This document will provide news about additions or changes to the lawsuit and asset protection documents on this web site. Announcements will be posted in date order - with the latest announcement on the top. The announcements will begin with the date that this completely revised web site is first available to the public. Our first web site was launched in the fall of 1994. We made a major overhaul early in 1995 and again in the fall of 1995. An assortment of additions and changes were made since then, and in early 1998, we decided to review and revise the entire web site and every document in it. With this revision, we introduced frames for navigation, some background colors other than the standard Netscape Gray, some limited graphics and a segregation of the main subjects into separate web sites. Part of our design changes are intended to facilitate future updates and revisions so that they can be made quicker and with less disruption to the rest of the documents in this web site. 
 

We also expanded our subscriber web site - which is restricted to our paid subscribers. The goal in this regard is to use the internet to provide a higher level of service and response to our customers. 

April 4, 2000
 

As of this date we have changed the name of "The Jacobs Report on Asset Protection Strategies" to "Global Asset Protection". The content of the newsletter will be substantially the same, but with a greater emphasis on offshore methods of asset protection and with more news about varrious offshore financial havens. 

The revised web site for Research Press was reloaded onto our web site server today, after more than six months of revisions and re-design effort. The revised web site includes the use of frames to segregate the different parts of our web site by subject and to facilitate navigation by visitors. We added some limited graphics (just to show we could do it) and introduced a little bit of color variety. However, Research Press is a web site that focuses on CONTENT. Our newsletter and selected information from our email forum on asset protection and offshore topics provide the basis for most of the information in our web site. So if you are looking for answers to questions about asset protection, you are more likely to find it here than on any other web site - anywhere. 

But you won't find the latest "gee-whiz" web design devices or a lot of graphics. What you will find is a lot of serious information and guidance about how to protect your assets from being consumed by a future lawsuit in this litigation happy world or ours. 

Pre-1998 Web Site News

The following are examples of the announcements that I posted to the earlier version of my web site before the early 1998 revisions. They represent a min-history of this web site.

It's hard to believe it's been almost two months since I made any changes in this web site. However, I've been immersed in writing three books about the Taxpayer's Relief Act of 1997 and as soon as they are done, I'll have information on this web site about the contents and how you can order them.

Some new seminar listings have been posted to our web page on seminars and conferences.

Meanwhile, the September and October issues of my newsletter on asset protection strategies deals with the question of whether the Year-2000 millennium bug is a serious problem or just an overblown scare story. In the September, 1997 issue of my newsletter, I concluded that even if no one else has a problem with the year-2000, the IRS computers will not be fixed in time. Then, I got a copy of some sales material for a newsletter than made it sound like the world was going to come to an end as soon as the century changes and that this newsletter will help you to protect yourself and even to profit from the year-2000 crisis. Soon after that, I received a copy of an article by Harry Browne that flatly disputed the claim that the year-2000 problem was worth worrying about.

I was still curious so I used one of the search engines to see how much information was available on the web. I got 68,000 + web documents. The most prominent was the one by Peter de Jagar and I spent some time printing out some of the articles and link references for later study. Then I posted a request to my asset protection forum for some help in finding web sites that were content rich on the subject and half a dozen people told me about the Gary North web site. As a result of logging into his web site and communicating with him about the subject, he sent me a fax copy of the September 5, 1997 issue of his newsletter - which also predicted that the IRS computers would shut down on January 1, 2000. However, he offered a lot more explicit detail about it than I had. 

Now I had two conflicting points of view about a problem that might be a "bet your business" decision. Should I forget about it or learn more? I decided to review all of the material I had at that point to see if I could make a decision. Then I devoted the October, 1997 issue of my asset protection newsletter to help my subscribers to resolve this issue as quickly as they could. 

The full content of the 12 page report to my subscribers has been posted to this web site to help any visitors to come to a quicker decision about this issue. I don't want to be an alarmist and I don't want to spend my time on some problem that isn't worth the time or the worry. I'd much rather spend my time on my clients, newsletters, books and this web site. 

It's not my intent to compete with Gary North, Peter de Jagar or others who have compiled extensive web sites on this topic. I'm simply sharing the outcome of my own discovery process and the views of the different parties to this issue. Any information in this web site about the year-2000 will be information that isn't readily available anywhere else. 

August 6, 1997
 

On August 5, 1997, President Clinton passed a massive new tax law called The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997. An explanation of that law is available as a public document from the government web site and I downloaded a copy. Because the file was more than a megabyte in size (over 500 printed pages), I broke it into 44 separate chapters and loaded it on this web site for public use. The introduction to this explanation of the new law is at t97intro.htm. 

July 21, 1997
 

The web site has been moved to a new internet server, and the RPIFS.COM domain name address is now set to our new internet service provider. We have also re-instated the asset protection forum and have merged it with the offshore forum. For instructions on using the forum, see APFHELP.

We've been making some changes in the information at the bottom of each page, but haven't had time to get those changes into every one of the web pages on this web site. 

