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General Asset Protection

Asset protection is becoming an important part of middle income Americans’ lives. Successful business owners have to worry about getting hit with a devastating frivolous lawsuit. The IRS, other government regulations, and a dozen other predators are out to get them. You won’t find many lawyers that do asset protection planning for their clients, because the lawyer is going to make a ton more money cleaning up the mess after you are attacked than they would preventing the mess. Common disasters, like lawsuits, divorce, taxes, illness, and identity theft are something every one of us faces daily. Any one of these common disasters is a major asset protection threat to your financial security. A little asset protection planning today can mean a huge difference in your financial security when the disaster or attack occurs.

The concept of "ownership" is the core of all asset protection plans. When you are attacked in an asset protection disaster, if you don’t own an asset, it can’t be taken away from you. Asset protection plans somehow break up ownership of assets, so that you don’t own all of "your" assets. In a good asset protection plan, you technically will be giving up ownership but not control and enjoyment of the assets.

The houses in my neighborhood are all occupied by professionals and businessmen. If you go down and search the county records, you’ll find out that my neighbors don’t "own" the house they live in. They use a lot of different asset protection planning techniques, and in every case, "ownership" of their house has been removed from them. The businessmen and professionals usually structure their asset protection plan so that their spouse either directly or indirectly "owns" the house. If the asset protection plan is set up so the non-professional spouse owns the house, then when the professional is sued, the attacker probably can’t get the house. Make sure that you use a living trust to "own" the house rather than putting it directly in your spouse’s name, so that you don’t go through probate if he or she unexpectedly dies.

There are a limited number of asset protection tools that an attorney has available to "move" ownership of assets. Living trusts can be used to hold assets, but you should note that they don’t give you good asset protection. However, assets can be held by various individuals in different living trusts, thus providing some asset protection by limiting exposure to the single individual who "owns" the living trust. Corporations are good asset protection shields. They are primarily used in business structuring, but they can form part of a family asset protection plan. Limited partnerships are held out as a great asset protection device. When they are used in a family asset protection plan, they are called a Family Limited Partnership or FLP. The most flexible tool an attorney has for asset protection is undoubtedly a limited liability company (LLC).

In any asset protection plan, a living trust needs to be used to hold "ownership" of the other entities used, such as the LLC, FLP, and corporations. Using the living trust as part of your asset protection plan, you can avoid lots of estate taxes, avoid probate, and even manage assets from your grave.

My new book, Guaranteed Millionaire, will walk you through how to use living trusts and establish a good foundation for your more advanced asset protection plan. Get it NOW! When you get the Guaranteed Millionaire, you’ll also get a FREE 90 minute DVD on asset protection. The DVD is normally $19.99. It gives you a great tour of the asset protection tools you can use today.

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