Your shopping cart is empty:
YOUR CURRENT SUBTOTAL
$0.00
$0.00
Categories: 
Court News 
Share Article
Providing an investor is going to get what he or she feels is a great Rate of Return on Investment (ROI), then an entrepreneur might have a shot at a venture capital (VC) deal.
There are deals to be achieved although the 2010 results show that the VC market tends to run below the prerecession levels. Three aspects are increasingly important with the first being the expected ROI balanced against risk factors.
Another important aspect VC investors site is the exit strategy. Private company trends show that IPOs are not the only strategy and in some industries or in the case of government-backed deals, entrepreneurs are looking to alternatives to the standard Wall Street exit.
A third reason to encourage VC investment may be the sector. The right sector at the right time can make a difference. Here are some popular 2010 sectors to look forward to 2011 VC.
1. Internet – The newest ventures are going to be technology crossover ventures. What is that? Combinations of technologies and software, social media sites combining digital games and other media, emailing and sales software and technologies, medical and engineering prototype software.
2. Software Development – VCs
Categories: Business News Share Article
President Obama has had a dislike for offshore financial centers since he was a Senator. He co-sponsored a bill called the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act and it appears that his administration will pursue the bill in the near future.
President Obama pledged to crack down on “tax havens” during his election campaign. He has vowed to investigate and put pressure on banking secrecy in over thirty-four jurisdictions that practice a high level of protection that may lead to tax evasion and fraud.
The then Senator Obama was a cosponsor of the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, which was introduced on February 17 2007. A House bill was developed simultaneously, but no action was taken on either bill. Obama aides have indicated that the bill may be resurrected.
Since the recent scandals with banks like UBS and the investigation into tax evasion coupled with the recession and the financial fall out, Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has placed a priority on international investigations of individuals with connections to offshore financial centers. Similar pressure is happening in other countries.
The Stop Tax Havens Abuse Act would restrict the use of offshore financial centers by imposing that transactions between
Categories: Tax Share Article
As regular readers may recall, I recently wrote an article on the Bickmore case. This case involved a man in Utah named Kent Bickmore, who was actively promoting a fraudulent scheme involving Nevada and Wyoming corporations to evade US taxes. I pointed out that what Bickmore was proposing was so obviously “to good to be true� that any person who fell for his pitch was not particularly deserving of sympathy. The point is, there are fraudsters out there in the asset protection world, as in any industry, and people do need to use some basic common sense when choosing an advisor with whom to work.
However, I recently came across an article reminding me that even good people can unintentionally mislead. I subscribe to a free daily investing investing e-mail. The author is one of the better-known practioners in this field, has a solid overall track record, and overall seems (although I do not know him personally) to be a solid and ethical guy. However, in reading a recent article of his that touched on offshore strategy, I realized that even the nicest people can sometimes unintentionally mislead us.
The author usually writes purely about investing –
Categories: Tax Share Article
BRETT L. TOLMAN, United States Attorney (#8821) JEANNETTE F. SWENT, Assistant United States Attorney (#6043) 185 South State Street, #300 Salt Lake City, Utah 84111 MICHAEL J. ROESSNER Trial Attorney, Tax Division U.S. Department of Justice Post Office Box 7238 Washington, DC 20044 Telephone: (202) 305-3227 Facsimile: (202) 514-6770 Attorneys for the United States ___________________________________________________________________________ IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF UTAH ___________________________________________________________________________ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) ) Case No. 2:09 CV 00895 TC Plaintiff, ) ) v. ))COMPLAINT ) KENT T. BICKMORE, individually and ) dba as Asset Protection Plus, Inc., ) ) Defendant. ) ___________________________________________________________________________ Plaintiff, the United States of America, for its Complaint against defendant Kent T. Bickmore, individually and doing business as Asset Protection Plus, Inc., states as follows: Jurisdiction and Venue 1. Jurisdiction is conferred on this Court by 28 U.S.C.§§ 1340 and 1345 and 26 (I.R.C.) U.S.C. §§ 7401, 7402 and 7408. Case 2:09-cv-00895-TC Document 2 Filed 10/07/2009 Page 1 of 7 2 2. This suit is brought under I.R.C. § 7402, and 7408 to enjoin Bickmore from: a. engaging in activity subject to penalty under I.R.C. § 6700, including organizing or selling a plan or arrangement and making
Categories: Court News Share Article
As we go through life, we all have a tendency to pick up and accumulate certain lessons that we then file away in our brains for future use and guidance. When we are toddlers, we all learn basic life lessons in safety, such as “fire is hot” or “sharp knives can hurt us.” As we become teenagers or young men, we might learn that asking a woman her age or telling her that she looks like hell after her bout with the flu are not good mating strategies. We continue to pick up these “life lessons” as we age, and the wiser among us apply these lessons broadly in our lives and impart this knowledge to our children.
