My question is: Canadian-specific
Subject: tax shelters
Expert: [email protected]
Date: Tuesday November 22, 2005
Time: 10:45 PM -0800
QUESTION:
what can you tell me about putting money offshore where it can't be taxed. I have a friend who wants to do this. I think you may need a Nevada corp or IBC
Thanks for your time
XXXXXX
david ingram replies:
I guarantee that an American or a Canadian can NOT "LEGALLY" put money offshore where it would not be taxable. "LEGALLY" means that anything a Canadian earns out of the country is taxable IN Canada as long as he or she is a resident of Canada.
Jerome Schneider got away with setting up over 1,000 "tax shelter" offshore Corporations, Banks, and other vehicles for over 12 years. Three years ago he was arrested in Vancouver and ended up being sentenced to 18 months in jail for setting them up for others. As part of his plea bargain he turned about 1,70 of his clients and the lawyers and accountants who had helped him over to the authorities. Others who helped people with offshore entities as tax shelters were Scott Brown, Fred Seymour Hofman, and Nick Mazee. These gentleman all disappeared with about 30,000,000 each of their clients' money.
Hofman was found in Australia a year ago as explained in the following from http://www.canadianchristianity.com/cgi-bin/bc.cgi?bc/bccn/0704/01fleece
A similar modus operandi was used by Fred Seymour Hofman Sr. to bilk members of the First Christian Reformed Church in Vancouver out of millions of dollars in the 1980s and '90s before he skipped town in 1991.
Before he fled the country, six lawsuits claiming more than $10.5 million in losses had been filed against the churchgoer. In 1993, the RCMP laid 61 counts of fraud against him as well.
Hofman was a fixture at the church for two decades. And, as a certified general accountant, he was also entrusted as the church treasurer. People felt they could count on him to give them investment advice, and several couples handed him significant sums to place in U.S. treasury bill investments he claimed would net them high returns and shelter them from paying Canadian taxes on the earnings.
Because Hofman wasn't registered to handle such investments , at the time he was fined $50,00 and banned for trading for five years by the BCSC. He was also kicked out of the General Accountants' Association of B.C.
This year he was tracked down in Australia illegally soliciting investments in a remote agricultural area near Cairns. He was misrepresenting himself as a minister.
You can find out about the Schneider affair at http://www.quatloos.com/Jerome_Schneider_exhibit.htm
If someone "DOES" set something up for you which is secret enough the tax man might not find it, that same fellow is just as liable to run away with the money as Hofman, Masee and Brown did OR turn you in to the authorities as Jerome Schneider did.
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CEN-TA Cross Border Services - Tax, Visas, Immigration
http://www.centa.com/article.php/2006080314572178