Mirror of Justice

Tithing Did not Predate the Law

July 18th, 2009 at 04:11pm Under Elder Law

What Abraham gave of the spoils of war has no parallel whatsoever with the tithe in the Law, or with what is going on today.

Many rely on the argument that the spoils were Abraham’s property to do with as he pleased. This assumes that Abraham was a man with a character very much like any renegade, vagabond of his day. I tend to think of him as being a far cut above the average man, given that the Lord chose him above all other men of that day for his great faith. Additionally, a true believer would NEVER consider property they recovered, property they knew was never theirs to begin with, and that therefore belongs to someone else, to be their own. Who among you would do that, except that you live in sin? And yet, many attribute Abraham as having an evil disposition by trying to force upon him a character that assumes other people’s property was his to keep.

The OT tithe in the Law had nothing to do with the upkeep of the temple. As a matter of fact, the OT tithe had nothing to do with anyone’s wages. Today, however, tradition has planted a very twisted belief about the Bible, and thus forcing the uncritical mind into conformity to a mindset that has nothing to do with the Truth. Fishermen, carpenters, clothiers, craftsmen, etc., were not required to tithe to the Levites. Jesus didn’t tithe, and neither did His disciples. Today, however, we are surrounded by a paradigm found nowhere in the word of God.

The scriptures show us an example of supporting people and their needs first and foremost.

Modern buildings, owned by the various religious organizations, overseen by the hirelings and the staffing within, with their numerous operations, consume the lion’s share of professing believer’s primary giving. This is basically a practice of the people lavishing their own so-called giving upon themselves, which isn’t giving at all.

This grates against the sensibilities of the purely religious…which describes people who take carnal things and spiritualize them. They spiritualize the building by calling it ‘God’s House’. They spiritualze the man-made position of the so-called ‘pastor’ (CEO) within religious institutions, and they spiritualize the activities within the four walls of their building by assuming that it all has the Divine stamp of approval upon them. Token outreaches are also seen as legitimizing activities for all the other sins of institutional church organizations, such as the robbery of God by using the people’s primary giving for their own expenditures.

The acid test of any ministry is to pull the money out from under it. If it collapses into a heap, then it clearly wasn’t of God. Jesus sent His disciples without any money purse, extra shoes or extra tunics. Their every need was met where they traveled and ministered.

Where is that level of faith today…?

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From A Consumer To A Producer

July 18th, 2009 at 02:56am Under Consumer Law

FROM A CONSUMER TO A PRODUCER

Why Use a Law Firm ?

