| Quote: | |  | |
| I started to read the responses but they were so ignorant and nasty that I broke off the effort.
Pre-bankruptcy planning is no more immoral or illegal than consulting a criminal lawyer about whether something is a crime, or having a criminal lawyer (a different one) defend you if you have been accused of a crime. Never mind Liz Cheney who would hold defense lawyers guilty of something or other. Even the Nuremberg defendants had defence lawyers.
The issues here are:
1) Exempt property. If the debtor were filing for bankruptcy in the USA exemptions would be fairly generous, including pensions and in some states annuities (depending on date purchased) and homesteads. In the UK it's mainly tools of the trade that are exempt, but many pensions (not private ones) are also exempt.
2) Fraudulent conveyances. Stuff given away before bankruptcy or sold for an undervalue (there is no statute of limitations in England, but most bankruptcy lawyers say that ten years is about the practical limit) can be reclaimed by the trustee or receiver. (There are some complex issues here.)
3) Bankruptcy discharge. A discharge is valid only as against debts for which the "proper law" is the same as the law of the bankruptcy proceeding -- unless the (foreign) creditor has participated in some way in that proceeding. But again, an American bankruptcy proceeding can work wonders since there is no remedy in the country that issued the discharge even if the debt is still valid elsewhere. (But under present law a British citizen would have to live in the USA for some time, certainly more than 91 days -- meaning he'd need a visa -- to file for bankruptcy there. In the Lloyd's of London scam a dozen or more British investors successfully filed bankruptcy in Florida and got off the hook.)
4. Cross-border bankruptcy. For small claims a foreign creditor almost never files proof of debt abroad. But an English trustee/receiver in bankruptcy can bring an ancillary proceeding abroad (even in the USA or Switzerland) to recover assets. Or there might be a money-laundering or (in the UK) an "absconding with assets" crime.
I don't think the query was serious: after all, everybody knows a bankrupt is put under oath to declare his assets worldwide. And exporting assets while insolvent may not only be criminal but may preclude a discharge. On the other hand there may be subtle, legal ways to accomplish the same thing. For example: one might be liable for Swiss taxes (AVS for example) and even if technically unlawful payment of foreign taxes (1) can't be reversed by any court anywhere and (2) even if a preference (a technical term) would scarcely result in prosecution or condemnation for contempt because not to pay tax is itself a crime. | |
| | |
I think you miss the point old chap, it's not about wriggling through loopholes to save yourself the money that rightly belongs to someone else that people object to, but the fact that some poor sods are likely hurting way more than Mr 'Friend' with his £100k hidden away becuase of the actions of selfish tw4ts like him.
He should do the right, moral and honorable thing and settle as best he can with the people he's in debt to. Advocating anything else put's you down at his 'Friends' level.