1/ This is a memo outlining 11 ways to hide your money offs…

2/ The “11 ways” memo is part of a huge trove of documents—350,000 to be exact—leaked from inside a trust company called La Hougue, based on an island off the coast of France.

Amid the data, this memo stood out for its candor.

3/ After one tax expert reviewed it, he told @SamEifling and @CalynShaw, “I have to say I’m not sure what else I can add other than ‘WTF’? (you can quote me on that). How stupid (or confident nothing will ever happen to you) do you have to be to put this in writing?”

4/ Mother Jones and @GlobalRepCentre are surfacing this particular memo simply because it’s the sort of thing you never see: a customer-facing document obtained in a big offshore data leak, quoting dollar amounts that few people ever hold in their hands at one time.

5/ Each of the 11 options listed in the memo offers some sort of contrived business deal by which you move money into an anonymous offshore account. And—here’s where the genius lies—they design those deals to give you some sort of tax break. The methods are, at best, legal-ish.

6/ So, let’s say you are a member of the global 1 percent looking to outsmart your own government. Here are a few options at your disposal, according to the memo…

7/ Strategy No. 1: Pay yourself.

For instance, you could hire an offshore company to do some fake consulting for your business (who knows what consultants do anyway, right?). Your payments go to your offshore account, and you get to write off the fees as an expense.

8/ Strategy No. 2: Invest in guaranteed failures.

Lose your money on bad “investments.” You can lucratively lose 6-figure sums by lending to and investing in companies that never show a profit (or even care to earn one). Then you get to write off the planned losses at tax time.

9/ Strategy No. 3: Hide your assets.

Does someone owe you money? Don’t invoice them—have them send that payment directly into your offshore account, so you never have to declare it.

10/ Strategy No. 4: Pay fake penalties.

Owe your money to a third party (who is, in effect, you). If you can produce a contract that says you owe money—that becomes a business expense.

11/ Strategy No. 5: Sell your company to yourself.

Sell off part of your business (to a secretive entity you happen to control). If you don’t appear to own the business, you don’t have to pay taxes on its profits.

12/12 See more ways to hide your wealth offshore—and read the memo for yourself—here: https://t.co/N6RUDqHVfR

And if you’re curious about what else showed up in that batch of 350,000 leaked documents, read more from @GlobalRepCentre: https://t.co/vtAregqTwR

1/ This is a memo outlining 11 ways to hide your money offshore.

It was not supposed to “fall into the wrong hands.”

Well, it did. https://t.co/N6RUDqHVfR

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1/ This is a memo outlining 11 ways to hide your money offshore.It was not supposed to “fall into the wrong hands.”Well, it did. https://t.co/N6RUDqHVfR

More from Finance

You May Also Like

1/ This is a memo outlining 11 ways to hide your money offshore.

It was not supposed to “fall into the wrong hands.”

Well, it did. https://t.co/N6RUDqHVfR