July 17th, 2009 at 02:53pm Under Banking Law

The answer is simple. All your transactions with a Panama Law Firm are covered by tight Attorney Client Privileged Communication. The lawyer/law firm can not reveal anything about the client or their transactions, business dealings, etc. unless specifically authorized by the client. The exception to this would be if ordered by a Panama Court which is a possibility but something very rarely seen.
Lawyers have to pass background checks from their government in addition to attending law school. The government knows who their lawyers are and regulates them. Lawyers have obligations and fiduciary responsibilities to their clients.
We see many people buying corporations, trusts, etc. from non-lawyer web based businesses and also for bank accounts. It for some reason never occurs to the client that the entity they are doing business with has all their private financial information such as name of their company, ownership of the company, passports, bank and business reference letters, addresses, phones, email, business information, where their bank account is, etc. These entities they are doing business with have no binding legislation or regulations on them preventing them from revealing any of this information to whoever they wish to reveal it to. In most cases they could not protect the client if they wanted to since they have no privileged communication. If they got a phone call from a governmental agency from 6,000 miles away the chances are they would cave in and provide the requested information. These phone calls usually go like this: I am so and so Inspector with the Tax Police of ABC country. Your country already knows that I am investigating this case. This means he sent an email to the government. I have a court order signed by a Judge would you like me to fax it over to you? This means the court order is as a rule almost never valid in the jurisdiction he is calling. Now when your friendly corporation registered agent says something cute like the court order is not from here and you have no authority here what he gets back sounds like this. If you fail to cooperate I will file a suspicious criminal actions report with your police since for all we know you are the owners of the corporation in question and are the guilty parties and we will ask that you be investigated by your police. This is usually done in a threatening way since it is a bluff. Now the corporate agent thinking the last thing he needs is to be the subject of an investigation by his own police and has to hire a lawyer, etc. says, wait a minute what is it you want? Okay wait while I pull it up for you. This probably took 3-5 minutes and your privacy is violated. No attorney client privilege means no downside for the corporate agent to cooperate. What would we say? We’d say there is attorney client privilege in Panama and you must get a court order from a Panama Judge ordering us to release any information about any client and then we’d hang up without providing any information.
Corporate Agents Offering corporations in Many Jurisdictions – Do not be deceived by firms that offer bank accounts and corporations from numerous countries. They are merely corporate agents or resellers of corporations from these countries. It is not very hard to become a reseller in many of these countries. Their ploy for credibility is selling from many different countries so you see a big shopping list of jurisdictions and think they are a real credible operation when they are really nothing more than a relatively unregulated offshore corporation based in some tax haven selling you formations in different jurisdictions most of which are not any good for asset protection, corporate privacy, or even bank secrecy. If you read through our web site you will soon realize that most if not all of these jurisdictions are “has been” privacy jurisdictions that are no longer private. They sell these products to people who are familiar with the jurisdiction from the past reputation but have not followed the recent changes in the laws relating to these jurisdictions in the post 9-11 world. If we knew of a better jurisdiction than Panama we would offer it!
Law Firms in Your Own Country – Be careful about using a law firm in your own country even if they offer to set up an offshore structure for you. The weak link in the chain is the attorney is located in the country where you are. If you felt your country respected the individual’s right to privacy and operated a fair and equitable court system you would probably not be reading this.
Attacking Attorney Client Privilege – An adversary can attack the attorney client privilege claiming your attorney conspired with you or was complicit in some way in something you allegedly did like the fraudulent conveyance of assets to avoid creditors, fraud, misrepresentation, tax violations pertaining to income tax, sales tax, property tax, gift tax, inheritance tax, probate tax, corporate tax, capital gains tax and other assorted and sundry taxes, creation of straw man trusts and other asset protection shams, money laundering, and the list can go on and on. We are not saying you did or should do such things, in fact you should not do such things, we are saying it can be alleged that you did such things and these allegations in these non-privacy countries are enough to break the attorney client privilege you have with the attorney. Jurisdictions that do not respect privacy and do not have fair and equitable court systems are not going to let a thing like attorney client privilege stop a big law firm from taking away your assets in the name of justice.
Suing your Attorney – Let’s assume the judge not understanding too much about offshore structures says well I don’t see anything here to justify the violation of attorney client privilege, what do you think the other side does next, walk away and forget about you? Not so fast, they can smell your assets and want a big bite as soon as they can get it. They see a chink in your armor that they are not finished exploiting. The chink is you did not use an attorney in a privacy oriented jurisdiction even though you might have used an offshore structure in one. So now they just add your attorney into the lawsuit as an additional defendant alleging him or her to be a conspirator in the plot to defraud the creditor out of his pound of flesh he wishes to take from your life savings, real estate, business, estate, etc. This gives them a shot at piercing attorney client privilege which is to say the attorney used an offshore structure to make discovery impossible thus thwarting justice and is sheltering the defendants assets behind attorney client privilege as an another layer in the scheme to defraud their client from collecting his lawful court ordered debt by grabbing your assets. If the other side is motivated and has money they will wear down your asset protection strategy until they can reach out and grab your assets. If you sued a lawyer in a privacy jurisdiction like Panama and did your formations there and banked there, you would be the one wearing down your adversary who would be getting frustrated spending time and money and getting nowhere in the Panama courts. They would be getting their cases dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, incorrect venue, etc. This could motivate your adversary to settle for pennies on the dollar after they had a very expensive taste of the Panama Courts, or they just decide they can’t penetrate your structure not even being sure what your structure is and plain give up. Using a lawyer in your own country to formulate your asset protection strategy is a weak link that should not be presented to a financial enemy. The same applies to using an attorney in another country where privacy and justice have disappeared. One privacy hating unfair jurisdiction can usually reach out to another privacy hating unfair jurisdiction and get their assistance, alleging almost anything will work in these jurisdictions. Some of these countries actually respect the court orders from another country, all that is required is a trip to the local court to have the foreign court order rubber stamped and thus domesticated and made enforceable. This is common with money judgments from foreign countries in the privacy hating jurisdictions but you do not have much to worry about in Panama.
How to do it -Use a law firm only in the jurisdiction where your corporation, foundation and bank are located. This way not only can the law firm that did your asset protection structure help you if trouble comes knocking on your door but your confidential information is out of reach of the courts your financial enemies will use. Do not use a corporation agent or non-lawyer for your asset protection. There is no attorney client privilege.
Anonymity is your Friend – Anonymity is your first line of defense. Only use anonymous bearer share corporations or anonymous foundations where no ownership records are in existence in any government registry (Panama). Panama Foundation assets are not sequesterable (not freezable). This makes discovery of ownership impossible even with a court order. Make sure the corporation or foundation need not file any tax returns and has no tax liabilities based on profit, income or assets (Panama). Tax returns could lead to an audit. Make sure the publicly recorded nominees of the corporation or foundation do not know the owners (Panama). Make sure there is tight Bank Secrecy (Panama has the best in the world now). Make sure there is strong attorney client privilege ( Panama). Make sure the jurisdiction in question is in no tax treaties with any country (Panama). Make sure the jurisdiction in question allows for no fishing expeditions (Panama). Make sure the jurisdiction in question does not cooperate on fiscal offenses (Panama, in Panama all tax offenses are civil not criminal). Make sure the jurisdiction does not allow civil lawsuits concerning matters that did not take place in the jurisdiction to be tried in their courts just because the corporation, foundation or bank account is domiciled there (Panama). Make sure the jurisdiction is dependent on corporate privacy and bank secrecy for its economy (Panama has 400,000 corporations domiciled there and there are 150 banks in country whose population is 2.9 million people, employing 20% of the workforce.
Hello Panama, Goodbye Switzerland!
For more information, please visit:
http://www.panamalaw.org
email at: panamalegal@hush.co

