Offshore trust anonymity

[David Pimenov]

Under what circumstances can a u.s. citizen have an offshore trust where the govt cant tax money on the funds inside the trust and at the same time cant look into the origin of such funds as long as a foreign citizen is managing such trust? Would this be realistically possible or not?  

[Mike S.]

First you need to trust that foreign citizen as you will have no control of this trust... There are a lot of stories of scam.

Second, while it is easy to make money "disappear" in an offshore setup and grow in some tax advantage shelter, is is a completely different game to use to make that money "reappear" and use it.

Last, it is called tax evasion and will cost you heavy fines and many years in jail.

There are however some legal ways to put your money offshore for excellent asset protection and access to other alternative investment that could you not access from the US. But it is tax neutral and you will continue to pay US taxes if you are a US person. The setup is expensive to maintain and the tax reporting is usually a PITA. These kind of structure is usually not worth it for asset under $10M.