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Owning property Guaranteeing the control, and Make it working for your own heirs

International Trusts

Owning property, guaranteeing the control, and make it working for your own heirs, that makes us go deeper on these options and eventual issues, just to transmit you all you need to think about to take the right decision.

In fact, and once the assets will be/are in the US, an international Trust seems to be the right option, or a more suitable option face to the Foundation; Foundation and Trusts can be 2 excellent options but, the Foundation still goes a bit deeper to take care also of humanitarian or charitable purposes.

If you are looking for the strongest protection possible for your wealth—protection that can’t be undone by any government agency nor even by any lawsuit attacker—an international trust is still the best solution. It's simply the strongest asset protection vehicle on the planet.

A properly structured international trust provides the maximum level of protection from anything that happens in your own country. It provides you with the best protection possible from lawsuits, capital controls, and seizures by reckless government agencies. An international trust also helps protect family wealth from estate taxes, gives better access to international investment opportunities, and eventually completely disconnects from the US tax system. These are just a few of the enormous benefits an international trust offers.

The safety, protection, and tax advantages of an international trust give you a rich list of benefits, such as:

Protection from malicious lawsuits

Protection from arbitrary asset seizures

Protection from future restrictions on owning gold or foreign currencies

Ready access to foreign investment markets and financial institutions

Income tax planning advantages you won’t get if you stay at home

A better legal environment for estate planning

A way for family wealth to eventually disconnect completely from the US tax system

The peace of mind that comes from knowing you can always fall back on assets that aren’t vulnerable to the government where you live.

There you get all that full suite of advantages by using aninternational trust.

And for this reason, let us reference the top 10 reasons so many investors miss out on the kind of protection they want for themselves and their families.

Concern 1

“I might get cheated by a dishonest Trustee.”

Few people have any experience dealing with international trust companies, and that’s true of their lawyers as well. How can they trust the Trustee? There are two ways to approach this Concern. If you’ve identified a trust company as a candidate for your business, try and visit it. After a meeting or two, your confidence level will either go way up or way down. Facts quiet the imagination.

The second solution is structural. There is no need for the Trustee to actually get its hands on the assets you want to protect. Instead, the assets could be kept in an account with a foreign bank or broker in which you do have confidence, with you as the account’s investment manager. You would give trading orders directly to the bank or broker and always know where your money is. The Trustee would stay in the background.

For even tighter control, you can keep all the investments in a foreign limited liability company. Your trust would own the LLC, but you would be the LLC’s manager. You would have hands-on control of everything the company owns. You, not the Trustee, would have signature authority on the LLC’s bank and brokerage accounts. That would make it impossible for a less-than-ethical Trustee to do any harm. The Trustee won’t even know where the LLC is holding the assets until you decide it’s time to provide that information. The Trustee won’t even know what the assets are.

Concern 2

“I don’t want to get stuck with a trust company that is inefficient and unresponsive. How can I be sure the Trustee will stay focused on my purposes for the trust? How can I rely on the Trustee to do a proper job?”

With a properly structured international trust, you (or someone else you choose) can act as the Trust Protector, whose primary role is to advise the Trustee about the needs and circumstances of the Beneficiaries. As Protector you’ll have a power to replace the Trustee with another independent, licensed trust company. So you’ll always be free to take your business elsewhere. This subjects your Trustee to the same kind of market discipline that keeps most businesses customer friendly and on their toes. To hold on to your business, the Trustee will have to compete every day.

Your powers as Protector mean you have an easy exit if the Trustee ever loses sight of your objectives. The Trustee understands that, so having an easy exit means you’ll probably never need to use it.

Concern 3

“I like to make my own investment decisions.”

If you’re concerned that the Trustee would handle your money ineptly or manage it to generate revenue for its affiliates, you can easily eliminate those possibilities. One approach is to keep the assets in a brokerage account that you manage. Or if you’re using an investment advisor now and are satisfied with its performance, that same advisor could manage your trust fund. Holding the assets inside an LLC that the trust owns and that you manage is another way to keep your finger on investment decisions.

Concern 4

“I’m afraid I’ll get into trouble with my Inland Revenue if I set up an international trust.”

Forming an international trust is not like putting a target on your back. The tax rules governing your international trust are clear and simple. So follow them. Go on green and stop on red, and you won’t get a ticket, as we use to say.

