Stash Safes Hide
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Southwest Specialty Products 30007C Barbasol Can Safe $6.00 Recommended by Law Enforcement agencies around the world! Place container anywhere! Take them with you on vacation Place them in the house … anywhere!! Your cash / valuables could not be safer then in these diversion safes…. |
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Southwest Specialty Products 21001C Del Monte Can Safe Storage Container $8.99 Looks exactly like the real product… |
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Southwest Specialty Products 60001S Book Diversion Safe $11.99 A real book with a hiding place… |
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Amazing AA Battery Money and Rx Stash $3.47 Amazing AA Battery Money and Rx Stash. Here at BeWild we sell many diversion safes that look like actual products, but this Amazing AA Battery Money and Rx Stash is defiantly the most discreet model to date. This diversion safe looks virtually identical to a regular AA size battery and can hold money or prescription drugs for emergency use. This battery stash can hold up to 00! A single bill fits … |
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Stash Lighter With Secret Hidden Compartment (Assorted) #45 $2.25 The next generation of diversion safes are here! Now big enough to hold 3 or more pre rolled 70mm Cigarettes! This is a fully functional normal sized pocket lighter that would never raise any suspicion but it has a secret. This lighter’s bottom pops open to reveal a spacious secret stash compartment. The compartment is perfect to hold lots of cool stuff, keeping it out of sight and safe in the sec… |
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Disposable Lighter Safe Stash Pill Box These lighters have a hidden hollow opening on the bottom where you can hide or conceal your valuables. Same size as a real lighter – only hollow! You will receive FOUR lighter shaped pill cases. One of each color: Red, White, Blue and Black…. |
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Can Safe Arizona Ice Tea $8.99 Most burglars spend less than six minutes inside a home and only have time to check the most obvious places for valuables. These unique safes allow you to hide valuables inside common household products – one of the last places a thief would think to loo… |
how to hide your stash
Stash Safes Hide
How To Use A Diversion Safe For Better Home Security
When it comes to home security trends, it seems like the diversion safe is the talk of the town. The regular safe, which is and appears to be a metal box, has long been the standard in secure item storage. While an official safe is still the best option for important papers, documents like passports, and family heirlooms, sometimes it can be a hassle to have to frequently open and close the safe to access everyday items like jewelry. Frequently opening and closing a safe can lead to human error, and easy access to your possessions by any passing thief or intruder. A great option for these everyday items is to use a dummy safe, or diversion safe, that blends in with the rest of your everyday items. These trick safes appear to be worthless consumer items, when in fact they hold the wealthy goods of your household. The two mistakes that are too often made with diversion safes are easy to correct, and should be considered before making a purchase. These two mistakes are in choosing what the safe appears to be, and where it is placed.
While the diversion safe that appears to be a food item is a clever trick to deter burglars, a major problem that many families find is that it also fools family members. There have been more than a few cases of family members who finally decided to ditch that old can of soda or box of cereal that had been sitting there in the cupboard for years- inadvertently tossing out a small fortune. The temptation, with food items, is also there to make a DYI diversion safe out of an empty food box. Besides being hard to detect by your family, a diversion safe in the pantry is a trick that has definitely been done before. An intruder looking for jewels or cash already knows to ravage the pantry, and freezer, if time allows. Instead of going with a diversion safe that looks like a can of cola, try one that appears to be a gift jar of dried soup- one that can hide in broad daylight as a kitchen decoration. Or, better yet, try one that is stored in the bathroom or cleaning cupboard. A diversion safe that appears to be a toiletry or cleaning product blends right in with the bathroom, and the bathroom cupboard is a place that few criminals are likely to ravage for valuables. For men, try a diversion save shaped like men’s shaving cream. For women, try one that looks like hairspray. Why? The more tailored an item is to only your use, the less likely someone else is to try and use it, thinking it’s the real deal. Another tip for women- tampon boxes make a great hiding place for valuables, especially when living with a man or men!
Another great option for a diversion safe is one that appears to be a book. However, don’t make the cardinal mistake of leaving the book on your bedside table. It has to appear to be any old book, so toss it on the shelf alongside all your other old favorites. If your home alarm system is going off and a thief only has a few minutes, he is unlikely to be flipping through volumes in the study, but is very likely to head straight to the master bedroom. An even better option is a wall outlet diversion safe. This appears to be a wall outlet, but swings out to allow stashing of valuables like jewelry and case. Easy to place by the bed or the bureau, it’s especially handy for a place to sore jewelry where you can always get to it, but thieves would never think to look for it. Now that’s an effective home security system.