One “life lesson” I have surely learned, and would certainly swear by, is that “if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is”; and the corollary to that, which is that the more outrageously great something sounds, the more likely it is to actually hold negative consequences for you.
I thought of these tried and true (for me at least) life lessons when I recently came upon one of the more outrageous examples of fraud and outright falsehood that I have seen
Categories: Court News Share Article
State of the Union and Your IRA
91%. Can anyone guess the significance of that number? No, its not the number of people underwater on their houses, although at 25% and rising its not a bad guess. Actually, 91% was the highest marginal tax rate in the United States from 1951 – 1963. From there, it dropped to 77%, and stayed at 50% or above well into the 1980’s.
The point of all this is that while marginal rates are poised to reset to the 39% of the Clinton years as the Bush tax cuts expire, in the broader historical context of the last century 39% is actually still quite low. British tax rates on high-earners are already up to 50%. And the US will inexorably follow over the years.
The math on this is blindingly obvious. The US national debt today is somewhere in the range of $10-$11 trillion, or close to 70% of GDP, if you include the money owed to the Social Security Trust Fund (on another note, the entire concept of the Social Security Trust Fund is a fraud, but that is for another article). Over the next decade, the additional deficits
Categories: Pension News Share Article
Categories: Editorials and Opinion Share Article
Feeding Your Leg to a Crocodile
Doesn't Turn Him into a Vegetarian
The past several months have witnessed an unfortunate setback in the fight for good tax policy. Bolstered by a shift in the U.S. position from benign neglect to active support, anti-tax competition ideologues have won a somewhat significant victory. Low-tax jurisdictions, faced with direct and indirect threats of sanctions from powerful nations, have been forced to weaken their human-rights policies by agreeing that privacy laws no longer protect foreign investors. Indeed, jurisdictions are being coerced to sign agreements to provide confidential data upon request to at least 12 of their high-tax brethren.
The campaign against tax competition now moves to the next step, beginning with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) Global Tax Forum in Los Cabos, Mexico, Sept 1-2. Dominated by European welfare states, the OECD has been working for more than 10 years to impose punitive international tax rules in order to prop up the inefficient policies of its member nations.
It is unclear whether high-tax nations see the meeting in Mexico as an opportunity to cement existing gains, or a springboard for further concessions, but that is just a matter
Categories: Business News Share Article
Categories: Editorials and Opinion Share Article
A couple of days ago I wrote an article describing how the UK Revenue Service – HM Revenue and Customs – had established a special unit that would be targeting the wealthiest tax-payers in Great Britain. Excuse me, that should read “helping” the wealthy to pay the correct amount of tax. I think it was Sir Isaac Newton who established the rule in physics that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Well, the article below, also from the Financial Times, shows how Britain’s wealthy have reacted to HM Revenue’s focus on them!
Categories: Tax Share Article
If there was ever any doubt about who Western Governments would be targeting to pay for the massive bailout packages enacted the last few months, this recent article from Britain's Financial Times should help answer that question. In a nutshell, HRM’s Revenue Service is establishing special teams to target the 5,000 wealthiest taxpayers in the United Kingdom. You have to love the quote from the Revenue Service’s spokesman about these new units are there to ‘help’ the UK’s wealthy to pay the right amount of tax. We’ll be back tomorrow to show how the UK’s wealthy seem to be responding to this kind offer of assistance!
Revenue teams to examine finances of the very wealthy
By Sharlene Goff
Published: April 3 2009 17:57 | Last updated: April 3 2009 17:57
High earners could be pursued with new vigour by the tax authorities as specialist teams were set up this week to examine the financial affairs of some of the UK’s most wealthy individuals.
The new “high net worth unit” will identify the 5,000 wealthiest taxpayers in the UK and conduct thorough reviews of their financial dealings and assets.
Inspectors are expected to pay particularly close attention to
Categories: Tax Share Article
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
v.
JEFFREY P. CHERNICK,
Defendant.
