Moving Money

Moving Money
By William Cate
[http://home.earthlink.net/~beowulfinvestments/]
[http://home.earthlink.net/~beowulfinvestments/globalvillageinvestmentclubwelcome/]

Every Government wants foreign investment. No Government wants their citizens to be the foreign investors in another country. Most Governments have stringent currency and other restrictions to ensure the wealth of their nation remains within the country's borders.

History teaches the middle-class that putting all your wealth in any one country is always a mistake. My middle-class grandparents had to flee Ireland without a dime. My wife's upper middle-class grandparents had to flee Mexico, without a dime. In the 1920s, Lenin executed five million lower middle-class farmers (Kulaks). In the 1940s, Hitler murdered six million middle-class Jews. Stalin murdered several million communists in the 1930s as well as the middle class from the Ukraine to Poland. Today, the middle-class Chinese community is at risk in many Asian countries.

Look into your family history, you will find one or more examples of ancestors who faced execution or relocation in the past two hundred years. Read a modern history book about your country. You'll find scores of examples of groups who emigrated beyond your borders or who were executed. I can guarantee you that History will repeat itself in the next one hundred years. Some of your heirs won't be living in whatever country you may reside in today. If you fail to plan for this recurrent historical event, you will force your heirs to relive past History.

If you move twenty percent of your net assets offshore in the next two years, by the year 2040, you will have one-third more wealth offshore than in your native country. And this assumes that you will earn the same return on investment with both sets of assets. The reason is that your offshore assets won't be subject to income taxes. And, it is nearly impossible to use the Courts in any country to recover assets beyond that country's borders.

If you live in a country that allows you to move your wealth offshore via the local banking system, do it. Move twenty percent of your net worth offshore this year. Pay your taxes on the money you are moving and your Government should not have a problem with your family globalization policy.

If your Government is among the few that tax worldwide income, hold your offshore assets in the name of a tax haven corporation. And a tax haven corporation eliminates issues involving the inheritance of your wealth. Consider how the Swiss banks and insurance companies treated the survivors of the Holocaust after World War II as a useful historical lesson.

Your country is probably among the majority of nations that actively try to discourage the middle-class from moving their assets offshore. There are always ways around this policy. Even during the height of the Cultural Revolution tens of millions of middle-class dollars fled to Hong Kong from Mainland China. The two Rhodesian Governments attempted everything within their power to stop the hemorrhaging of middle class wealth to Britain, before these countries became Zambia and Zimbabwe. Read a contemporary history of either country and you will learn that those who moved their wealth, be they black or white, are far better off today.

Methods vary on how to move money from countries with strong currency, or other restrictions, to banks in Europe or North America. The days of the "Black Bag" courier are over. The costs for money moving services are usually eight percent of the money moved. There are many crooks in the Global Village. The client should know the people involved in the money moving service. Also, you are usually wiser moving the smallest sum of money that the money moving service will handle.

The stronger your Government's prohibitions against moving your money offshore, the wiser it is to move your assets elsewhere. However, even in countries that are open to having their middle class globalize their assets, laws can quickly change. In 2001, the United States replaced the Bill of Rights with the Patriot Act in six weeks.

About the Author: William Cate has offered the Globalize to Survive Workshop for over a decade to middle-class investors in many countries. He's the Executive Director of the Global Village Investment Club [http://home.earthlink.net/~beowulfinvestments/globalvillageinvestmentclubwelcome/]. Since 1982, he's been the Managing Director of Beowulf Investments [http://home.earthlink.net/~beowulfinvestments/]