Jerome Schneider is an American financial adviser and author who encouraged his clients to hide their money from taxes using

offshore bank An offshore bank is a bank that is operated and regulated under international banking license (often called offshore license), which usually prohibits the bank from establishing any business activities in the jurisdiction of establishment. Due to ...

s. From the mid-1970s to the late 1990s, he advertised widely and, in his books and seminars, encouraged clients to buy offshore banks for their own purposes. In 2004 Schneider was convicted of conspiring to help clients evade tax laws, leading the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' to name him "the nation's best-known seller of fraudulent offshore banks". United States federal prosecutors began targeting him in 1997, after he was the subject of a televised investigative report on ''

20/20 Visual acuity (VA) commonly refers to the clarity of visual perception, vision, but technically rates an animal's ability to recognize small details with precision. Visual acuity depends on optical and neural factors. Optical factors of the eye ...

''. In 2002 Schneider and his lawyer, Los Angeles attorney Eric Witmeyer, were indicted for conspiracy to defraud the United States

Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting Taxation in the United States, U.S. federal taxes and administerin ...

wire fraud Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical (e.g., the U.S. Postal Service) or electronic (e.g., a phone, a telegram, a fax, or the Internet) mail system to defraud another, and are U.S. fede ...

and

mail fraud Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical (e.g., the U.S. Postal Service) or electronic (e.g., a phone, a telegram, a fax, or the Internet) mail system to defraud another, and are U.S. fede ...

, and originally faced up to 115 years in prison each; after pleading guilty and agreeing to give information to investigators and tax authorities Schneider was sentenced to six months.Johnston, David Cay
"Man Sentenced in Tax Schemes Also Releases Data on Lawyers"
''New York Times''. December 7, 2004. Retrieved 21 February 2013. Schneider is the author of several books of financial advice, including ''Hiding Your Money: Everything You Need to Know About Keeping Your Money and Valuables Safe from Predators and Greedy Creditors'' and ''How to Own Your Own Private International Bank: For Profit, Privacy, and Tax Protection''.

References

American financial writers Offshore finance Year of birth missing (living people) Living people {{US-nonfiction-writer-stub

See also

References