During your lifetime, any and all taxable income the trust earns from its investments needs to be included on your personal tax return. That’s what the rules tell you to do. And let your accountant know what you’re doing, so he can prepare and file the simple reports your IRS requires. Keeping your accountant in the loop keeps you out of trouble. (The tax-advantaged investment vehicles available to your international trust may help to keep taxable income low.)

Ask any tax attorney or accountant who deals with international matters whether an international trust will attract trouble with IRS. The answer will be “No. But make sure you file the required reports.” When you pay your taxes and follow the reporting rules, there’s nothing for the IR to argue about. Go on green, stop on red.

Concern 5

“For me, ‘international’ isn’t much different from ‘inter-planetary.’ Even if I decided I wanted an international trust, I wouldn’t know where to go.”

Most investors wouldn’t know where to go. But there is a way to figure it out. The most important things to look for in a jurisdiction for an international trust are:

English common law

No income or inheritance taxes on trusts

Laws that make it difficult for future creditors to break into your trust

A healthy society, because that’s the basis for political stability and honest government

Freedom from dependence on your own Government

Concern 6

“International trusts are too complicated.”

Everything new seems complicated until you get a clear explanation of how it works. Let us give you our thoughts.

A. As Grantor of your international trust, you do two things:

First, in a written document you tell the Trustee who the Beneficiaries are (probably you, your spouse - if you’re married, and your children and grandchildren - if you have any). You can include your descendants who haven’t yet been born (future grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc.). You can include anyone, either by name or by describing a category of persons. And you can name charities and other nonprofit organizations. It’s up to you.

Second, you transfer money, Company interests, or other property to the Trustee to hold as part of your trust fund. You can add to the trust fund at any time, which means you can start small if that’s how you’d like to proceed. For tax reasons and to protect against potential creditors, your transfers are irrevocable—so you certainly will want to understand points B and C very clearly before you transfer anything to the trust.

B. The Trustee’s legally enforceable responsibility is to protect the trust fund and to apply it for the welfare of the Beneficiaries in the ways you intended when you established and funded the trust. “Apply” usually means sending you or another Beneficiary a check. But it can also mean investing in a Beneficiary’s business or paying your credit card or medical bills in an emergency.

C. Someone, probably you, is the Protector of the trust. The Protector advises the Trustee on how to fulfill its responsibilities—how to protect the trust fund and when each Beneficiary should receive a distribution or other benefit. The Protector has a power to replace the Trustee with another independent, licensed trust company if he decides that doing so would help the trust achieve its purposes—what you intended when you established and funded the trust. The Protector also has a power to name his own successor. Thus the Protector’s role continues from generation to generation.

D. The Protector’s powers are so important that the Protector is himself protected by an “anti-duress” provision. The Protector’s powers become suspended during any period when the Protector is having his arm twisted by a government agency or any other source of coercion. This prevents anyone from using the Protector to hijack the trust.

E. There. You’ve taken the first step toward becoming an expert on international trusts, and it only took one minute.

Concern 7

“I’ve already gone to a lot of trouble and expense to set up an estate plan. I don’t want to start over.”

You don’t need to tear up your estate plan to get the safety and protection of an international trust. You just need to relocate the plan to another jurisdiction. Every conventional estate-planning tool (what you hear about when you talk to your lawyer about estate planning) works smoothly inside an international trust. And by going international, you can achieve two advantages that you can’t have with a stay-at-home approach.

First, with an international trust you can move assets out of your taxable estate and still keep them available for your support.

Second, an international trust is a complete andpermanentsolution. After your lifetime, the trust disconnects from your own Government tax system. Compare that with what you leave in your own country. The domiciled assets you leave for your family continue to be subject to income tax, year after year, and to estate tax, generation after generation.

Concern 8

“An international trust is too expensive to set up and maintain. Protection is good, but not at just any price.”

As with most things, establishing an international trust can be expensive or inexpensive, depending on how you go about it. If you close your eyes and hand the project over to the most expensive professionals you can find (or who find you), the cost can run like a rabbit. At the very high end, you might pay as much as $100,000. But at the other extreme, if you do your homework and become well acquainted with the subject, establishing an international trust can cost less than $10,000.

And in this regard we would like to suggest you this International Trust registered in Europe, in the Isle of Man.

Let us take this opportunity to assist you with your own personal enquiry; don’t hesitate to contact one of our experts to discuss and clarify all your doubts and questions you may have; we shall be extremely pleased to assist you both with this International Trust and the Trustee Company, a one’s structure to be discussed in detail.

Contact TBA & Associates here