What Is Asset Protection?
Asset Protection Planning is the cornerstone to the sustenance of long term Wealth. Families of great wealth have always known that wealth preservation is as important than wealth accumulation. Loss of assets may come in many forms; Lawsuits, Taxes, Divorce, Injury, and Death. While most of us already take some measures to limit our losses (i. e. car insurance, health insurance, life insurance, tax planning to mitigate loss to the IRS), much of us do not secure ourselves and our family against loss from lawsuits and creditors.
It is no secret that the United States is the most litigious country in the world, with over ninety four percent (94%) of the worlds lawsuits right here in this country. (We know, our firm handles much Civil Litigation). To protect yourself youll need to use a combination of preventive legal strategies designed to place your assets beyond the reach of future lawsuit adversaries before you become the target of a lawsuit. You can do so by combining the best international and domestic entities and preventive strategies.
What Asset Protection is Not
Asset Protections is NOT fraud. It is NOT hiding assets to avoid present creditors. It does NOT violate the Fraudulent Conveyance Laws. Asset Protection is the legal strategy to legitimately structure your affairs to minimize losses from creditors, lawsuits, taxes, divorce, injury, and death.
What type of plan should I use?
One great combination is using an Asset Protection Trust (APT) to own 99% of a Family Limited Partnership (FLP), where you act as the (Managing) General Partner, with full control over the assets. The APT would own the limited partnership interests, allowing for a flexible, private, and asset protected structure. Your APT can also be a member of a Limited Liability Company (LLC) (or be a stockholder in a domestic or international CORPORATION (or a series of such legal entities) so that while ownership in held inside the APT, assets remain under your control.
The APT is domiciled in a jurisdiction which by law will not recognize judgments of United States (foreign) courts. Further, the structure is tax-neutral. The use of the flee clause allows the trustee to move assets (when necessary) and the APT itself from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. This can significantly raise the cost to your legal adversary, who will be forced to either settle with you out-of-court or face mounting legal costs in a frustrating series of jurisdictions around the world.
How much does it cost?
A simple Asset Protection Plan will start at $1,500.00, or may be more, depending on how bullet-proof your asset protection plan needs to be and the risks you face. But, the consequence of NOT protecting your assets could be much more expensive if you simply wait to become the target of a lawsuit. The real savings is in the question: "How much does it cost to rebuild your nest-egg if you literally have to start over financially?"
See how we can help you.