If you are a high net worth person who is about to get married, you should consider transferring your assets to an Offshore Asset Protection Trust to protect your assets in the event of a divorce. Fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce. If that happens, then your Ex will have a claim on your assets and if those assets are situated here, then the courts here have jurisdiction over those assets. If you transfer your assets to an Offshore Asset Protection Trust to a jurisdiction that does not recognize foreign judgements (say the Cook Islands, for example) then legally you can say you don ..read more

The CRA has announced that bare trusts are not required to file a 2023 T3 return, unless the CRA requests it. This includes the new T3 Schedule 15 “Beneficial ownership information of a trust. If you would like more information on bare trusts click here The post Bare Trusts Exempt From 2023 Filing Requirements first appeared on MacDonald's Tax Law ..read more

People often ask me if they will be able to reduce their income tax liability by establishing an Offshore Trust. The short answer is, “NO”, so long as they are resident in Canada. Canada’s tax system is based on residency. If you are a Canadian resident, then you are taxed in Canada on your worldwide income. In Canada, an Offshore Trust can either b a “factual” resident or a “deemed” resident for tax purposes. The courts consider an Offshore Trust to be a factual resident of the place where the central management and control over the trust is exercised. So if you reside in Canada, and you are ..read more

I recently got retained to defend what appeared to me to be a bogus Statement of Claim. By bogus, I mean it had little to no chance of success. The plaintiff had issued the claim himself and was unrepresented by a lawyer. I did a quick online search of the plaintiff’s name on the Ontario Superior Court’s data base and found that he had sixteen other cases where he was suing someone and another sixteen over the last twenty years where he was also suing someone. Based on that I suspected that he was a “professional plaintiff” and so advised my client. What is a professional plaintiff? Well, it ..read more

A few days ago, I had a meeting with one of my Trustee companies that I use in the Cook Islands to set up Offshore Asset Protection Trusts for my clients, and they asked me why they were getting such a huge increase in business from Canadians. Apparently more and more Canadians are establishing Offshore Asset Protection Trusts in the Cook Islands than ever before. The most commons reason I get from prospective clients as to why they are looking to move their assets out of Canada and into a Cook Islands Asset Protection Trust is that they do not trust the Justin Trudeau government. We all reme ..read more

When you set up an Asset Protection Trust, I recommend that you make it an irrevocable trust in an offshore jurisdiction. The reason for this is because if the trust is revocable, then a court could order you to wind up the trust to pay your creditors in the event of a lawsuit. This would defeat the purpose of setting up the trust in the first place, namely, to protect your assets from creditors. My preferred place to establish an Offshore Asset Protection Trust is the Cook Islands. If an irrevocable Asset Protection Trust is established in the Cook Islands, then a Canadian court has no autho ..read more

If you are looking to set up an Offshore Asset Protection Trust, how long it will take to set it up depends on how long it will take you to get me the documents I need. We recommend establishing your Offshore Asset Protection Trust in the Cook Islands because that is the friendliest jurisdiction for judgment proofing yourself from lawsuits or other creditors. In most cases I will need you to provide the following documents: 1. A birth certificate of the settlor (that’s you in most cases) and / or proof of citizenship. 2. Passport photo and identification. 3. A Banking Letter of Reference. 4 ..read more

Paraguay is one of the easiest and quickest countries to get resident status. It is also very tax friendly for individuals and businesses. There is no income tax on income sourced from outside of Paraguay. And the corporate tax rate is 10% of net profit. There are two ways to get residency. One, is to apply for a temporary residence permit and the second way is to apply for a permanent residence permit. A temporary residence permit is valid for two years. It can be renewed or converted to a permanent residency after 21 months. Basically, anyone without a criminal record or criminal charges pe ..read more

That’s one of the first questions people usually ask me when they are thinking about establishing an Offshore Asset Protection Trust. The cost of setting up an Offshore Asset Protection Trust will depend on a number of factors including which jurisdiction you are establishing your trust in, how many trustees you have, the value of the assets being transferred into the trust, and whether you want to have a “Protector” to oversea the trustee. The most expensive place to establish an Offshore Asset Protection Trust is the Cook Islands. To set-up a trust in the Cook Islands, it will cost you betw ..read more

In previous posts, I’ve written about establishing an Offshore Asset Protection Trust to protect your assets from lawsuits and creditors. Setting up and maintaining an Offshore Asset Protection Trust is expensive. Depending on which jurisdiction you use, it will cost you between $USD 25,000.00 to $USD 50,000.00 to establish an Offshore Asset Protection Trust. And your annual maintenance costs will be between $USD 5, 000.00 and $USD 10,000.00. Clients often ask me if they really need an Offshore Asset Protection Trust to protect their assets, and are there other less expensive methods? The ans ..read more