Offshore Panama Bank Accounts – Open in 5 Day

July 17th, 2009 at 08:53am Under Banking Law

You can obtain a Panama Bank Account without having to come to Panama!
Panama Banks – Panama banks do open bank accounts for foreigners. Panama asides from being the number one retirement haven in the world is also the world’s foremost tax haven. Offshore bank accounts in Panama are the most coveted in the world today. All the banks we use have online banking including the ability to send international wire transfers, check balances, history and other information. You can get an ATM Debit card that is good worldwide for ATM withdrawals and it works for some Point of Sale Purchases. We work with several different banks and savings and loans in Panama. We do not discuss names of banks until after a person becomes a paid client, and all the required documents have been provided, please do not ask. Same applies to sending out bank forms, signature cards, etc. We have a list of banks that we have a working relationship with where we are able to have accounts opened without the need for the parties to come to Panama. Some of these banks are large multi-national conglomerates with assets in the 100 Billion Dollar Range and others are small Panama only Banks that offers a more personal touch and banks with everything in between. We have never had a customer leave us because we could not get them an account with a bank or savings and loan they felt was not suitable. We can normally have an account opened within 5 working days of the receipt of our fee and the required documents, some times faster.
The Process – Making a trip to Panama is not necessary. Panama Banks never accept cash to open an account. Some customers wish to come to Panama to meet the bank, etc. This is fine but we will NOT introduce a person to any bank until after they are a paid up client and we have done our due diligence having their reference letters, passport copy etc. The banks rely on the law firm to do the required due diligence in the area of know your customer which is the same as required by the banks. The banks in Panama have no shortage of customers since a Panama Bank Account is the most coveted in the world right now. The banks do not wish to have potential customers contacting them directly before the law firm has completed their due diligence. The banks are not fond of foreigners calling on the phone about opening up an account. If you are coming to Panama which again is not necessary, we suggest you do the formation of the corporation or foundation before you come and we can get the bank account approved by the new account committee before you arrive so basically you just meet the bank manager, sign the forms and signature cards and then are free to depart and your account should be functional the next day. We can assist with corporate rates on a hotel; get you an English speaking driver with a car, etc. You can have a checking account or a savings account. Time locked deposits for higher interest rates are available. Minimum deposits tend to run between $500 and $2000. Some banks will provide an ATM card with the account immediately. Some banks will issue direct from the bank a Visa card that is a secured debit card. It is good for ATM machines, internet purchases etc. The bank will generally require a security deposit which goes into a special interest bearing account. If your Visa card had a $10,000 credit line they would probably request a security deposit of $12,500. At the end of the billing cycle the money to pay your card balance down to zero would be deducted from your regular account. If a need arose you could ask the bank to clear the balance before the end of the billing cycle freeing up your credit for travel. There is the option of a third party ATM card that has numbers only, no account name at all on the card. There is also the option of having a third party MasterCard or Visa debit card (not credit card) for an extra fee. The Visa or MasterCard debit card also can function as an ATM card.
Documents Required – A notarized copy of the picture page of the Passport, letter of reference from a recognized bank, and a letter of reference from an attorney, accountant or company you do business with on their letterhead. Any bank in the modern world using the international wire system will require at least this much documentation from a foreigner opening up a bank account in their jurisdiction.
Stock Trading – The savings account can also be directly tied to a stock trading account. This allows one to trade online around the world. There is a $50,000 minimum to open such an account. The clearing agent is top drawer. We can also arrange for you to have a separate brokerage account in Panama with minimums as low as $20,000. USA passport holders can not have a personal stock trading account corporate or foundation only.
Type of Account – Offshore bank accounts in Panama can be opened for a corporation or a foundation. Accounts can be opened for personal, corporate or for a foundation. USA passport holders can not open personal bank accounts unless they actually reside in Panama and can document this. We always suggest the offshore bank account in Panama be opened using a Panama corporate structure. This way when wires are sent or received it can not be seen that you are the person(s) behind the corporation. When you use an anonymous Panama Bearer Share Company the ownership of the company is not recorded in any registry or public record database so no snooping entity can determine who is actually receiving the funds, and this makes for very private personal banking. Recently there was a scandal in the media where it came out that the USA was monitoring SWIFT wire transactions for some years. Monitoring a wire transaction to an anonymous corporation is fairly meaningless since nothing is known about the ownership of the corporation. If the sending entity was also an anonymous corporation that would be a good working definition of a dead end both ways. We always advise against personal offshore bank accounts in Panama for these reasons in addition to the fact that a corporate or foundation bank account greatly enhances asset protection but will work on personal accounts at the client’s request. We can not get personal bank accounts for USA residents/citizens. As an additional option one can open an offshore Panama bank account using a Panama Foundation which is also anonymous.
Bank Account Signatory Verification You or your designated signatory(s) will be the only person(s) with access to your offshore Panama bank account. What we do is have the bank opened up as a zero balance account; no money is in the account. Before you load the account with any funds we will show you how to securely contact the bank by phone and verify that no one else can sign on the account or otherwise access the bank account. After the account is funded online banking information will then be emailed to you directly and you reset the password securely online immediately upon receipt. ATM card will be sent by courier directly to you.
Number of Bank Accounts – You can open up more than one Panama offshore bank account in different banks using different corporations or same corporation or a corporation and a foundation. Sending funds from one corporation or foundation to another for payroll, purchases or other reasons can easily be accomplished using the ACH system in Panama which 30 large banks use. This is not a wire transfer and the data is covered by Panama Bank Secrecy laws and only entities covered by these laws have the data. It takes one to two days for the ACH transfer to be completed and the cost is about $1.00 per transaction.
Panama Bank Secrecy – Panama has strict banking secrecy laws better than any jurisdiction we know of. Panama has no tax treaty with any other country. This is not the case with tax havens like Switzerland, Belize etc. who do get into tax treaties with numerous countries. Tax treaties are the legal basis for government fishing expeditions. Fishing expeditions do not happen in Panama. If a bank employee or officer violates the bank secrecy laws they can go to prison, get fined and of course you can sue the daylights out of the offending bank. The bank secrecy laws are statutory in Panama. A question that frequently comes up is if a Panama Bank that is operating under the name of a chain of large international banks is able to maintain true Panama Bank Secrecy. Let us say the Bank is called Bank Two (no such bank in Panama) and Bank Two operates in Europe and North America with 68 bank branches in different countries. The Bank Two banks in other countries can not go into their computers and see account holder information about Panama Bank Accounts. This would violate Panama Bank Secrecy, expose the bank officers to criminal prosecution and enable you to sue the bank and its responsible parties for millions of dollars of damages. In spite of this some people prefer a bank that operates only inside of Panama and we can accommodate this sort of request.
For more information, please visit:
http://www.panamalaw.org
email at: panamalegal@hush.com