About the Author
Beginning with an adt alarm system is the best way to go for home security. In the event that a burglar gets past, it’s best to be prepared with a diversion safe, and the adt home security professional security experts on call 24/7.
No Place Left to Hide: US and Caribbean Nations Crack Down on Tax Cheats
Over the last few decades wealthy Americans have sought to stash assets in one of the many Caribbean nations commonly known as tax havens. In March of 2009, President Obama signed the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act (HIRE). HIRE gives the federal government new options to find Americans who have been evading taxes by using foreign banks and elaborate offshore investment schemes. If all goes as planned, those assets will now be subject to tax.
Several Caribbean nations have developed reputations as good places where one can hide assets from Uncle Sam and avoid paying income and estate taxes. It is in these nations where the impact of the new tax laws will have the greatest impact. In order to understand the impact of the new regulations, it is important to first understand what a tax haven is though a precise definition is hard to nail down. Noted economist Geoffrey Colin Powell commented in a 2009 issue of the economist that “What … identifies an area as a tax haven is the existence of a composite tax structure established deliberately to take advantage of, and exploit, a worldwide demand for opportunities to engage in tax evasion.” Lacking from this definition is mention of strict banking secrecy laws which any proper tax haven must have in place. Even the US Govt. has struggled the pin point a definition. In its December 2008 report on the use of tax havens by wealthy Americans and American corporations, the U.S. Government accountability Office stated that it was unable to find a satisfactory definition of a tax haven but regarded the following characteristics as indicative of a tax haven:
- zero or nominal taxes;
- strict banking/investment secrecy laws;
- lack of transparency in the operation of legislative, legal or administrative provisions;
- no requirement for a substantive local presence; and
- self-promotion as an offshore financial center.
The use of differing tax laws between two or more countries to try to mitigate tax liability is probably as old as taxation itself. However, Tolly’s Tax Havens, a definitive text on the subject of tax havens and tax evasion, suggests that Switzerland can probably lay claim to the title of the worlds first true tax haven. Swiss banks had long been a safe harbor for well-heeled families fleeing social upheaval in Russia, Germany, South America and elsewhere. In the years immediately following the First World War, several European states had to quickly ratchet up tax rates to help finance reconstruction efforts in the rubble of their war-torn cities. Because Switzerland maintained its neutrality during the war, it avoided the substantial damage to its infrastructure and the subsequent cost of rebuilding. The Swiss therefore were able to keep their taxes low and as a result, Switzerland saw a significant injection of capital into its economy. This was likely the birth of the modern tax haven. While any place that wealthy Americans have squirreled away their income will invariably be subject to a close inspection by the Internal Revenue Service, stashing assets in the following nations will garner special attention: the Cayman Islands, the Isle of Mann, Panama, Island of Mauritius, Hong Kong, Dominican Republic, Dominica, Costa Rica, Belize, Anguilla, and Andorra.
How much money, in the form of lost tax revenue, are we talking about here? The federal government estimates that nearly $1 trillion USD is hidden in countries with banking secrecy laws. The tax revenue on this trillion dollars would exceed $30 billion USD per year. Factor in European, Asian, and African nations and the dollar value of assets hidden in tax haven countries easily tops $6 Trillion USD. Helping wealthy individuals and companies shield their assets from the taxman has become big business. In the Cayman Islands alone, there are More than 93,000 investment companies registered in 2008, including almost 300 banks, 800 insurers, and 10,000 mutual funds. Furthering the point, a 2006 article published in the Journal of Public Economics concluded that 59% of U.S. multinational firms had significant assets in tax haven countries. With statistics like these, no wonder that noted tax specialist Lee Sheppard recently observed in a widely publicized editorial that the “bill is a huge step in the right direction” because it meant that the U.S. was “getting serious about tax enforcement on cross-border investment flows in a way that we never have before.”
Under the new laws, the federal government has powerful tools to enforce the tax code and collect previously uncollected taxes. For starters, the IRS can asses a 30% tax on financial institutions that do not disclose the nature of investments held by Americans. Simply put, if a US financial institution holds assets in a foreign bank account belonging to an American and does not report those assets to the IRS, that institution will have to pay the tax. Obviously, this provision is designed to “encourage” financial institutions to turn over pertinent financial information so US authorities can collect taxes on the assets. If the threat of additional taxes is not enough, the IRS is working in conjunction with the Department of Justice to prosecute a record number of tax cheats and punish them with stiff jail sentences.
