================================================= Expat Worlds Monthly Digest ================================================= July, 2003 Vol. 5, Issue 7 .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== THE STORY =================== (Excerpt from the 'Paper PT' by Alphonse Von Kattle) -=The Local Scene – Indonesia ==== EW SPECIAL ================== -="The Paper" for the 21st Century=- ==== HUMOR, TRIVIA, NEWS AND MORE... == -=Trivia=- -=News Story=- -=Traveller's Tales=- -=Jokes=- ==== THE RESOURCE TIP ============= -=Ditto.com - the leading visual search engine=- ==== INSIDE THIS MONTH EXPAT WORLD == -=Table of Content=- ==== THE STORY ================================== (Expat World is on summer break and the therefore we bring you this month an excerpt from the 'Paper PT' a book by Alphonse Von Kattle) Our Three Personalities, An Operations Manual When all else fails, read the instruction manual. Mark had an ego, and that ego got expensive. Mark was already a tax expatriate before I ever met him. Mark enjoyed playing poker, and he was good at it. He had a mind like a computer and could figure the odds on any hand, with no effort. He was also very good at what we term a poker face. He never showed his emotions about a hand. Mark started playing poker when he was teen aged, played poker in the army, and by the time he turned thirty he was playing poker at least once per week, in medium stakes games. He could clear five hundred dollars in a night of poker. He had a full time job as a computer LAN administrator, but the joy of his life was his skill at poker. Finally he decided he was good enough, and went to Las Vegas to play in a major poker tournament. He managed to win. On a two thousand dollar buy in, he won the one hundred thousand dollar tournament. Mark still had that ego, when he was interviewed by the papers in Las Vegas. He told them that he played poker on a regular basis, and that he won twenty to thirty thousand dollars per year playing poker. The Internal Revenue Service deducted its twenty eight percent from Marks winnings, before he even got his prize money, but that was ok with him, damn it he won. He took the balance home, paid off some bills, and brought a new bass boat. Life was good. Then came the registered letter from the IRS, demanding that he appear on such and such a day bringing with him detailed records on his wins and loss, from poker, for the past six years. He went to the meeting, told them that he had no records, did not keep records, and had no idea exactly how much he won or lost. They had his interview with the Las Vegas news paper. They offered him a simple deal. Pay the taxation, interest, and penalty on thirty thousand dollars in winnings, for the past six years and they would not prosecute him for tax fraud or for the failure to keep IRS mandated records on all income and expense. They wanted fifty four thousand dollars that Mark did not have, or they would send him to prison. Mark then went to a tax attorney, and paid him five thousand dollars for his service. In exchange for the fee, the attorney made an offer to IRS, for fifty cents on the dollar, payable over two years. IRS’s response was to file liens on his home, his cars, the bass boat, and to garnishee his wages at the maximum rate of fifty percent. After three months they refused his offer, notified him that the sum he owed had now gone up another three thousand dollars in penalty and interest, but gave him another thirty days to pay. Mark’s wife was Filipino. He felt that there was no where to turn and even his own attorney told him that he was going to jail. He could not face his wife and children living on welfare while he served time in jail. He did not think that he had actually earned that much playing poker, but he had no records and the IRS had his public brag. He decided to run. They sold the furniture in the house and what loose items that could be turned to cash. They then drew an eight thousand dollar cash advance on the credit cards, and climbed on an aircraft headed for the Philippines. At that time the Philippines did not have an extradition treaty with the United States and he knew that with his wife’s relations and contacts they could get lost in the Philippines. Mark started playing poker again in the Philippines. Over there he could make a living, but could never really make much money. The games were all small stakes, nickel and dime games. He got ahead enough to start traveling to some of the casinos in Asia, and played poker for a living. He was again making a good living, but his travel expenses ran high, and he only had six years left on the passport. He assumed, correctly, that he would have problems when his passport expired. Mark was also missing the United States. He was just not really cut out for a life in paradise, in a third world nation. He wanted to go back home. His wife had also grown use to the United States and really missed her life there. He thought that from his position of power as a resident of a nation with no extradition treaty, he could make a deal with the IRS. He quickly discovered that bureau rats are not at all impressed by reality. All they would do is inform him that his bill was going up every month and that they would