Offshore Banking & Asset Protection Center

July 17th, 2009 at 02:52am Under Banking Law

We are a law firm which means you have attorney client privilege – We specialize in Offshore Asset Protection. All of your affairs handled with us are covered by attorney client privilege which means that we could not reveal anything about you or your affairs without your specific permission or unless we were ordered to do so by a Panama Court (not a common occurrence). You can benefit from the legal protection and security of dealing with a licensed Panama Law Firm. If you buy an offshore corporation, offshore trust, offshore foundation or an offshore bank account from a non- law firm they could freely reveal your confidential information which they collect from you like name address, passport, name of corporation, bank account information etc. without any statutory penalties, in other words you do not have the benefit of attorney client privilege. Some of these corporate resale agents say they have some sort of financial privacy protections but it is flimsy and cursory at best.

Start here to learn more about why you should use a law firm for Offshore Asset Protection

Why use Panama – Panama is currently the new Switzerland and is also the number one retirement haven in the world. Panama does not tax offshore derived income, capital gains, etc. All tax violations in Panama are civil offenses, none are criminal and Panama has no tax treaties with any country. Panama actually requires all corporations to be formed by a lawyer to protect the privacy of their 400,000 corporations on file thus ensuring renewals each year. Panama cares about privacy, bank secrecy and asset protection. We only deal in Panama which is considered to be the most private jurisdiction in the world today, with the best bank secrecy laws, best corporate and foundation anonymity and strongest attorney client privilege in addition to having world class banks. Panama has no hurricanes, no earthquakes, no active volcanoes and no tsunamis which is why the Panama Canal was built here. So you do not have to worry about being unable to contact your bank by internet or telephone because a storm just passed over their island. Since we are in Panama we can and will represent any of clients who need legal representation in Panama with affordable rates ($150.00 hour). And yes we do get in our car and go down to the Panama banks representing our clients to open their bank accounts and to resolve any issues or problems that may come up down the road when our clients need our assistance. We are your corporate resident agent and would receive any official notices on behalf of your Panama Corporation or Panama foundation and of course we would understand the notices and could advise you not just say “hey, you got a document you need to read”. We are reachable by phone and email seven days a week and of course all communications with us are privileged communications. Always feel free to ask us questions by phone or email.

To learn more about why Panama excels as an Offshore Jurisdiction click here:

http://www.panamalaw.org/attributes.html

To learn more about Panama Asset protection click here:

http://www.panamalaw.org/asset_protection.html

Panama Banking – Panama boasts of having 150 international banks which is a living testimony to their strong bank secrecy laws please keeping in mind Panama is a country of 2.9 million people and these banks are in Panama City which is only about 9 square miles. All the banks we deal with have online banking including the ability to send international wire transfers. You do not need to come to Panama to open a bank account but you do need to supply reference letters and passport copies. You can even get up to 7% interest on 5 year deposits. The national currency in Panama is the US dollar but some euro accounts are available.

For more information on Panama Bank Accounts click here:

http://www.panamalaw.org/offshore_bank_account.html

For information on Offshore Debit Cards click here:

http://www.panamalaw.org/anonymous_mastercard.html

For information on offshore ATM cards click here:

http://www.panamalaw.org/anonymous_atm.html

Panama Anonymous Bearer Share Corporation – Such anonymous corporations are called by this term in Spanish – sociedad anonima. These corporations have no registry or database into which are entered the owners of the corporation. Ownership is through the printed stock certificate called bearer shares. There is no tax on offshore derived income other than the $300 annual tax included in our prices. Transfers of ownership do not have to be reported. With a Panama bearer share corporation wires moving through the wire system are not associated with any natural persons for more privacy. Panama corporations can be formed in 2-3 days. Panama bearer share corporations can own real estate anywhere in the world under Panama law.

To learn more about Panama Corporations click here:

http://www.panamalaw.org/bearer_share_corperation.html

Panama Private Interest Foundations – A Panama foundation has a number of advantages. It is like a combination of a corporation trust and will. Foundations have no real owner. The Panama foundation is anonymous. The foundation instructions are kept secret. Foundation assets including bank accounts are generally non-freezable. Foundations can own corporations and real estate.

