Read This Before Considering Panama as a Offshore Jurisdiction

We used to be in Panama before relocating to Guatemala. We used to use Panama for many of our clients. We are in turbulent times and things change. Here is a breakdown of the changes that we see.

How Good are Panama Corporations? – The Panama SA corporations are anonymous bearer share corporations. Your name does not appear in any public registry or database. The name of the law firm, date of formation, names of the nominees does appear in a publicly accessible database. The database is even accessible on the internet. This can give a financial adversary more information about your corporation than we would like. For instance by seeing the formation date they can plan an attack for fraudulent conveyance actions against your money in a Panama Bank.

Panama Corporations vs. Nevis Corporations - The better solution we have found is Nevis. Nevis is a Caribbean Island known for secrecy. There is no public registry in Nevis. No internet access at all. You can not walk into a government office on Nevis and access corporate records. Only the government and nevis lawyers can access the database of corporate records. There are legal restrictions on lawyer access to the database. They cannot just go look things up because they want to. It gets better. If a person wants to bring an action in a Nevis court to get into your corporate records, or Nevis bank account they have to post a $25,000 CASH bond with the Nevis court to start the proceeding. Then they have to pay a Nevis lawyer as well. On top of this they need to have venue and authority which is most often not the case. If you do not have a brick and mortar business located in Nevis, are not in a dispute with a Nevis citizen or resident the odds are great that there would not be enough venue and authority for the Nevis courts to take the case. Just having a Nevis corporation is not going to be enough for Nevis courts. Nevis is an offshore asset prot4ection and tax haven jurisdiction and wishes to remain as such. Nevis corporations are bearer shares without any names placed on the share certificates. They can be formed in a week or less. In fact the way we do it your name does not appear on any records or in any registry anywhere on the entire Island of Nevis. We do feel it is the best offshore tax haven corporation for privacy and asset protection.

Nevis LLC Information & Laws

Nevis Corporate Bank Accounts in Belize - We generally use Nevis LLC corporations to open bank accounts in Belize. While the Nevis banking scenario is fine the banks in Nevis lack full online banking capability. This means only balance and history can be checked online. When one wants to send out a wire this must be done by fax. Many clients find this an inconvenience so they prefer to use Belize banks. Belize banks do not require a bank reference letter. The national language is English. They return emails promptly. They have no Tax Information Exchange Agreement with the USA. One can have four currencies in their Belize bank account (USD, Euro, Pound Sterling and Canadian). Not as many as Hong Kong but enough for some modest diversification to protect purchasing power. For more privacy and greater asset protection we use the Belize Trust with a Belize bank, see below paragraph on Belize trusts.

Bank Accounts in Belize

Panama Foundations vs. Belize Trusts – The Panama Foundation and the Belize Trust are both alike in many ways. They both have no owner and they are both used to hold assets. They can both have bank accounts, own shares of corporations, be beneficiaries of other trusts or foundations, own real estate, cars, boats, planes etc. The big vulnerability of the Panama Foundation is it opens the person up to fraudulent conveyance actions. Panama has a two year window for a creditor to bring a fraudulent conveyance action against you and/or your assets in Panama. This is a term that means you took monies or assets out of the reach of a creditor to avoid them getting these assets to satisfy a judgment. In some cases in certain USA states a fraudulent conveyance action can be established even pre-judgment. They base it on whether or not the case has started in court before the movement of the assets. This could affect you if you move assets to an offshore corporation or foundation after a judgment has been awarded against you and in some states even if the case has not yet been finalized. So while the Panama Foundation is a decent asset protection vehicle, the Belize Trust is much superior. The Belize Trust assets are statutorily exempt from the decisions of any foreign court (non Belize) including claims of fraudulent conveyance. This is written in the law and is a massive plus. The assets have to also be in Belize to enjoy the full protection offered by the Belize Trust. Assets say banked in another jurisdiction other than Belize would be covered by the law of that jurisdiction.

Belize Trusts and Belize Bank Account

Panama Banks – In recent times we have found the Panama banks difficult to work with. They want a person to appear physically at the bank to get an account open. It is extremely difficult for USA and Canadian persons to get accounts open in Panama. They want forms filled out allowing reportage of the account to the IRS if they are US persons. They want waivers of bank secrecy as well. We get complaints of accounts being closed for what we consider to be frivolous reasons. They have a habit of challenging wires as to source of funds etc. They require a bank reference letter to open the account. Many banks will no longer issue such letters anymore. In some jurisdictions a bank reference letter can be construed as a suspicious transaction and trigger a report by the bank. We refrain from opening bank accounts that require a bank reference letter. We think that Belize and Hong Kong are far superior banking options today.

Panama vs. Hong Kong Banks – The Honk Kong bank only requires a scan of a passport and a utility bill. No personal visit, No notary or apostille required like Panama wants. Hong Kong Banks have government bank insurance for the entire deposit and this is not the case at all with Panama which has no bank insurance at all. Only USA, Canada, Switzerland (Canton Banks) and Hong Kong are offering substantial bank insurance. US and Canada do not insure the full deposit as Hong Kong does. Hong Kong lets you bank in ten different currencies. Panama is mostly USD but some Panama banks allow Euros but do not pay interest on Euros and their conversion rates are not cheap. You can own gold in your Hong Kong bank account, no so with Panama. They speak English in Honk Kong as an official language. Not the case in Panama and Panama banks do not have a lot of English speakers but usually have some. The Hong Kong bank we use answers the phone 24/7. Try getting through to a Panama bank on the phone let alone 24/7. The Hong Kong bank we use also returns emails swiftly which has not been the experience for many of our clients using Panama banks. The Honk Bank we use is a trillion dollar bank larger by far than any bank in Panama. The government of Hong Kong is basically controlled by China and is very stable. Hong Kong has no Tax Information Exchange Agreements like Panama. The Hong Kong Corporations are anonymous bearer share. You get the share certificates with no name on them. Your name does not appear in any public registry or database. There is strong bank secrecy in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a major financial center not a tax haven like Panama. Hong Kong is not about to be pushed around like some of the smaller tax havens. Just the government bank insurance alone should make this choice not much of a choice. When you add in the other factors Hong Kong really excels as a safe, secure private jurisdiction.

Hong Kong Bank Accounts and Hong Kong Corporations

Secure, Private Email: staff@panamalaw.org To protect your privacy, you can communicate with us on our private email server. PGP encryption is available for this address. Our PGP key is available here.   Free, easy voice communication: Skype is a free and easy to use piece of communication software that lets you talk to us by voice or type in a chat with us. The voice quality is excellent and it is free to use. Skype has encryption so the ISP has no idea what was said or typed. This is casual security only. When using Skype be sure to: 1. Go to your system preferences and make sure the correct microphone and speakers are enabled. 2. Go to Skype preferences and make sure the correct microphone and speakers are enabled and the volume is up. Please make the free Skype test call to see if it is working correctly. Our Skype user name is: PanamaLaw.org   http://zfoneproject.com You can use Yahoo Messenger Voice chat with zFone for VOIP communication with encryption. Zfone is open source code software which means no back doors. Together you will have unbeatable military grade encryption. This is the best secure encrypted communications method out there. YMessenger: panamalaworg For complete details, download links and step-by-step instructions, See this page.

Disclaimer

*Offshore Legal Associates Law Firm.We have no legal ties or associations with any other law firm or corporation with similar or like sounding names anywhere and should not be so confused with any other entity having a similar or like sounding name.