From: "Patiwat Panurach  (akira rising)" <pati@ipied.tu.ac.th>
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 09:09:29 +0800
To: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>
Subject: Re: Offshore Banks and Asset Protection
In-Reply-To: <ad1c4cad210210045dc1@[205.199.118.202]>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960116194226.12199G-100000@ipied>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Fri, 12 Jan 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:

> At 8:57 PM 1/12/96, Rich Graves wrote:
> >Every issue of The Economist (and I'm sure lots of other publications)
> >has ads for this kind of thing.

And The Economist wisely puts notices warning readers to use there own
discretion on such services.  Great mag, it gave some of the best and 
sanest articles on the internet ever printed in the "popular press".

> >Anyone know a reference for ranking the "legitimacy" of these services
> >and seminars? I'd assume that many of them are scams that will gladly
> >take your money overseas, but you might never see it again.
> 
> I looked into "asset protection" [see note below] using offshore banks
> (Carribean, Channel Islands, Europe, etc.), and bought a couple of books on
> this. And I subscribed to some Net newsletters. I'm not an expert, and have
> not chosen (yet) to "protect" my assets by moving them offshore.
> 
> "tax sheltering" (or "tax evasion"). The idea is to put assets beyond the
> reach of tort judgments. For example, a doctor may fear the incredibly
> large "deep pockets" lawsuits that American society encourages, so he
> transfers a large fraction of his net worth to an offshore bank. He reports

Beside there rather ambigous value as "asset protection" and "tax
sheltering", the main reason people use offshore banking is to gain better
interest rates.

In Thailand, the Bangkok International Banking Facility offers interest
rates on deposits that are several percentages higher than normal banks. 
The banks of the facility work under a different set of banking laws from
normal banks.  Also, the interest rate on loans also tends to be lower. 
I'm not sure whether international funds are subject to local (thai) or
international (us) tort judgements though, but many of the banks in the
BiBF advertise to offer high privacy and security. 

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Patiwat Panurach      	     Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
eMAIL: pati@ipied.tu.ac.th      Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
m/18 junior Fac of Economics		-Johann W.Von Goethe
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