We have made some changes in the name and objectives of our email tax newsletter. The new name is Vern Jacobs Tax Solutions and the content will focus on the GOOD NEWS about how to save taxes - with an emphasis on the Lotus/Excel worksheets that I've developed to "run the numbers" on different financial or tax strategies. 

June 17, 1997
 

We are currently in the process of moving our domain name (RPIFS.COM) from a previous service provider to a new one. Until InterNic is able to complete the process of changing our address, many of the email addresses included in various pages of this web site, and our domain address, will generate error messages. Hopefully, it will only be another week or two before our address has been changed in the Internet addressing system. 

Until then, any email addressed to Research Press or Vern Jacobs should be addressed to rpi--@--rpifs.com. Email addresses to something@rpifs.com will not work until the domain name has been moved by InterNic. After that has been done, the email links in the pages on this web site should work again. 

The Free Asset Protection Forum (APF)
       
       The APF Forum has been discontinued and replaced by the Jacobs Report on International Financial Planning.

The Free Offshore Forum (OSF)
 

Note: The offshore forum has been merged with the Jacobs Report on International Financial Planning..

March 17, 1997
 

Topical archive pages for the Asset Protection Forum were started today. An index page was created and linked to from the RPIFS home page. A page was for a discussion of lawsuit protection myths. Future forum discussion archives will be added based on subject matter topics. 

March 10, 1997
 

All of the web pages relating to asset protection strategies have been updated since the last revision and this update includes an extensive number of new web pages that have been added. For a complete list of all the documents/web pages that are now available, please check the asset protection index - which lists the web pages by subject matter in alphabetical order. Please note that that document may take a few minutes to load because it's a relatively large file with an extensive table that seems to slow down the access time.

There are now about 30 web pages (documents) about asset protection that are equal to about 200 + pages of printed articles (8.5 x 11), plus about 30 additional web pages that provide links and navigational aid to users of this web site.

February 10, 1997
 

A password protected premium web site is now available for paid subscribers. This secure web site provides information on free software that is available to subscribers, an extensive set of annotated web site links, information on offshore taxes, recent back issues of the three email newsletters now available from Research Press, Inc. through Financial Services Online and copies of various research reports by Vernon Jacobs.

January 13, 1997
 

Two extensive articles (about eight pages each) on family limited partnerships have been revised and added to the web site. The first article describes the various benefits of a family limited partnership and the second article describes many of the controversies and pitfalls and problems of a family limited partnership, which is in our subscriber's web site.

January 10, 1997
 

A new and updated article about How To Protect Yourself From The Lawsuit Epidemic has been added to the web site. The article is about eight pages long in printed form.

In addition, a number of web pages for the various editors and editorial advisors  have been restored to the web site. Two new advisor pages have been added to this group. A new web page has been provided for J. Richard Duke, J.D., LLM, an international tax attorney. 

January 7, 1997
 

A number of index and menu pages for the Asset Protection web site were revised and uploaded today. The web site is being designed for a three layer structure. The home page provides links to an assortment of other pages with general information or with links to pages with information about the newsletter and with subscription information. Links to the content pages will be available at the second level of the menu structure. Generally, the information content pages will be at the third level. 

The articles and other information content will be revised and uploaded ASAP. Viewers are likely to encounter a large number of FILE NOT FOUND errors at this time. However, we are still working on revising and expanding the content for this web site and the site is not yet intended to be available for general use.

January 6, 1997
 

The table of internal cross links at the bottom of this page was added to this page and to all of the other pages in the web site.

January 3, 1997
 

The home page for this site was revised and uploaded on 1/2/97. This news page was revised and reloaded on 1/3/97. I hope to revise and upload at least one page each day. There are already over 80 files/pages that need revision and need to be uploaded. By the time I get through with those, there will be a lot more. I'm currently using Netscape Gold 3.01 for web page editing and file transfers. (vkj)

December 20, 1996
 

The internet server provider for this web site had his entire system deleted by a hacker - for no known reason. All of the files were deleted. (VKJ)

December 3, 1996
 

There has been little visible change in this web site since September 9 because I've been spending most of my time working with different web authoring tools to find one that will allow me to add additional features to this web site and to make updates more efficiently. I'm still at that stage but hope to get past it in the near future. This small addition to the news page is being written with Netscape Gold, version 2.0 - which permits a web author to make updates to a web site without having to use a separate ftp program. I've recently ordered a copy of Netscape Gold 3.0, which is supposed to permit web authors to work with tables, graphics, frames and some other extensions of htm 2.0.

Vernon Jacobs 

Further details about protecting your assets from future lawsuits  are available in our subscriber's web site.

NOTICE: This Information is intended only for educational purposes and may be regarded as controversial by some legal experts. Readers should consult with a qualified  professional who is familiar with their specific financial and tax circumstances before adopting any ideas that are discussed in this article.

About the author:

Vernon Jacobs is a CPA/CLU who works as a tax author and consultant.