Investing for Survival--Uncle Sam wants a piece of your retirement fund

The U.S. Government Wants Your Private Retirement Pension!
By Bob Bauman, Offshore and Asset Protection Editor

The greedy tentacles of Obama’s bureaucrats are poised to grab your retirement savings – and everyone else’s – under the phony promise of “saving” them for you – and they have plans ready to act on when they can create a crisis to justify their next round of theft.
But there are ways you can escape any pension grab. You can protect and preserve your pension assets – if you act now.

And if you don’t think government will steal your pension, think ObamaCare!

Pensions Under Attack

The National Seniors Council warns that the ongoing debate on tax and budget between Congress and the White House could well encompass radical changes in tax-deferred contributions to retirement plans like 401(k)s and IRAs — and not in a good way.

You may have never heard about it, but the real danger to private pensions is not new.

The history of these radical retirement proposals goes back to 2008, when the Democrats had a majority in both the U.S. Senate and House. Then, a radical plan first emerged for the creation of so-called “Guaranteed Retirement Accounts” (GRAs) to be imposed on all U.S. employees.

In 2008, presidential candidate Obama first proposed a prototype nationalized GRA plan. In his 2010 State of the Union address he called for an “effort to increase retirement savings by requiring all businesses to offer automatic IRA accounts,” claiming such a government guaranteed plan would let employees automatically enroll in direct-deposit retirement accounts and allow them to expand matching tax credits.

Treasury Bail Out

At the heart of his nefarious proposal was a requirement to invest 10% of private pension funds in U.S. Treasury bonds! This was the president’s sly way to bolster the declining demand for Treasuries and a slick new way to finance Washington’s unchecked deficit spending.

In February 2010, Vice President Joe Biden and something called the “White House Task Force on the Middle Class” called for enhancing “retirement options” by the creation of – guess what? – “Guaranteed Retirement Accounts.”

And Obama’s 256-page 2013 Fiscal Year (FY) Budget plan revived his 2008 proposal for the “Automatic IRA,” which by then evolved into two proposals — so-called “Secure Choice Pensions” and GRAs, both of which automatically mandate 5% to 6% contributions into government-controlled pension funds.

Under these plans, every American would be forced into a Social Security-like retirement scheme with an individual-mandatory “Guaranteed Retirement Annuity.”

Each year, the government would deposit $600 (indexed for inflation) into your GRA, with every worker responsible for depositing 5% of each paycheck into the account. The government would “guarantee” a 3% tax-deferred return on these assets — although how this 3% would actually be achieved never has been explained.

Join or Else

Those who refuse to join this new GRA system would suffer additional withdrawal penalties and taxes on their current retirement plan. They would be ordered to invest mandatory minimum holdings in U.S. Treasury obligations.

The January 1 short-term fix Congress just enacted to ward off the infamous “fiscal cliff” did nothing to solve the major issues of real tax reform and the huge federal budget deficit.

Groups representing the U.S. retirement industry now expect that any congressional budget reforms will attack the tax-deferral advantage for private retirement savings.

Michael Falcon, managing director and head of retirement, Americas, for J.P. Morgan Asset Management (JPM), New York, says politicians “… are looking at big pots of money, and retirement deferral is a big pot of money.” President Barack Obama's fiscal 2013 proposed budget estimated that during the next five years alone, retirement tax deductions taken by employers and individuals add up to $429 billion in “lost” tax revenue.

As in the major 1986 tax reforms that cut deductibility of 401(k) contributions by 70%, many think the hunt for more federal tax revenue could limit or end tax deductions of retirement plan contributions, especially for upper-income earners.

In my opinion, if Obama’s GRA ever becomes law, Congress will raid the $17 trillion for its own political spending, repeating the fate of the non-existent Social Security “trust fund.” There is no Social Security trust fund; only records of a debt of $2.6 trillion owed to the Social Security Trust Fund by the U.S. Treasury, “secured” by electronically recorded IOUs to pay tens of millions of future retirees in the years ahead — if the system survives.

I predict the GRA will become yet another giant congressional slush fund to be raided for vote-buying schemes aimed at the 50%-plus of voters who demand more free goodies to be paid for by funds robbed from your hard-earned pensions.

Move Your IRA Offshore Now

One way to protect your IRA or other retirement plans is to move you plan out of the jurisdiction of the United States and locate your assets and their management offshore, or start a new plan offshore.

You may be thinking “that’s a lot easier said than done,” but the truth is, if you wish to protect yourself and your retirement from an overreaching government, there are plausible plans you can adopt.
You can move your retirement plan offshore to safer places with the highest yields available.

To accomplish this, there are a few steps you’ll need to take:

1. The process begins with your Individual Retirement Account, which will have to be established with a financial institution that offers these tax-advantage savings plans.
2. Any plan is required by law to have a U.S.-based custodian, however the cash and assets within the account can be outside U.S. jurisdiction.
3. Finally, once your funds are transferred, you have multiple options, whether you wish to self-direct the account or have a professional oversee it, it’s your choice.
   

If this interests you – shielding yourself from a government that is hell-bent on dictating the way we live our lives – I recommend reading more on the matter now.