Safeguarding Your Assets

The 10 largest verdicts in 2008 to individual plaintiffs totalled a record breaking $2.8 billion, including eight awards over $100 million, according to our research. The litigation explosion provides an opportunity for the astute client to benefit from asset protection strategies safeguarding their assets from exposure. Costs have dropped and it is now an affordable and necessary part of overall wealth planning.

It also provides an important professional opportunity for trusted advisors to expand their services and we regularly work with other CPAs and lawyers in this area.

Consider the following:

– Ninety-five percent of the litigation on this planet takes place in the U.S.; In 2009, over 20 million lawsuits will be filed; There are more lawyers in West Los Angeles alone than in all of Japan, the world’s second largest economy.

Asset protection structuring involves using multiple strategies from a continuum of planning alternatives to work in concert to protect wealth from “creditors and predators.” There is no “one-size-fits-all” product. Rather, an individually-tailored, carefully- designed plan created by skilled, experienced advisors is required for optimal asset protection. More powerfully, selecting a jurisdiction offshore for nominal ownership places the title to assets outside of the reach of the U.S. courts. If, in addition, actual assets are located offshore, they are totally out of the reach of the U.S. Justice system. Powerful domestic asset protection strategies can be integrated with the offshore asset protection trust to provide a reasonable degree of protection, although at a somewhat lower level of protection. Avoiding a fraudulent conveyance means care must be exercised.

By Selwyn Berger