The DOJ Tax Division is aggressively working with the IRS to track down those who use offshore accounts, combating abusive tax shelters, stopping tax defiers and shutting down tax schemes, especially those involving employee leasing and offshore credit and debit cards. During FY 2009, the Tax Division successfully defended refund suits against the United States representing claims of over $665 million, and collected through affirmative litigation over $260 million. Tax Division prosecutors obtained 135 convictions and guilty pleas during FY 2009. Additionally, Tax Division attorneys participated in sentencings for 133 defendants during FY 2009. John DiCicco, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division commented: “The Department of Justice is strongly committed to promoting compliance with federal tax laws… The Department will continue to use all available law enforcement tools to recover tax revenue and to punish tax offenders. Those who promote, facilitate, or engage in off shore tax fraud plans or schemes risk penalties and, where appropriate, criminal prosecution.”
In April 2009, Robert Moran pleaded guilty to filing a false income tax return and admitted to concealing more than $3 million in a secret bank account at UBS. He was sentenced to two months in prison. In July 2009, Jeffrey Chernick, of Stanfordville, N.Y. pleaded guilty to filing a false tax return and was sentenced to three months in prison, six months of house arrest, and six months of probation. In August 2009, former UBS banker Bradley Birkenfeld was sentenced to 40 months in prison for helping an American billionaire real estate developer evade taxes. In January 2010, Juergen Homann, of Saddle River, N.J. was sentenced to five years probation for failure to file a Report of Foreign Bank or Financial Accounts (FBAR). Homann concealed more than $6.1 million in Swiss bank accounts. In January 2010, Roberto Cittadini, of Bellevue, Washington was sentenced to six months of home confinement for failing to report income from secret UBS bank accounts under his control. In February 2010, Dr. Andrew Silva of Sterling, Va. pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States and making a false statement regarding an undeclared foreign bank. His plea carries a maximum sentence of 60 months imprisonment.
The IRS and Dept of the Treasury are not alone in cracking down on what it believes to be tax cheats. The U.S. efforts parallel similar efforts by Caribbean countries to crack down on their nations’ financial systems being used as a global destination for financial criminal activity such as tax evasion. The method which seems to be preferred by most Caribbean nations is the Tax Information Exchange Agreement, known as TIEAs. According to the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OEDC), TIEAs are a way “to promote international co-operation in tax matters through exchange of information. TIEAs were developed by the OECD Global Forum Working Group on Effective Exchange of Information (“the Working Group”). The purpose is to exchange financial information between two states. The goal is to close tax loopholes. With the desired benefit of recovering lost tax revenue from wealthy individuals who flee from a medium or heavily-taxed state, to one that has lax tax laws.
So far, most TIEAs signed by Caribbean nations have been partnerships with European countries. Germany, France, the UK, Denmark, and the Netherlands each have separate agreements with many of the Caribbean tax havens, including the Bahamas, Anguilla, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Turks and Caicos, San Marino, Uruguay, the British Virgin Islands, Grenada, Dominica, Belize, St Kitts & Nevis, Bermuda, and the Cayman Islands.
Since all of the above-mentioned TIEAs have been signed in the past year, the ultimate impact of the legislation remains unclear. It remains to be seen how impactful the above mentioned TIEAs will be. Most of them have been enacted to recently and its simply too early to tell. However, the number of European and Caribbean countries involved in theglobal crackdown on offshore tax cheats has the potential to radically alter things in so-called tax havens. These recent developments also hold the potential to change global perceptions of the Caribbean financial industry as an attractive destination for those seeking to violate their own country’s tax laws.
In the end, it appears that the days of stashing income and assets in offshore havens may be coming to an end. Domestic and foreign laws have been, are being, put into place to crack down on this behavior. The Treasury Department is likely to reap a significant financial windfall in the form of increased collections but the true winner will be the American people since they will no longer have to compensate for tax cheats who evade their fiscal responsibilities.
About the Author
Corey W Hankerson, JD is a tax practitioner and advisor in Washington DC. His practice, The Equity Law Group, is devoted to helping individuals and businesses resolve tax problems and implement strategies to avoid tax problems before they arise. Hankerson can be reached at (202) 552-7366 or chankerson@theequitylawgroup.com. Visit The Firms website at www.theequitylawgroup.com or chankerson.blogspot.com.