Today, I’m going to take on a widely promoted, widely advertised product that you should stay away from. Don’t touch it.
What is it? Domestic asset protection.
Well, simple, domestic asset protection and domestic asset protection trusts. This is absolutely a ridiculous way to spend your hard-earned money thinking you’re getting decent asset protection.
It’s only worth two minutes, but places like Delaware, Alaska, Nevada, and several other states have enacted asset protection rules so that their corporate service providers can promote domestic asset protection trusts.
But guys, it’s just as much work to do a domestic trust as an offshore trust. Why not go to some place where you can make your opponent spend oh $10 to collect 10 cents? Make it so that they don’t understand the culture, the language, the rules. Why make it easy for your creditors? Actually, asset protection is game theory as much as it is reality. Yes, you need to have good technology.
Technology needs to be something you can disclose, and you need to never be ashamed of it. It has to make logical, legal, ethical sense, but why make it easy. So, bottom line, stay away from domestic asset protection trusts. They do stink. They have for 12 years, and they will continue to stink.