get him when he returned to the states. In desperation, and just to cover his bases, Mark bribed a public official in the Philippines to create a Philippines identity for him. He acquired a Philippines passport. This is the point that I met mark. We examined his needs in relation to the three personalities and made an interesting discovery. He had fully developed his expatriate personality by actually being an expatriate for four years, and by making many official records showing that expatriate position. He had successfully closed out his American personality by allowing the IRS to seize all of his assets so that on the books he had no existence. That more or less left the business personality. Mark wanted to be a professional poker player. This looked good on the surface because it is an all cash business, with no one keeping records except the casinos. The down side was that he could not play in casino because they must keep records and that part of your protection in your third personality is that anything that is titled or recorded is in the business name and that your cash management is in the business name. If Mark brought a new car for cash or tried to pay his rent in cash, he would raise flags somewhere. If you pay for air fare in cash, you get a look over. Pay the hospital a ten thousand dollar tab in cash and watch the bells ring. In the United States, cash itself can be a negative. Professional poker players also must face the fact that most states consider private poker games as being illegal. They very rarely do anything about it, but once in a while they raid games to make news. Mark agreed that he needed to live in one of the states, such as Nevada, Arizona, or Texas that considered such games to be legal. We also had to realize that IRS has a long memory. Mark could kiss his Social Security good by because IRS would even seize it. He needed a retirement program and needed a business entity to be an employee of for things like medical insurance. Mark set up a Panama Corporation and using that corporation opened a bank account. He then received a secured credit card and an ATM card in the name of the corporation. Mark agreed that twenty percent of his winnings would be invested by the corporate account and additional sums would go into that account to cover anything he charged or anything paid from the account. All deposits to the account would be in the form of money orders, in the amount of five hundred dollars or less. Mark, his wife, and his two children then flew to Mexico, where they then traveled to a Texas border town (Because they had decided on Texas as their residence). They then purchased a lot of paper goods and other items that Americans tend to purchase on day trips to Mexico. They rode the bus back to El Paso with the other day trip people. Their scare at the border was in the fact that the guards thought that his wife was Mexican and demanded a green card. She gave them her green card and the two of them were ready to try to make a dash back over the bridge. They looked at her card, told her thank you, and went on to the next person. At that border crossing, they have thousands of green card holders crossing every day. With her husband being WASP, and her kids being obvious mixed blood, they just assumed that she was OK. I have not talked to Mark in years, but I know that he learned his lesson. Everything that leaves a record is done through the corporate name, and everything else is done for cash, using money orders when cash would be abnormal. He keeps a low profile and assures that he can go about his life without worrying about tripping on some computer. He has two sets of valid identification and is probably sitting somewhere playing poker as I write this. ==== EW SPECIAL ================================= FREE FREE FREE "THE PAPER PT" FOR THE 21ST CENTURY SECRETS REVEALED - Live a life free of government interference. Information your lawyer won't tell you even if he knew. Get your money out of the country before your country gets the money out of you. All can be done via the "PT" manner and philosophy as prescribed by the late, great, W.G. Hill. This book takes "PT" one step further by not necessarily voting with your feet but using a "paper highway" instead. Freedom and privacy is possible in the 21st century with this book.. Our newest book is NOT FOR SALE. The ONLY way to get a copy of the 109 large-page PAPER PT is to subscribe to the of the EXPAT WORLD newsletter (2 year sub) or renew your present subscription for two more years in the next 60 days. We will send you the PDF format file via email with the complete book on it. It's readable on line or print it yourself for reading at your leasure. So cutting to the chase, this book is yours free if you subscribe to the Expat World newsletter (2 year sub). Subscribe today to the Expat World newsletter at www.expatworld.net ==== HUMOR, TRIVIA, NEWS AND MORE... ================ TRIVIA Everyone has seen the movie 'Casablanca' and has heard the song 'Marakesh Express'. Where are these two cities located? A: Portugal B: Morocco C: Mallorca D: Netherlands (Answer below) ----- NEWS STORY MAN CATCHES COMPUTER VIRUS! Bizarre illness jamming up his brain waves! Caption: SICK COMPUTER passed on a