Release Date: JULY 28, 2009
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The United States Attorneys Office for the Southern District of Florida, the United States Department of Justice, Tax Division, and the defendant, Jeffrey Chernick, stipulate to and agree not to contest the following facts, and stipulate that such facts, in accordance with Rule 11(b)(3) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, provide a sufficient factual basis for the plea of guilty in this case:
OBLIGATION TO REPORT WORLDWIDE INCOME AND FOREIGN
BANK ACCOUNTS
United States citizens who have income in excess of a certain amount are obligated to file a federal income tax return with the United States Internal Revenue Service ("IRS"). On said return, United States citizens are obligated to report their worldwide income. Additionally, United States citizens who have an interest in or a signature or other authority over a financial account in a foreign country with assets in excess of $ 10,000 are required to disclose the existence of such account on Schedule B, Part III of their individual income
Categories: Tax Share Article
There is an increasing trend by Americans in or approaching retirement to look at options outside of the United States. Often, even the non-affluent can live a higher-end lifestyle overseas that they would not otherwise be able to afford in the US. Panama is a country that offers stability, excellent services, year-round sunshine, and is specifically targeting American retirees. Please see below an interesting article from a recent issue of Business Week magazine on Panama:
Prospective retirees: Panama wants you. The pitch? A plane ride just 21/2 hours from Miami enables the newly poor to swap a wretched retirement in the U.S. for one befitting a royal in the balmy Central American nation. Cash out! Emigrate! Feel rich! Panama—the new Florida.
Spin aside, Panama is increasingly popular among retirement-age types looking to hedge against—or skip out on—the recession. The Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank that studies the movement of people around the world, says the chief factors prodding professional-class Americans to flock to Panama include its First World health care available at Third World prices and the country's pensioner program, which offers some of the deepest retiree discounts in Latin America. Seniors get up to half off on
Categories: Affluent Lifestyle News Share Article
Categories: Tax Share Article
Offshore Investing – Legal or Not
Ever since I became interested in the offshore world, I have had a devil of a time trying to explain to people what it is. The most common response to any conversation about offshore investing are the raised eyebrows followed by the comment “but isn’t that illegal?” It seems that for most people, the image of the swashbuckling international playboy with the numbered Swiss bank account holds true.
Of course, the reality is so much more prosaic then that above – I myself am surely no international playboy, as my wife could well attest to! – but this seems to be the dominant image in our popular culture. I have, however, always assumed that people in the financial world surely understood the reality versus the image. Tthis assumption has now been completely swept away after reading this utterly simplistic and ill-informed article in the Wall Street Journal by the well-known financial columnist James Stewart: Read his column here I have regularly read Stewart’s monthly columns in Smart Money and the WSJ, and for the most part he has written about investment strategies and specific stocks, and he always struck me
Categories: Editorials and Opinion Share Article
According to Northern Trust,
Categories: Pension News Share Article
January 23, 2009
Many customers have gone shopping, made a purchase, discovered something is wrong and headed back to the store for an exchange to find a sign “going out of business.” This year, there is likely to be as many of one third of our nation’s retailers downsizing, closing stores or filing for bankruptcy.
Some majors who filed problems in 2008 include Circuit City, the electronics giant, Linens N’ Things, Sharper Image, Lane Bryant and department stores Boscov and Mervyns. Recently Macys announced a closing of stores in association with a major lay off.
Other reported giants who filed fourth quarter difficulty were Starbucks, the Gap and Nextel, who are likely to close some locations.
Categories: Business News Share Article
Enter your phone number and we'll call you fast!
Don't miss this valuable conference and the chance to meet all of our Global Strategic Advisors!
Amsterdam Meeting 2010 7-9 November: Sofitel Amsterdam The Grand
One attitude that cannot be tolerated in medicine is lack of care or apathy and physicians should exercise the same standard of care toward their accumulation of assets, property and wealth.
Written by the foremost expert in the country!
Physicians and their Advisors Will Gain a Practical Guide in the Following Subject Areas
►Asset Protection
►Estate Planning
►Income Tax Reduction
►Financial Planning
►Office Management
►Corporate Structure and Protection Structures
Learn how to protect your personal and business assets from disgruntled patients, creditors and divorce through the use of domestic and offshore planning tools.
Estate Planning - Learn how to avoid the most common estate planning mistakes that could cost your heirs $500,000 - $3,000,000 or more and learn how to avoid the 70-83% tax trap.
Income Tax Reduction - Learn how to reduce your income taxes by $25,000 - $200,000 annually while avoiding the tax avoidance shams in the marketplace.
Financial Planning - Learn how to protect the principal of your investments while still giving yourself the opportunity for upside growth if the stock market performs well.
Office Management - Learn several practical and easy to implement solutions that will help you run a more efficient and financially sound medical practice.
Asset Protection Planning Part 3 concentrates on the protection of personal residence, business acco ...
Would you like to remove a dollar from your company, and even better, a tax deductable dollar and pu ...
Trustmakers Estate Tax planning provides advisor direction and guide information on protecting your estate.
Members of: 