To learn more about Panama Private Interest Foundations click here: http://www.panamalaw.org/panama_foundations.html

Panama stock Brokerage – You and or your corporation or foundation can have a Panama Stock brokerage account and play the worlds markets from home. Panama secrecy laws apply.

For more information click here:

http://www.panamalaw.org/stockbroker.html

Panama Passports, Visas and Residency – Panama offer an instant Passport program, a number of exciting and affordable visa programs.

To learn more about these exciting options click here:

http://www.panamalaw.org/passport_program.html

http://www.panamalaw.org/live_and_retire_in_panama.html

To learn more about the Panama Reforestation Visa Program click here:

http://www.panamalaw.org/reforestation_visa.html

Panama Legal Law Firm Panama Asset Protection Strategies:

Formation and Management of Anonymous Panama S.A. Bearer Share Corporations (sociedad anonima)

Asset and Estate Protection with a full range of effective strategies including Panama Foundations and Foundation Protectors

Providing corporate nominee directors and resident agent

Offshore Bank Accounts in Panama with online banking

Anonymous ownership of real estate anywhere

Anonymous ownership of boats and planes anywhere

Real Estate Investment (Panama real estate appreciating 28% per annum)

Panama Passport Program

Panama Residency, Citizenship, Visas

Stock Trading Accounts in Panama with secrecy

Offshore Visa, MasterCard from Panama Bank and other countries

Offshore ATM debit card

Offshore Merchant Accounts for high risk or low risk accounts

http://www.panamalaw.org

http://panamalaw.org/bearer_share_corperation.html

http://panamalaw.org/panama_foundations.html

http://panamalaw.org/foundation_protectors.html

Panama Bank Secrecy Laws

July 15th, 2009 at 08:53am Under Banking Law

Today Panama has become the Switzerland of Latin America. There are 150 banks in Panama many of which have their name on a 40 story modern skyscraper. Panama is often touted as having the best banking secrecy laws in the world. This author believes this to be true and we will address the bank secrecy laws of Panama in depth.
The first important point to look at is the existence of any tax treaties that Panama may be in with any other countries. This is an easy topic since Panama has no tax treaties with any other countries. Tax treaties can be privacy invasive for a banking client. Under some treaties the bank must collect a certain percentage of taxes from interest income paid to the clients and this money is turned over to the client’s home country. Other treaties call for an exchange of information so if a requesting country wanted to gather certain facts about a bank account or if a certain constituent of theirs had a bank account the bank would be obligated to provide the information. The European Union Withholding Tax Treaty is a very relevant treaty.
The next type of treaty one must look at is called the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, or MLAT. This treaty allows countries to request information from other countries in the treaty. The general way this type of treaty operates is through diplomatic channels. Panama is in such treaties. The requesting country must have a criminal case on file in the national courts of their country. They would then cite this case already in their criminal courts when the request for information is made. The requesting country would a need to show that the requested information about the Panama bank account is absolutely required to successfully prosecute the case and that the requesting country has no other way to obtain such evidence. Then the request is considered by Panama. Panama may ask for more information. Panama could deny the request on whatever grounds they wish to use. Panama could also decide to conduct their own investigation because they feel that some Panama laws may have been broken and delay the MLAT request until after they have concluded their investigation which may be some years. The statue of limitations could expire before Panama completed their investigation. This is not to say that Panama is in the habit of thwarting requests for information but Panama does have a right to investigate crimes that took place in their jurisdiction. As a result of these investigations they could confiscate assets and prosecute individuals under their own laws.
For the MLAT to take effect the violation in question must be a crime in both the requesting country and the country the information is requested from. Various MLAT treaties have all sorts of details and exceptions and should be read individually if you are seriously interested in a particular treaty. Panama not only has no tax treaties with any other nation but all income tax related offenses in Panama are civil offenses only, not criminal offenses. So tax matters are not a crime in Panama. Thus Panama does not participate in requests for information in tax offenses. Panama does cooperate in certain areas freely. If one acts fraudulently while in the capacity of a fiduciary in a financial relationship Panama will cooperate. Panama also cooperates in cases of narcotics trafficking, money laundering, terrorism and child pornography.
The Panama Bank Secrecy laws are contained in a number of different legal statues. We will go through some of the relevant ones:
The Panama National Banking Commission was formed by Cabinet Decree 238 of July 2, 1970.
Article 74 of Decree 238 deals with protecting the privacy of Panama bank clients. It states that the Commission is prevented from conducting or requesting investigations concerning the banking affairs of any bank clients. Any data obtained by the Commission in the course of its normal regulatory functions may not be revealed to any person or authority, except if subpoenaed in accordance with the legal provisions in force (Panama Court Order required). If a violation of this occurred Article 101 of this Cabinet Decree contains provisions for the dealing of such a violation.
Article 101 of Cabinet Decree 238 states that:
“Any person who furnishes information in violation of this Cabinet Decree, or who violates any of the prohibitions established in it, for which no specific punishment is provided for, shall be subject to a monetary fine as determined by the Banking Commission, without prejudice to applicable criminal and civil liabilities.” This is fairly strong language.
Article 65 of Cabinet Decree 238 deals with how the National Banking Commission may gain access to documents relating to the bank’s operation, not individual records of banking clients. The Banking Commission needs to regulate the banks financially and thus inspect their books but this is mandated to be done on a collective basis, thus the books for the bank as a whole are inspected not the records for an individual account holder at the bank. The Banking Commission may not examine or inspect any type of individual deposit accounts, nor the securities held in custody by the bank for clients, nor the safe deposit boxes belonging to clients and their contents, nor the documents associated with receiving credit from the bank, unless there is a Panama Court Order in place that specifically authorizes such inspection or examination according to Article 89 of the Panama Commercial Code.
Panama statues specify that bank secrecy may be lifted by a Panamanian court through Article 89 of the Commercial Code. This is not a commonly invoked procedure but is possible concerning serious criminal activities.
Articles 168 and 170 of the Panamanian Criminal Code contain two sections which enables criminal prosecution for violation the privacy of Panama banking clients:
Article 168. Any person that is in legitimate possession of correspondence, records or documents which are not intended for public knowledge and notwithstanding discloses said correspondence, records or document without proper authorization, even in the event that they were addressed to him, shall be subject to prosecution, whenever such disclosure might inflict damage.
Article 170. Any person that in the course of his occupation, employment, profession or activity obtains knowledge of confidential information that in the event of being made public could inflict damages, and such person discloses that information without the consent of the concerned party; or in the case that disclosure of such information were not necessary to safeguard a higher interest, shall be punishable by imprisonment of 10 months to 2 years or a comparable fine, and the inability to practice his occupation, employment, profession or activity for not more than 2 years. One can readily discern that this would cover Panama Stock Brokers, and Panama Banks including all the employees and officers. This could also be construed to cover Directors of Panama Anonymous Bearer Share Corporations and Council Members of Anonymous Panama Private Interest Foundations.
Panama has done away with numbered bank accounts as have the rest of the offshore tax haven jurisdictions. This is due to pressure from FATF, the Financial Action Task Force. FATF is a private entity that unofficially dictates anti-money laundering statues to the banks worldwide. Numbered accounts are no longer allowed.
Panama through the use of anonymous Bearer Share Corporations accomplishes practically the same privacy as the old numbered bank account. The banks around the world including those in Panama must know who their customers are. This usually means getting identity documents such as passports, driver’s licenses, national identity cards, and letters of reference from banks and businesses. The Panama Bearer Share Corporation is anonymous in that there is no reporting or recording of any stock ownership records in any registry or database thus it is impossible to determine who the natural persons are behind the corporate veil. This means when international wire transfers are sent only the name of the anonymous corporation appears in the wire, the true owner of the account is not revealed for the world to see same as it was when numbered bank accounts were allowed. With regards to writing checks the same applies assuming the signatory signs the check in a hard to read manner. To provide for more privacy Panama only allows an attorney to form a corporation or foundation. This cloaks the formation of the corporation with Panama attorney client privilege further protecting the owners of the corporation or foundation with an additional layer of privacy. In most tax haven jurisdictions the formation of a corporation handled by a corporate agent which does not provide privileged communication to protect the identity of the person owning the corporation.
One can readily see why Panama has become the new Switzerland of Latin America.
For more information, please visit:
http://www.panamalaw.org
email at: panamalegal@hush.com

