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Protect Your Assets: How To Avoid Falling Victim To The Government's Forfeiture Laws

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An offshore haven is simply a country other than your own. To an American, it's anywhere you bank outside of the U.S. Why invest in offshore havens? Because when you invest outside your own country, you are no longer tied to its restrictive financial laws, and can protect your assets, save taxes and build your wealth easier.

Most of us have been hoodwinked into thinking that offshore havens are illegal, too risky, or otherwise unworthy of consideration. Don't believe it. Financial expert Adam Starchild will dispel myths and misconceptions about offshore banking and reveal how you can:

Achieve total secrecy and and financial privacy
Transfer your money offshore, and keep it safe from lawsuits, creditors, the IRS, etc.
Use offshore havens to legally avoid, defer or minimize taxes
Invest globally and build your wealth
Pick the offshore haven that best meets your objectives
Choose the right offshore bank and maintain an account -- easily and safely
Do business offshore -- and reap extraordinary benefits
And more!

There are simple steps you can take to protect yourself from many dangers -- frivolous lawsuits, predatory taxes, thieves, and greedy bureaucrats, just to name a few. A good place to start is with Adam Starchild's book.

This book will give you everything you need to completely safeguard your home, your family, your money, and your privacy. In other words, everything that's important to you.

You'll also find out how to create "invisible wealth" and how to use trusts for wealth protection... how to use family limited partnerships... how to structure a corporation for the greatest safety... how to go offshore with your wealth... and how to use foreign bank accounts.

As I said in my own book, The Offshore Update, published by Eden Press:

Of all the financial experts who have demonstrated literary talent, Adam Starchild is perhaps the least appreciated. This is unfortunate because Starchild is not only a lucid writer -- he is also a credible and conscientious reporter working in an area that until recently has belonged in the same chapter of financial literature with Fort Knox, Howard Hughes, and the Gnomes of Switzerland

The New York City Police Department has learned a valuable lesson from state and national law enforcement agencies. The Department will implement its "Zero Tolerance Drinking and Driving Initiative" sometime within the next month according to Police Commissioner Howard Safir. The stated goal of this new program is to discourage drunk driving and means anyone arrested for drunk driving in NYC will have their car seized until acquittal of the charges. The policy is based on the fact that city code permits police to seize "instrumentality's of crime." Commissioner Safir expects the program will result in thousands of cars being seized in the near future. According to criminal lawyer Gerald Lefcourt, this is a serious misuse of the forfeiture laws as they were not intended for this type of situation.

Mr. Lefcourt is right in his supposition that the forfeiture laws were not originally intended to address crimes such as drunk driving. Originally they were to punish drug dealers by confiscating the goods they bought and used with the proceeds from the drug trade. However, it has not taken government agencies long to realize the full potential of forfeiture laws since any property used in committing a crime or that results from illegal activities can be seized. This provides government an easy way to take from the public whatever it wants and is a natural motivator for unscrupulous, unethical and illegal actions by the government. In this case, if the city of New York wishes to discourage drunk driving it can increase jail time for a conviction, but its much more lucrative to confiscate a nice car.

The following case concerning property forfeiture comes from Rhode Island and is very illustrative as to the real goal of such government action: greed. Luz Rivera of Providence, RI was arrested in 1995 and charged with drug dealing. The police also confiscated $860 from her apartment after a search. Ms. Rivera had the charges against her dismissed in 1996 after she successfully proved she was at work and not at her apartment at the time of the alleged drug deal. Being found innocent of the charges, she naturally requested that her $860 be returned and obtained the necessary court order for this to happen. The state refused to honor the court order and Ms. Rivera contacted the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties union to assist her in obtaining the return of her money. The ACLU has threatened the state with a contempt order but the state attorney general's office has filed a motion to have the 1996 order requiring the return of the confiscated cash null and void. The state meanwhile maintains Ms. Rivera's cash was lawfully forfeited. Considering Ms. Rivera has been cleared of any charges of illegal activity, what is the basis of the state's claim? Very simply, it is the basis of greed. The state government wants Ms. Rivera's cash and has decided to keep it, all moral considerations, notwithstanding. A more clear example of the real reason behind property forfeiture could not be given. It is money pure and simple. Citizens have it and the government wants it.

One of the graces of living in the United States is the ability to buy affordable real estate. The open market provides both buyer and seller a plot of Mother Earth in order to raise their children or develop a nest egg for the future. One of the casualties of the War on Drugs is legislation aimed at the drug dealer, could deeply effect the land-owning taxpayer. The following example will give you a clearer understanding. In the summer of 2000, state police discovered 517

marijuana plants growing in an isolated hollow in eastern Kentucky, unbeknownst to the property owners, Dale and Diedre Hall.

Authorities suspected the family, based on a tip from a drug informant. According to the Hall's family lawyer, police were unable to get enough evidence to make an arrest, let alone to secure an indictment or a conviction. Nevertheless, the Halls owe the state a little more than $1 million under a 1994 law that taxes marijuana dealers $1,000 a plant and penalizes those who do not pay the tax before they are caught. The law, upheld by the Kentucky Supreme Court, was modeled on statutes in other states that has passed muster with the US Supreme Court. The law has brought in close to $300,000 in revenue, at least some of which came from drug dealers who made confidential payments to the state.

The tax assessment does not require a conviction. The law is enacted when police report on the seizure or discovery of illegal drugs, which they are required to do within 72 hours. The Hall's lawyer said the tax blocks his client access to the judicial system, challenging the provision of the law that requires suspected dealers to post a bond equal to the amount owed before they can file a protest.

The area where the Hall's reside is located in coal country near the Kentucky-West Virginia border. The depressed coal industry has left many out-of-work coal miners to fend for themselves. Usually they do it through the cash crop of marijuana grown on parkland or, in the Hall's case, private property. According to an article by APB News, the 1994 law requires marijuana growers and dealers to buy tax stamps at the rate of $3.50 per gram or $1,000 per plant. While the process is confidential and payment of taxes cannot be used as evidence in a criminal case, the civil penalties are added to any criminal ones once someone is caught, along with an additional penalty for failure to pay, said state Rep. Charles Geveden. "It's not a ruse or an attempt to legalize marijuana," said Geveden, a Democrat from Wickliffe, in western Kentucky, who was one of the law's sponsors. "What it does is it creates a monetary penalty as well as the criminal penalty."

Too little too late for the Halls, who acquired the American dream of owning land through hard work and sacrifice. What saved them from total financial ruin was Dale's decision to follow Diedre's advice

about offshore asset protection. Now the Hall's life savings won't be burned up in tax levies from the discovery of some hemp plants.