Offshore

You have heard so much about Offshore lately and you're confused.  When you first heard about the concept of Offshore, everything you heard seemed to be negative.  Recently, you have heard other people that you know talking about Offshore financial planning and it seems to be totally different.  What happened?  Did Offshore concepts change? 

What happened is people are becoming more aware of the realities of accurate information.  After all, you wondered why you heard Offshore financial planning was always being discussed as illegal and hearing that many rich people had Offshore financial planning strategies.  With the Internet, more information is readily available which gives you more options.  Of course, you still have to be very careful to be sure you aren't being "taken". 

In a given conversation on financial planning, someone might ask, "Why would I want to have an Offshore financial plan, I want to have all of my money right here where I can watch it". This can be answered in one word: "LAWSUITS".  If you are not aware, Lawsuits are running rampant in most of the capitalistic nations.  In the USA alone, approximately 50% of all lawsuits in the world are filed.  Every year, the law schools in the USA graduate the same number of lawyers as there are in the entire country of Japan.  A retired doctor had a lawsuit filed against him years after his retirement for a procedure he performed on a patient 20 years and 9 months before.  Since he had not been in practice for years, he no longer carried his Mal Practice Insurance and he lost everything he worked his entire life for. 

With an Offshore financial plan; you can structure your finances to provide the protection you desire.  This will also allow you to set up your plans for your assets when you're gone (i.e., inheritance, contributions and, etc.).  One important concept to understand is that when you set up Offshore financial planning, the structure that you set up is NOT you.  You are an entirely separate legal entity.  Your financial structure is another or a series of separate entities.  This is one of the aspects that gives you protection against the neighbor that sues you for running over his hand (while he was trying to steal your hubcaps on the other side of the car).  

Why is this so important to have this separation of myself from my assets?  Most lawsuits filed are frivolous.  What this really means is that the injured party (normally considered the victim) prefers not to take responsibility for their error but to put a price tag on their injury and capitalize from it.  Now you become the victim.  If the injured party had to work harder to capitalize off their lack of responsibility, they probably would not file a lawsuit but hope they don't have charges brought against them. 

Okay, enough said.  In summary, the purpose for having an Offshore financial plan is to protect what you have worked for and peace of mind.  No one works harder for your money than you do and you want your plans for your assets to be followed out after you are gone.