California Business Law Attorney’s Guide to Making Money in the Future – Patents

July 14th, 2009 at 08:53pm Under Business Law

In these difficult economic times, new businesses are much riskier to try, but there is no more lucrative an area even in the current conditions than for an inventor or designer who can create a new invention or process and who can afford to have it patented.

Whether you live in San Diego, Orange County, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Santa Barbara, Rancho Cucamonga, Ontario, Temecula, Anaheim, Irvine, Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Santa Ana, Encinitas or Palm Springs conditions are much the same throughout California. Business is slow and much of what little real estate is selling are the foreclosed homes.

As a Business Lawyer in Southern California, people are always asking me for the next great area of business in which they can make money and what legal restrictions there might be in the future. When asked these questions the one place I don’t turn to is those newsletters that tell you how much money you would have made if you had followed their advice and invested in certain stocks or gone into the cell phone business.

For the most part, however, you can almost certainly bet that their advice is wrong, so you can likely assume that the opposite of their advice would offer a better chance of success.

Many newsletters are still focused on getting into businesses that rely on the consumer having discretionary cash to purchase unnecessary items. That’s probably not just bad advice, it’s lousy advice. Television commercials telling you that you can make tens of thousands a month working from home are a way to take your money for seminars, books and other materials that most likely in the end will cost you more than you’ll ever make, once you add in your start up costs.

On the other hand, one or two of the ideas being touted may be the fad of the future, no matter how little money people have to spend. For instance, if people will buy expensive clothes for their dogs, does that mean that they’ll buy little prom dresses for their infants? Hard to say.

However, if the high heeled shoes cause injuries to those infants, you can see the lawsuits coming already.

What’s the next item we can’t do without or that we like just fine now, but would pay an extra $50 to have a designer version of that item? That depends as much on good marketing and a good business plan as the good idea. If you have that and the resources to start production, create a website, hire a search engine optimizer to help your website get noticed on search engines and then know how to create publicity for your product, you are halfway home. But all of that costs money, lots of money, or lots and lots of time. But if the design is unique, it may make much more sense to apply for a design patent and then to license or sell your patent outright to another manufacturer.

One item that makes business run is credit. But all you hear in the news is how hard it is now to get credit for a house, for a business, for anything. You can therefore almost certainly count on new businesses popping up that offer their services in finding you credit. While this area of business is already regulated, as more and more scammers get into this business, you can be certain that more regulation will follow.

