Offshore Re-Education Camp: Lesson 3A

June 5, 2013

By: Paul Seymour, Director of Client Services

I was recently asked to start doing a periodic radio broadcast on Radio Free Latin America (RFLA), called Offshore Re-education Camp.  It’s being piped in to the USSA from a secret location south of the border via short wave radio signals.  The aim of RFLA is to offer a ray of hope to our poor countryman still trapped behind the curtain with apparently, no way out.

The show, hosted by Paul Seymour, Director of Client Services at Global Wealth Protection, will provide the truth about offshore entities and bank accounts to those peoples who are continuously bombarded with the party line, and have no access to the truth outside of RFLA.

For those of you who are unable to catch the live broadcasts, we’ll be periodically printing a transcript of the show here at GWP.

Originally broadcast at 02:30 Tuesday, June 6, 2013, transcript follows: This week’s lead-in tune, in case you missed it: “We want more lies, please give us more lies, because we’re so comfortable living sheep lives.  We’ve got to support our troops because that’s what Jesus would do, he would want us to kill, we got to stand behind Isreal, we want more lies…” Don’t worry that the pot-smoking Rastafarian seems to be more aware of what’s going on in the US than the vast majority of current United Statians.  After all, he has the advantage of living outside the curtain, and isn’t being continuously bombarded with tax-supported misinformation.

As promised, today we’re going to take a look at the travesty which is FATCA.  Senator Rand Paul took a heroic stand against it, in an uncharacteristically noble gesture to actually uphold his oath to protect the Constitution.  Let’s first take a look at that oath which all 535 members of Congress, in addition to President Obama, have presumably taken, and which they’ve hopefully read and understood before doing so. 

This was extracted from the US Senate’s official website, by the way: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

Well, we know that many of them are expert liars, so maybe the majority made this promise to those they serve with a “purpose of evasion”.   I’m sure that most of our listeners up there, despite the Central party  propaganda, have a pretty good idea of where the current true enemies of the Constitution are.  (Quick aside: the purple sheep represents the Central Party, as it’s what results from mixing blue and red.)  It’s hard to make the case that the most dangerous enemies of the Constitution are hiding in caves in Pakistan, when we have so many current examples of blatant attacks directly against the actual parchment right up there in Washington.

First, I’m not going to go into too detailed a discussion of FATCA, as that would take too long, and I’m assuming that our readers have a good understanding of it already.  Here’s a draft of it, in case not.

Very briefly, it’s a series of regulations, passed by our “Constitution-serving” Congress, meant to invade the basic privacy of the citizens who have elected them to office.  Companies like Oracle (a good example of who actually runs Congress) are already gearing up to create an entire new industry around compliance with it.  On the other side – possibly the real goal of the act—increasing the IRS and Treasury Department work-forces to enforce it.  Thereby, giving the psychos in power more authority to increase both the jackboot population, and the largest prison population in the world.

The law is attempting to force every financial institution in the world – in every jurisdiction – to annually file newly-created US tax forms with the IRS to inform them of all US citizens who hold an account, or accounts, amounting to $50,000 or more.  If they refuse to comply, they may have trouble obtaining US dollars.  (We could write another series of articles on how this kind of policy might well lead to making the US dollar much less relevant.)  You can see that the US just created an entire series of enemies to call the boogey man, against whom they plan to initiate and wage another perpetual war: namely, the offshore industry, and its basic human privacy-respecting principles.

This, of course, will open doors for the US government to pass further bills creating new 3-letter agencies, etc.  Never mind the obvious fact that these laws are asking many foreign banks to break the sensible, basic human rights laws of their own countries, laws which forbid them to disclose the names of account holders, let alone publish records about their personal finances.  Let’s be honest about this.  Once a form is issued by White Hat Bank down to Freedom-Loving Island to the bureaucrats in Washington, it might as well be posted on the internet.  While IRS officials are getting drunk and making their next dance video, they’ll be sharing stories and laughing about all the fellow citizens they’ve been able to shine a spotlight on. 

