I previously wrote here about a well respected North Carolina attorney facing serious jail time for allowing himself to get enmeshed in a fraudulent offshore trust scheme. Continuing with the "let’s bash" offshore trusts theme, Jonathan Alper’s blog, the Florida Asset Protection Blog, had the following to say about a recently published Senate Committee Report (401 pages!) examining abusive offshore trust schemes:
I occasionally get email questions about offshore trusts for people interested in sheltering income taxes. My reply always is that asset protection planning is income tax neutral, and that an asset protection plan is not designed to reduce taxes. Nevertheless, there are promoters and attorneys who market various plans to reduce income tax involving one or more offshore legal entity. There is a well know website called Quatloos.com which reports on tax evasion scams and the prosecution of their promoters. In a November 1, 2006, post Quatloos includes a report on offshore tax havens written by the U.S. Senate committee investigating income tax scams.
The Senate report is lengthy but very interesting. Anyone who is thinking of involvement in an offshore legal structure promising to reduce income tax should read portions of the Senate report. The report is very detailed in its description of abusive offshore tax schemes, and it names the promoters and attorneys responsible.