the world in some
foreign country you’ve never heard of and don’t speak the language of.
This is what I tell Canadians who ask me what I would do if I were
ever to stash some undeclared cash. Use the United States if you can
because it is the world’s number one tax haven.
And if you’re hiding undeclared gains and you think that the CRA is on
to you then you plead mea culpa and cut a favourable deal. You pull a
Mulroney. What better example is there for any Canadian then to follow
in the footsteps of one of Canada’s longest serving Prime
Ministers.
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Miss a Tax Tale Miss a lot!
Visit the CRA SOTW Library at http://canada.revenue.agency.angelfire.com
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Alan Baggett – http://www.angelfire.com/tx5/taxbible/ordering.html –
Tax Collector’s Bible