It won’t matter if these funds are all legally held in after-tax dollars, or more wisely in Pesos or even Yuan as the US tries to get that to float.  Congress has said to all of us that we don’t deserve any privacy whatsoever.  They’re not saying that they’ll legally procure a warrant based on evidence of tax evasion.  They’re saying that any US citizen needs to fully disclose to their trustworthy servants in Washington, exactly what money they have, and exactly where it is.  Another case of “you’re guilty until proven innocent” without Constitutional due process.  Who is the thief, and/or evasionist (word?) here again? 

Again, I don’t have enough space to speculate all the possible reasons why our public servants feel a need to have that information, but I’ll give you a hint: it’s not for benevolent reasons.  We do, though, need to at least broach the subject of why.  In this case, why would a person who’s unfortunate enough to be a US citizen, and who has also wised up, voted with his feet, and gone to one of these freedom-loving privacy-respecting jurisdictions, pay taxes to Washington?

I can tell you, unfortunately, even the majority of expats around the world are completely unaware the US is the only country in the world that expects the citizens, who they serve, to pay taxes on money earned while living in another country.  The 3 NGOers I mentioned a few weeks back were surprised to learn that.  I was on a hiking expedition with an expat group a few months ago, and the subject came up with another long time US expat.  When I informed him of this fact, he was also surprised, but still seemed to think if the US government says it should be that way, there must be a good reason for it.  I tried, people, really I did.  I asked him, what in the world would we be paying for while we’re living and paying taxes in another country?  He crinkled his forehead in thought for a few seconds and replied “for freedom”.  Of course, I immediately cracked up laughing out loud.  It was, after all, the perfect humorous response to such a ridiculous question. 

After a few seconds, I realized he wasn’t joining me in my laughter.  Holy crap… he’s serious!  A lot of thoughts flashed through my head within the next few milliseconds.  At first, I had this feeling of being face-to-face with an unpredictable psycho.  He’s possibly armed, so I started looking for a quick escape route.  We were unfortunately standing on top of a look-out peak, and the single narrow trail in and out was blocked by a multitude.  Those few milliseconds quickly passed, and I realized he probably wasn’t armed, and I’d be able to handle myself fine; but trust me, these people are out there and probably even vote.  It just underscores the need for the ORC, so I promise to forge ahead with my deprogramming mission. 

Note that I didn’t say “report” on earnings.  There are some countries that want to know what their citizens are earning, for some strange privacy-robbing reason.  I said “pay” taxes.  After first complying with the tax code in the country where they actually live, and presumably enjoying the benefits of the proper investment of those funds for the public good, the US government then wants to know what they’re earning, and, in many cases, send money back to the Fatherland as well. 

The reason that’s another case of “only in America” is because it’s idiotic.  There are tens of thousands of US “citizens” out there who have never even been behind the curtain.  Well, okay, they were unfortunate enough to have their mothers visiting the US at the time of their birth, and they’ve now been branded with the “US citizen” label for life.  Due to FATCA, many of them are now being told by their local banks that they can’t open an account.  You can’t blame the bank for not wanting to become servants to a foreign tax-stealing agency, and in doing so break their own countries’ laws.

Well, sorry boys and girls, but we’ve run out of time.  As you can see, there’s a lot to talk about here, and so we’ll have to pick up next week and hopefully get to the current events surrounding this unconstitutional, illogical, unfair, inflammatory, imperialistic, and ultimately counter-productive legislation called FATCA.  Your assignment before next class is to review the FATCA legislation at the link provided, and write an essay outlining the 10 most blatant reasons why FATCA should be dropped, and not implemented.  Focus on its unconstitutionality, and discuss how we should enforce the oaths taken by these Congressmen who continue to blatantly “purposefully evade” it.

Hasta la próxima muchachos, y mucha suerte.

Paul is an escaped Big 4 CPA (F/S auditor), and Corporate Controller/CFO who found a natural home in the offshore industry with Bobby Casey and the gang at GWP.   Contact him at [email protected] to learn more about the realities of economical offshore asset protection.