Move (and Protect) Your Assets, Before You Move Your A**
You don't have to move to the United Arab Emirates or for that matter, the great state of Wyoming to place your assets under the protective umbrella of an LLC in these places.
When people think of the global relocation industry, they often imagine exotic locales and living the dream of working from a tropical beach in Thailand or retiring at age 45 to Mexico's Riviera Maya. When folks hear the word offshoring, they tend to think of the bank accounts in the Cayman Islands or (if they happen to be Germans) in Liechtenstein. Older Americans, Canadians and Britons will think about Swiss bank accounts as caricatured in the James Bond movies, but also from back in the days of the 60s, 70s and 80s when the Swiss still upheld their strict neutrality and banking secrecy laws. But did you know that the United States is itself one of the world's leading offshoring destinations?
It's true, the economy of Sheridan, Wyoming, where a high school buddy of ES.W's publisher plans to move sometime in late 2024, is quietly humming. And not only from tourists stopping to gas up and eat en route to Grand Teton National Park, or the historical mainstays of cattle ranching or oilfield services. Mainstreet Sheridan (population 17,500, give or take a few tourists and cows) and its law offices in early 20th century buildings are busy year-round anonymously registering thousands of domestic and overseas corporations. And many of the foreign corporations registering a Wyoming subsidiary are either managed by U.S. citizens, or have U.S. citizens and/or legal permanent residents as the ultimate beneficiaries of Wyoming trusts.
The truth is, you don't have to move abroad to keep assets outside the U.S. or to form a UAE corporation to protect your assets overseas that in turn, owns a Wyoming LLC for the purposes of doing American business--and limiting your liability--in the USA. So this means that offshoring and anonymizing--to the fullest extent legally possible--your assets is not an all-or-nothing proposition. It's a question, first of all, of how much time do you have available to do the research or better yet, find experts who've already researched it for you, and tailoring the options to your bespoke business needs. Contrary to the stereotypes imagined by the general public, who are deliberately kept in the dark by the powers that be, such smart moves do not require being a multi-multi-millionaire or billionaire.
Privacy, like charity, begins at home--and it's a globally sought luxury good for which people will pay dearly in the coming years.
The fundamental principal remains though--in most of the world it is still much easier to move assets once liquidated than it is people. Before flying all over the world to look for a country in which to resettle, figure out how to legally move and shelter your assets first.
You may have imagined tales from the 1960s about the stereotypical jet-setting Manhattanite who enjoyed the skiing in Gstaad. But Don Draper's wealthy clients at Sterling Cooper like a fictional Conrad Hilton didn't need to move to Switzerland to maintain Swiss bank accounts.
Just think of Wyoming and the UAE as the new Switzerlands of onshore and offshore wealth preservation, respectively. And think of ExitStrategy.world as your introductory portal to a team of subject matter experts that can show you the way--whether you're presently residing in Texas or Thailand.
It's time to start creating your own free world.
– James Smith, ExitStrategy.World,
Editor-in-Chief and Publisher
August 31, 2023