most good brokers will keep your details secret unless there is a court order placed. try wiring your funds between brokerage account and a swiss account. most swiss banks will provide accounts in any currency you wish. swiss banks will not release ANY details even with an international court order UNLESS they believe the money is from/for terrorism and/or drug money. these are the only two reasons. if they see money coming in from a brokers wire they will be fine. if ANY government or the irs come knocking, they WILL show the 2 finger salute!
I like this idea. But fintrac caps on max cash withdrawls make this somewhat impractical for moving large sums around (10k+). One idea might be to reinvest trading capital into spot gold (unmargined), take physical delivery and barter with state-side precious stone dealers for exchange. Fly the stones to switzerland, sell them - having proceeds wired into a numbered swiss account. This way, you can move large amounts of coin out of country with no paper trail. Of course, this would be tantamount to tax evasion assuming you forget to report the swiss account on your t4. But what the hell!
This is not that difficult assuming the goal is to become judgement-proof and not to evade taxes. Incorporate in Nevis and open a Swiss bank account. Have your firm pay your LLC (wire it to the swiss account). Then, you wire money to your US account and pay taxes on that money (the rest not yet being taxed - think of it as a 401k without any contribution limits or lockup period or withrdawal penalties). If a judgement is assessed and your account is attached, your loss is capped at the amount of your last transfer. If you're looking to be totally insulated, open with a swiss bank that offers a debit card and forget the US account altogether. This is pretty straightforward stuff assuming you aren't planning to evade taxes. An added level of security would be to wire into the US through a dummy account (ie, make in internal transfer from your actual account to the dummy account before going into the US). This would quash any audit trail as your real account number would never be listed on any transfers.
Fader, Have you or anyone you have known implemented these ideas? I like them and I have looked into a Panamanian IBC or Nevis, but Panama requires 2 current banking references for a Panamanian bank account. This is a problem as it will raise suspiscions instantly. I would probably be flagged by DHS, even though I have done nothing wrong. Do Swiss banks require banking references before they allow you to opean a bank account? The other country which seems to be very similar to Switzerland is Austria and even Leichtenstein. A few years back I looked into Anglo Irish in Austria, they seemed very professional and large. Will a US based broker frown upon an IBC from Panaman or Nevis?
Before I went into trading, I used to do Anti-Money Laundering compliance here in NYC - very boring, but I learned a lot. I'm partial to swiss banks only because of thier history, solvency, etc. The government isn't going to annex them in the event of a coupe. Just register the LLC anywhere where there are no taxes at all. Transfering money between the US and Switzerland (or anywhere) is not illegal or suspicious. The only snag I could think of is being questioned by your bank regarding the Nevis entity since it's a known money laundering area. But again, if you have documenatation and provide them will all the info they request, you'll be fine. I plan to do this when I get a bit more money (100k+). Investing your money tax-free from a foreign bank account is simply a hyper-charged 401k. Just be to sure to pay the regular income tax on all incoming tranfers.