How to Overthrow the Government (2 of 2)

Going offshore on the Internet

By Josh McHugh

IF YOU HAVE A MODEM, an Internet account and encryption software, you can
start a Web business based in a Caribbean tax haven. Just get in touch with
Offshore Information Services Ltd. (www.offshore.com.ai), an Anguillan
company started in 1994 by Vincent Cate. Cate, 33, is a U.S. expatriate
with degrees in computer science from Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon.

Send him your name, phone number, Email address and a proposed Web address
for your business. Cate sets up the Web site and arranges for an Anguillan
lawyer to check your references and register your corporation. As long as
the background checks don't reveal you to be a fraud, a felon or a
"spammer" (a purveyor of junk Email), you'll be in business. Cate claims
to have set up a dozen online businesses this way.

Cate will send you forms to open a corporate account with an Anguillan
branch of Barclay's or Scotia Bank, or with the National Bank of Anguilla.
You can pay his $1,500 fee by check, credit card, electronic wire transfer
or a digital currency like CyberCash orif you want the transaction to be
untraceableDigicash Inc.'s Ecash. To get Ecash, you can open an account
with Mark Twain Bancshares over the Internet (www. marktwain.com). Mark
Twain, acquired in April by Mercantile Bancorp, is the only U.S. bank
issuing Ecash, but Deutsche Bank, Australia's Advance Bank and Norway's Den
Norske Bank issue it as well.

Why would you want to start an offshore Web business? Perhaps to hawk a
stocktip letter, microchip designs or saucy limericks. You can accept
credit card payments over the Internet.

Cate's server, running your Web page, is equipped with software by C2Net
(see story) that encrypts the payment sessions.

Anguilla doesn't levy any tax on ventures like this one. Neither does it
cooperate with the Internal Revenue Service in tracking down U.S. tax
dodgers. But don't try dealing drugs. Anguilla does occasionally team up
with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

What do you do with your revenue? The money, from charge card credits, will
be deposited in the Anguillan account of your corporation. You can spend
the money by drawing on it with a corporate credit card or debit card. That
means you could make cash withdrawals without visiting Anguilla; just use
the debit card at a U.S. automatic teller machine.

Is this activity legal? Yes, if you tell the IRS about it and pay tax on
your take. On Schedule B of your 1040, you have to fess up to owning an
offshore bank account. Leave off the information and you have committed a
felony.

An IRS spokesman says the agency has no special programs to address the
taxcollection difficulties posed by encryption and Internet access to
offshore business. Maybe the agency should look into it.

_._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
K U B B Y F O R G O V E R N O R
98 CALIFORNIA 98

email: kubby@alpworld.com
P.O. Box 2025, Olympic Valley, CA 96146
http://www.alpworld.com/kubby98
_._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
B o o k s b y S t e v e K u b b y:

THE POLITICS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
http://www.alpworld.com/HEALTH/Bio/politics.html

WHY MARIJUANA SHOULD BE LEGAL
http://www.alpworld.com/HEALTH/Prop_215/medical.html
_._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
Join the Libertarian Party today.
http://www.lp.org/

"Most governments in the world, their entire function is simply to manage
catastrophe at this point, because they have no plan, they have no vision,
they're utterly clueless. Basically, they're waiting for flying saucers or
the Second Coming to somehow cancel the nightmare that their own
institutions and methods have made inevitable."

Terence McKenna