One of the techniques used by sovereign individuals is to keep a low profile and confront government agents as little as possible. After all, if they don't know about you, they cannot attack you.
Paper trails are the pieces of paper, files, and computer records that link transactions back to you. For example, when you buy something using a credit card, the record of that transaction is stored in the banks computers as well as several other computers in the network. When you deposit cash into your checking account, that is stored in the computer. When you purchase a house, that transaction is stored in several computers as well as being stored in paper form or on microfiche at the county recorder's office. The common link among all these transactions is your Social Security Number. Using only your Social Security Number, almost anyone can assemble a quite comprehensive list of your transactions, where you shop, what you buy, what assets you have, and how much you owe on various loans. Privacy and protection of your assets depends in large part on breaking paper trails.
The safest strategy to follow is to organize your affairs so that everything you now own gets exchanged into one or more Trusts leaving no paper trails between you and the Trust(s). For additional protection, other Trusts or entities can hold liens or mortgages against the property-holding Trust(s). Also consider moving some of your assets offshore. You may also arrange matters so you become invisible to bureaucrats as they will have no address where they can find you. This is pretty difficult to do and does entail some changes in your lifestyle but it can be done.
How you handle your banking transactions is very important to the privacy and safety of your assets. To some extent, regular banks operate as snitches for the IRS and other government agencies. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, bank records don't enjoy any privacy protection. They have ruled that bank records belong to the bank and not to the individual depositor so the bank can do with the records whatever they want. This ignores the fact that most banks would not reveal their records unless required to by law, but the fact remains that your bank records are not secure.
Another factor to consider is the stability of the US Dollar. Some financial analysts are predicting the complete collapse of the US Dollar in the near future. If this happens, all dollar-denominated bank deposits and other dollar-denominated financial instruments such as social security, retirement funds, insurance policies, mutual funds, and some company stock will become worthless or very nearly so. It is always a good idea, and is especially so now, to keep at least a portion of your assets in a hard commodity such as gold, silver, or platinum. Most financial planners recommend that you keep about five percent of your total portfolio worth in hard commodities but you may want to adjust this percentage up or down depending on your personal situation and how optimistic you are about the US economy.
One way to increase your financial privacy and make it easy to keep some of your assets in gold is to open an account with Anthony L. Hargis & Company. Anthony L. Hargis & Company (ALH) operates a free-market bank in Orange County, California.
Advancing technology may provide other options for increasing your financial privacy. For example, encryption technology has advanced to the point where you can keep actual cash in electronic form on your computer. This is not a link to an account somewhere. It is the actual cash. This means that for the first time, individuals will be able to keep significant amounts of cash in a place where no government snoop can find it. Truly voluntary taxation? Perhaps.
In any case, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." has been and continues to be prudent advice. Divide your financial resources among several places.
In theory (and legally) you're not required to list your Social Security Number to open a non-interest-bearing checking account or a safe-deposit box, or to apply for a loan. It is, however, mandatory for a savings account or an interest-bearing checking account because the bank must report interest earnings to the IRS. But no such interest is earned on non-interest-bearing accounts. The Bank Secrecy Act, however, requires that banks make every "reasonable effort" to obtain a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) or Social Security Number (SSN) within 45 days of the opening of a new account. Also, a list is to be made of all customers who fail to supply the bank with the number. In practice, the bank retains the list and will turn it over to the Treasury only if a request is made, which is seldom.
A spokesman for the American Bankers Association has stated that he is convinced that many people simply report a fictitious Social Security Number because the government has no program of checking the accuracy of the numbers. (There are, however, some internal checks that can identify some bad numbers so don't try this unless you know what you are doing.) Furthermore, the Social Security Number is an imperfect identifier. The Privacy Commission reports that several million individuals have more than one Social Security Number. In addition, one number may sometimes be used by more than one individual. This isn't supposed to happen but, as an example, a surprising number of young workers use their parents' numbers.
Over the years, the Social Security Number has become the most-used number for personal identification and it is not just the government that is doing the asking. Originally, it was intended solely for processing Social Security benefits and withholding. In fact, the card specifically states that it is not to be used for identification. But, it soon become very convenient to use this same number for income tax identification. Then, when the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 was passed, the Social Security Number became the simplest way to identify bank accounts of taxpayers. Many States now use the Social Security Number on driver's licenses thus making the number available to anyone requesting identification. Lately, all kinds of businesses and financial institutions have been requesting the Social Security Number, including insurance companies, manufacturers, brokers, and car dealers. The use of the Social Security Number has become so pervasive that it is now possible to assemble a fairly complete dossier on any individual US Citizen using only the Social Security Number.
If you want to protect your financial privacy, you must control the use of the Social Security Number. It's as simple as that.
One of the best ways to increase your privacy and protect your assets is to purchase the right to manage a Pure Contract Trust.
Copyright at Common Law, West El Paso Information Network, 1997