You can’t keep your wealth a secret from the IRS. Not while staying on the good side of the law in any event.
That doesn’t mean everybody else has to be able to nose around in your affairs though.  Sure, you may think you’ve got nothing to hide.  And you don’t, really.  But if you want to protect your assets, you need to start playing your cards closer to the vest. And you don’t have to hide your assets outside the country either, at least not necessarily.  All you have to do is set up your assets in the right way and anyone who might want to come snooping will have a much harder time to find any of them.
Why should you go to the trouble?  Sure, there’s the unsavory reality of cyber crime, and nosy or grabby members of your extended family.  But the real reason why you should keep your assets out of the public eye is that doing so will make it much less likely that you’ll get sued.  Really.  How so, you may wonder.  Well, if a lawyer is looking around to sue someone, he or she is mostly after what could be gained by that.  If there’s a lot of money to be made, they’ll go for it.  If there’s not much there — or if the chances that they’ll be able to get their hands on it are remote, they are very likely to pass.
So how do the experts find out how much you’re worth?  There are people out there who specialize in digging up other people’s assets.  And they have the experience as well as the tools to find almost anything.   When there’s a judgment and the assets aren’t already out in the open, they’re the ones who often are able to find them.
What can you do?  Even professional snoops prefer low-hanging fruit.  So if the money is easy to find, they’ll be sure to find it.  But you can make it hard for them.  At least make them work for the money.  And depending on just how hard you make it for them, they may not even try.  It’s just not worth it.
So what you want to do is think like a snoop.  What would be easy to find, and what would be not so easy?  Take that as the basis from where you develop your asset protection plan.  In fact, whenever you think about investing anything, think about how hard — or easy — it would be to track down.
In my next post… what happens if you’re sued and lose?

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