The difficulty with this type of business is that you may find it difficult not to be brushed with the same paint brush as the unscrupulous businesses who will guarantee to find a person credit for a fee and then either take the money and run or simply offer excuses why it was impossible for them to find their customer the credit they promised.

An area where there appears to be an opportunity in these times is helping others and in doing so, you may help yourself. Consumers need real help to survive this economic mess. Web sites that actually provide a service such as locating cheap gas, coupons for groceries, clothing sales or other basic necessities may be the one area in which there could be demand by the consumer. This type of service will require a lot of free advice, however, time and people to gather this information and it still could be difficult to recoup your investment.

Perhaps the best way that still exists to make a lot of money is if you can develop an idea for an invention. Utility patents are very expensive to obtain using a lawyer. Most charge from $7,500 on up depending upon the complexity. However, you can obtain a provisional patent or a design patent for substantially less and as soon as the application has been accepted (as opposed to when the patent is granted, which takes much longer) you can begin to market your invention to other companies and either license your patent pending invention to them or sell it outright.

So start thinking about what hasn’t yet been invented, or improved upon in an important way, and if you need assistance with obtaining a patent, trademark or copyright, call us or visit us at our website where you can access much more information about intellectual property.

The Future of Offshore Banking, Corporations and Foundations

July 12th, 2009 at 02:52am Under Banking Law

First it needs to be stated that no one has a crystal ball which predicts the future. These thoughts are just opinions and should be taken as such not as legal or tax advice. We will try to show the political positions of the countries that are not in favor of the tax haven offshore jurisdictions and the position of the tax haven countries. The countries most outspoken against offshore banking and offshore corporations are Australia, UK and USA.
Today there is a great outcry from these and other countries about the tax saving benefits afforded to citizens of certain countries by going offshore. These countries claim that their constituents are cheating them out of billions of dollars of taxes by going offshore. The offshore jurisdictions that are considered the tax havens say that is a nice allegation but we are not your collection agency and do not ask us to change our bank and corporate privacy laws because your constituents do not want to pay taxes, this is your problem not ours. The actual amount of taxes that are avoided unlawfully is a figure that one can only take a guess at. Many people set up offshore structures to do business outside of their home country and are not in violation of any laws the way they conduct their business affairs. Many people live in other countries and need to own offshore bank accounts, offshore corporations, offshore real estate, etc. Many people use offshore privacy to protect themselves from identity theft, kidnapping, blackmail, and possible extortion.
Let me use an analogy to make a point. In Latin America there is an organization of five states called Mercosur. Mercosur consists of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Venezuela, and Uruguay. Mercosur also has associate members which are as follows: Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Columbia and Ecuador. The Mercosur countries engage in free trade and easy border controls with no passports, just national identity cards for border crossings. Mercosur recently issued a statement that they would in the future strive to resist any further attempts to get them to spend more resources on narcotics enforcement that stems from the UN. The UN says its member countries must enact certain kinds of laws to control narcotics and states these laws and insists on enforcement policies. The Mercosur spokesperson stated that this was an irrational policy since it has not worked for over a quarter of a century and it was severely draining the resources of their countries. Essentially they said they were sick and tired of the United States which is the nation driving these policies through the UN, making their problems, the problems of other countries and they were going to collectively attempt to legalize narcotics in their own nations to free themselves from this heavy burden of narcotics enforcement. This has already begun to happen in Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina and Venezuela with the abundant legal availability of cocoa leaf. The cocoa leaf has cocaine alkaloids (real cocaine) and is commonly used as a chew like chewing tobacco leaf or made into tea leaves. Street cocaine is perhaps 30 times as potent and is diluted with harmful substances like turpentine, ether, etc. Cocoa leaf is a natural plant product used for centuries as a stimulant by people living in the high altitudes of Bolivia, farm workers etc. One can now see coca tea being sold freely on the internet but I would strongly advice you not to order any because you may get charged with narcotics importation, seriously because it can be lab tested to contain cocaine. So my point is a lot of countries have said ok enough is enough when it comes to narcotics. It is not working leave us alone, take care of your own problem. So Mercosur countries are now worrying about their own problems more and less about the narcotics issues in the USA and other nations. I think you will see more of the same type of thinking when it comes to offshore banking, offshore corporations, offshore foundations, offshore stock brokerage accounts etc.
Offshore jurisdictions have to go through all sorts of compliance that is not needed in say the USA or the UK. One offshore formation agent went to the USA and was able to open eight USA bank accounts in one day. In Panama a bank account can take five days after you collect and submit the reference letters and documents. In the USA and UK no bank reference letters are required to open a bank account, neither are any professional references required. In the USA and UK they do enforce money laundering protective measures strictly. One can buy USA corporations or UK corporations without any of the due diligence requirements that are required from offshore jurisdictions. So the playing field is not exactly level yet these countries are screaming for more controls not on themselves but on other countries. It seems that the offshore jurisdictions will scream enough is enough if any further controls are imposed on them and resist them. Of course one wonders what further controls they could come up with that they haven’t already imposed.
