Secured storage company Via Mat, with which many firms offering physical
gold investment and storage operate, has just announced that it would not
accept American citizens as clients.
Via Mat has a strong presence in the United States, thus it is very much
exposed to the U.S. government fiscal regulations.
This letter from ViaMat management explains their decision:
“We are currently experiencing rapid and substantial changes in the
general regulations within this business. The changes mainly relate to the tax
structures and taxation systems of various countries. As a consequence of
these changes VIA MAT INTERNATIONAL has taken the decision to stop offering
this service at its vault [sic] outside of the US to private customers with
potential US-tax liability.”
This decision does not concern Goldbroker.com’s clients in any way :
Goldbroker.com’s partner for secured storage is Rhenus Logistics, which is
not exposed to the U.S. market.
We have selected Rhenus Logistics for many reasons, some that
differentiate it from Via Mat :
- There is no counterparty risk, meaning no intermediary between our
clients and their gold or silver holdings.
- Our storage partner knows the identity of each of our clients.
- A storage account is open in the name of each of our clients. This means
that Goldbroker.com does not store metals in the name of its clients;
each client has his own storage account.
- Our clients are issued a personal ownership/storage certificate in their
name in order to establish a link between the client’s identity and the
bar(s) serial numbers.
- Our clients have direct access to Rhenus Logistics’ secured vaults, and
can do so without a member of our society being present. This is made
possible by the fact that Rhenus Logistics knows the identity of each of our
clients.
When we created Goldbroker.com, we analysed the different offers from the
secured storage companies. And, since Via Mat could not guarantee the
issuance of storage certificates in the clients’ names, or some of the
elements mentioned above, we selected Rhenus Logistics.
With Goldbroker.com, one can own physical gold or silver directly in one’s
name without any intermediary and store it outside of the banking system.
As for the reasons for storing gold in Switzerland instead of other
jurisdictions like Hong Kong or Singapore, they are explained by Egon von
Greyerz in this article.
