Un-confiscatable fund?

[Lumpy]

A purely theoretical question, just idle curiousity:

Suppose I had quite a bit of money, but felt very insecure about my long-term prospects, and I couldn't bear the thought of going from being a billionare to total poverty. Is there any way to establish some stash of money, say a paltry ten million or so, that would be there no matter what happened to me? That couldn't be forfeited under bankruptcy, seized for back taxes, awarded as damages in a civil suit, confiscated under the RICO act, etc.? In other words, the economic equivalent of an "escape pod"?

[CnoteChris]

Off-shore bank account, preferably Swiss.

While their getting some heat to forfeit monies, there still a reliable place to hide money.

IIRC, the Cayman Islands are another fav. for the crimi's.

[sailor]

people who have such amounts of money find plenty of ways, both legal and illegal, to protect their asses and do not generally post their findings in places like this.

So, speaking as one that has no assets to protect, I would guess, if one day i became a billionaire, I would consult a lawyer about legal ways to protect my assets and I suppose he might mention trust funds, placing assets in foreign jurisdictions (and declaring them here) etc.

I suppose the illegal way would be to place some assets in foreign places and keep them hidden.

But I would think you can never be totally safe. just diversify your risk.

OTOH if Uncle Sam throws you in jail, plenty of money abroad ain't gonna be much help except to pay lawyers and even then you'd have to be extra careful.

Come to think about it, being poor sometimes saves a lot of worry. Having nothing to lose I can just say with Alfre E, Neuman "What? Me worry?" :-)

[CnoteChris]

Adding to what Sailor said, a good lawyer to hire is F. Lee Bailey.

He seems quite adept at hiding funds.

[yabob]

You may be interested in developments like this:

http://www.enviroweb.org/hecweb/archive/reform/+tax_havens.htm