Let’s look at history a little to see how things deteriorated in the past regarding offshore privacy and offshore banking. Most of the older offshore tax havens are also tourist destinations such as Cayman Islands, Nassau, Bermuda, Grenada, Belize etc. These countries usually have little if any natural resources and need to bring in everything they consume. While some of them avoid income taxes instead they impose taxes on goods imported. These countries got heavily involved in tourism as a way to keep their economies moving. A cruise ship docking at these ports usually carries 2500 people. Each person probably spends an average of $100 a day when in this ports buying t-shirts, duty free liquor, tobacco, jewelry etc. many spend a good deal more. That is $250,000 per cruise ship. These jurisdictions get from 3 ships per week, to 40 ships per week docking there. The money from the cruise ships exceeds what would be earned from their previous offshore banking and incorporation activities. Remember a bank that controls hundreds of millions of dollars of deposits can only have 50 or so employees. A thriving cruise ship port can have thousands of employees working in the shops, restaurants, as tour guides, taxi drivers etc. So more jobs are at stake in the tourism business. We also have to take into account the resorts these countries have which create even more jobs and generate revenue in the form of a hotel room tax built into the rates. These countries also charge a head tax on every person coming into their country. Bottom line is there is much more money in the tourism business than there is the offshore business for the government of these jurisdictions. The governments of these countries don’t make much off of a bank account for instance, actually nothing. They have no income or capital gains tax. The offshore corporations would pay a few hundred dollars a year in taxes but that was it. The banks would pay a few thousand dollars a year for their licenses. So these countries sold out on offshore privacy to protect their tourism. If they did not do so the countries allowing tax free importation from these countries of tourist bought items might go away. Tourists returning from these countries by ship or air might find themselves stuck in long lines while they are searched and interrogated by authorities of various affected countries which would quickly and seriously discourage tourism to these countries. Other countries like Switzerland, Lichtenstein, and Luxembourg sold out due to pressure from the EU. But now we are seeing a reversal in position regarding the EU, not much of a reversal but at least a sigh of OK enough is enough.
In recent months the USA was exposed by the New York Times Newspaper in a scandal whereby they were monitoring SWIFT wire transactions for some years. SWIFT is a private company that enables banks to communicate with each other securely including sending wire transfers. SWIFT machines require a separate terminal and line so as to make them most secure. The USA served a court order on the SWIFT people in New York to turn over all the data they requested and gag ordered them to not mention what was going on. It went on for two years. This got the EU nations most upset. While they have not actually prosecuted the SWIFT people for violating the banking laws of the various European nations affected, there was serious talk of it. Whether or not obeying a USA court order to violate the banking laws of other nations is a viable defense has never been tested in any court, yet anyway. The EU position on this was they must get the USA to understand their banking laws call for privacy. This of course is not exactly giving ground for more privacy invasive laws which is what we mean by a reversal.
Today the most privacy oriented jurisdiction in the world is Panama. Panama has 400,000 corporations registered there. Panama requires corporation formation agents to be lawyers and their know your client rules are strict and call for criminal penalties if not followed. Panama banks follow tight anti-money laundering laws as well as know your customer laws. Panama does still allow for anonymous bearer share corporations which do not require the entry into any registry of any ownership names or identities. The anonymous bearer share corporations combined with Panama bank secrecy laws make for the best privacy in the world today. Panama foundations are also anonymous with no owners, beneficiaries or protectors names appearing in any registry or database. Panama is also in no tax treaty with any other country and is fairly unique in this regards. Of course one can ask the question if Panama can sustain their practices under pressure from other nations.
First off Panama does follow the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) practices. Secondly Panama does not exactly have a lot of tourism, actually it has quite a small amount of tourism and most of their tourism comes from Latin America not the EU or USA. This means there is no meaningful tourism that can be taken away. Panama is a small country and 15% to 20% of the workforce is employed by the international banks. Panama has 400,000 corporation registered there who each pay $300 in annual corporate taxes. This comes to $120,000,000 dollars and this is for a country of 2.9 million people. Also consider these corporations are paying for resident agents, nominee directors etc. Then we get into Panama Foundations which also collect $300 in annual taxes each year plus nominee council member fees. Panama will and has resisted attempts to compromise banking secrecy and corporate secrecy.
Again let us look towards history to see what we can learn, this time focusing on anonymous bearer share corporations. The issue with anonymous bearer share corporations is that when the international wires are monitored it is impossible to tell who the natural persons are behind the bearer share corporations sending or receiving the wires. The British Virgin Islands used to offer anonymous bearer share corporations. A few years ago they gave in to pressure from the UK and stopped issuing new bearer share corporations but they did make allowances for the existing bearer share corporations to remain anonymous for 10 years. After that time they would need to dissolve or operate in a non-anonymous mode. If we want to look on the dark side we can consider Panama doing the same if international pressure ever built up sufficiently to force a change. So of course those owning an existing bearer share corporation would be unaffected for ten years and these corporations would probably go up significantly in value on the secondary market. We have absolutely no indications subtle or otherwise that anything is going to change in Panama.
It is also a possibility that some other nations may enter into the bank secrecy arena in the near future and some other nations may return to bank secrecy as well. Only time will tell. Nothing we see gives any inkling of an idea that Panama will reverse on its position of bank and corporate privacy and it appears that things may have already sunk to an all time low and offshore banking and corporate privacy may actually soon start to improve, first with the wire transfer system and later on in other areas.
For more information, please visit:
http://www.panamalaw.org
email at: panamalegal@hush.com