bizarre virus to programmer John Stevens, above, after it became ill from an infected software program. By Michael Todd, Special Correspondent, {Weekly World News}, 18 June 1991 John Stevens has a lot in common with his home computer: Both think logically, both like numbers and both are sick with a virus - the same virus! Stevens, a computer programmer who works out of his home in a Philadelphia suburb, is convinced his lingering and debilitating illness is something he got from his sick computer. And the victim's doctor agrees. "I've run every test I can think of to trace the origin of his illness," said Dr. Mark Fordland. "He has a virus, but it's not like any virus I've ever seen." Stevens, 32, said his computer began to show signs of a virus - a software program designed to eat up an destroy other software data - about a week before he got sick. "I was careless about borrowing software programs from other people I didn't know well," Stevens admits. Dr. Fordland, himself a computer expert, agrees. "Borrowing software programs from friends and strangers is like having sex with someone you don't know well. When you sleep with someone, you sleep with everyone they've ever slept with. When you borrow someone's software program, you're connected to everyone who's ever used that program." Dr. Fordland concludes that Stevens' symptoms are identical to that of a software virus' attack on a computer. "Stevens has become forgetful, like something is eating up his memory, his data. He has less and less energy. He can't hold onto thoughts. Even an EEG (electroencephalogram) of his brain waves keeps changing. It's becoming more and more erratic. "This virus could just eat him up until his mind is a blank and he's like a vegetable," the doctor said. ----- TRAVELLER'S TALES SOUR SWEET: A birth-control advocate in Thailand has recommended that couples who can't get to the drugstore for contraceptives should take a slice of lemon to bed with them. Judicious insertion of the cocktail item kills sperm, Senator Mechai Viravaidya said. Not everyone approves, according to the Nation newspaper. Pakdi Posiri, director-general of the country's Health Department, said: "I would stick with our old buddy the condom." Pharmacists have warned that lemon can hurt the skin. But members of the public have another objection: Lemons are unsexy. Office worker Don told the newspaper: "I for one will be turned off if my partner stops mid-course and says, 'Hey, we forget the lemon.'" ----- "To write a diary every day is like returning to one's own vomit." --Enoch Powell - "USA Today has come out with a new survey: Apparently three out of four people make up 75 percent of the population." --David Letterman ----- A lawyer died and arrived at the pearly gates. To his dismay, there were thousands of people ahead of him in line to see St. Peter. To his surprise, St. Peter left his desk at the gate and came down the long line to where the lawyer was, and greeted him warmly. Then St. Peter and one of his assistants took the lawyer by the hands and guided him up to the front of the line, and into a comfortable chair by his desk. The lawyer said, "I don't mind all this attention, but what makes me so special?" St. Peter replied, "Well, I've added up all the hours for which you billed your clients, and by my calculation you must be about 193 years old!" - Late one night a mugger wearing a ski mask jumped into a path of a well-dressed man and stuck a gun in his ribs "give me your money," he demanded. Indignant, the affluent man replied, "you can't do this – I am a United States congressman!" "In that case," replied the mugger, "give me MY MONEY." ----- TRIVIA ANSWER Everyone has seen the movie 'Casablanca' and has heard the song 'Marakesh Express'. Where are these two cities located? The correct answer: B (Morocco) ==== THE RESOURCE TIP ============================ Ditto.com - the leading visual search engine Ditto provides visual search of the web using pictures. Users are linked to the originating web site on which the pictures are located. Go to www.ditto.com ==== INSIDE THIS MONTH EXPAT WORLD =============== EXPAT WORLD NEWSLETTER (VOL.15 ISSUE 6) Table of Content: "Your Papers Please" – Big Brother Today Makes “1984” Look Like a Nursery Rhyme Closer to a Cashless Society? Barcoding Human Beings Anonymity and Privacy -- R.I. P. Expat World’s World of Scams Dubai – Now Easy to Get Residency Taxing Matters It Wil be Hard for the IRS to Collar You! The IRS and IBC Sinister Big Brother Expats Safe Again With $80,000 Exemption Tax Structure in Australia Contracting Down Under The Local Scene -- Indonesia Jakarta's New Visa Rule Shoots Itself in the Foot Around the World With Expat World Mexico -- Own a Posada There and Enjoy the Lifestyle Other Foreign Tealestate Investments For Sale -- A Private Mobile Airfield The Armchair Investor Good Free Email Services Sars Warning But Bars Now the Threat A True Story -- Thumps Up YOU MISSING SO MUCH Each week the EXPAT WORLD DIGEST gives you just a smattering of what you can find in the EXPAT WORLD newsletter that we produce once a month. Why not get the whole story and subscribe now to our electronic version for just US $30 per year. 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