Re: 6739, 6741...

I think the question here is due to how in MA the insurance and registration are linked. Part of the registration form is filled out by the insurance company. What insurance company covers a car is even publicly searchable (link below). I would be surprised if the police/DMV didn't have a way to see names on policies here.

Brings back my question from before: has anyone acheived a private LLC registration/insurance in Mass?

Re: 6731, 6733, 6736...

I'm not an accountant either, but I have paid MA taxes. If you tell MA Department of Revenue you're a resident, they will tax you on your entire income, less taxes paid to other states. This is how I handle living here, working in multiple states, and having a DL from yet another. I looked it up and found my particular DL state's taxes do not apply. MN may be different, of course. I'd say talk to someone in MN who knows the state taxes there.

Do i need to show i.d.? i plan to use an alternate name for pickup and get a tracking number so i can be there when it is delivered.

The people at the office know me but are not aware of my real name, and they would not mind for me to get a delivery there.

I personally went with commercial auto insurance for three reasons:

1. The price for a million in coverage was cheaper than any personal policy I could get.

2. The proof of insurance card that I keep in my glove compartment has only a company name and ghost address on it.

3. Although it is not guaranteed, I feel having a commercial policy can better protect my personal assets from a lawsuit in the event of a claim. I think it may also help keep my personal name out of any insurance claim reports for crashes within the policy limit.

Also, I'd like to share some advice in regards to commercial policy multi-car discounts. You can have your cars registered in multiple LLCs, and just tell your insurance company that the parent LLC owns the child LLCs. That should qualify you to list the vehicles under one policy and get the discount.

... Each state is different. From what you say, it seems like good advice, at least for residents of California. I've also heard that commercial insurance works better for Colorado residents.

As Jack repeatedly states in his book and here on his website, don’t keep anything in your house that you wouldn’t want the whole world to see. I recently found myself in a situation where I had to temporarily (several months) remove a large number of “non-public” items (3-4 car loads) from my home within hours, due to an unexpected family guest that will be staying with us.

I had to compromise my privacy in this situation because none of my nominees were available on such short notice. I drove to a nearby mom-and-pop-shop self-storage facility to open a unit, since I would be making multiple trips and had very little time. The old lady working there, although nice, could sense my urgency and was also very nosy. I gave her my middle name as my first name, and she began filling out the paperwork. She asked to see my driver’s license, and I asked if a passport was OK instead. She firmly stated “no”, and that a driver’s license would be needed due to the fact that I would be driving various vehicles into the facility – she stated that all storage facilities have this policy now. I think it would have raised too much suspicion if I told her I “forgot” it. Since I was backed into a corner, I obliged and gave her my driver’s license to photocopy. She insisted that I provide my actual residence address where I currently live and I told her it was the address on my license, even though it is a ghost address in a commercial building. I thought about giving her an alternate residential ghost address, but I was sensing that she might ask for some proof. If she tries to use Google Street View, the building is also attached to a hotel and is right next to several high-rise condo units. Although I think I could talk my way out of it if she called me on it, in a month I’m planning on telling her that I’m moving and will give her a new residential ghost address.

She asked for my phone number and I gave her a K7 number. She was pretty nosy and began asking me about the “foreign” area code. I told her I used to live in Washington and have had the number forever. She asked if I had a home phone, and I made a joke about whether those even exist anymore. She laughed and said “yea, I don’t have one anymore either, but I’m going to need a second phone number from you then. I have to have two numbers on file if one isn’t a land line at your house.” I gave her the Chicago phone number for a prepaid cell phone I occasionally use.

She asked me who my employer was and I told her that I was a self-employed computer consultant. She asked for my company name and I told her I am a one man show and don’t have one.

As I watched her fill out the paperwork, I could see that she was putting my real first name on the paperwork. When I told her that I go by my middle name, she said “that’s fine, I’ll call you by that name, but I have to put down the name that’s on your license”. She also asked for the names of any additional individuals authorized to enter the property and access the storage unit. I told her there were none, but this is good for a nominee situation.

So here’s a summary of the situation:

1. The storage is basically opened in my real name.

2. I paid cash for the unit so there is no tie to any financial accounts.

3. I provided a commercial ghost address, which may come back to bite me if she does additional research on it. I plan on giving her a new residential ghost address in a month.

4. I had to provide my driver’s license, which she photocopied.

5. All paperwork was handwritten, and my DOB and SSN were never asked for (although my DL was photocopied which has my DOB).

Does anyone know if there is a national database that these companies are required to register with? I will be storing some pretty valuable items in the unit, and don’t want it on a target list. Should I just keep the unit in my name, or should I transfer the items to another storage facility unit opened in a nominee’s name? The unit is literally half the price of any other company out there, so I am reluctant to let it go.

Thanks,

... When I rent a storage unit I use an LLC and list the LLC's address in Fairbanks, Alaska. I also pay a year in advance. I show either no ID or a passsport but NEVER a DL. If I ever run across someone who asks the kind of questions you say the "old lady" asked, I would not rent there, no matter how cheap.

I will try the programs you recommended after reading your posting a few more times :) . Thanks

Not an accountant, but I'd say it certainly could cause questions. Ultimately one could probably argue that it is one's actual state of residency that determines tax liabiliity, not something like failing to get a new DL.

However, the big problem is if one uses this scheme to EVADE taxes by claiming non-residence in BOTH states by claiming residence in the opposite state, depending on which state is inquiring about your tax return. That's a crime.

Note however that in some states, if you are a "resident" of that state, specifically including California, it levies income tax on ALL your income, no matter where derived, even out of the country. A friend faced this very conundrum when trying to sell property he owned in Colorado, a significant amount of property. He had to retire early and quit his job in California and move to Colorado in order to avoid an additional seven percent tax from California. He had to abandon the house he owns in California and allow a friend to live there for free, because if he earned so much as a dime in income (either rent or sale) wihin California for, as I recall, 12 months AFTER HE MOVED AWAY, he would still be considered a resident for income tax purposes. After a year, he can sell the house without being dinged by California any longer.

If you have such an issue, maintaining your DL in your previous state could allow them to argue that you are still a resident of your former state and therefore owe taxes on income derived from your new state.

Even depositing cash for sums of $3,000 to $4,000 a few times a year has not raised any questions. Of course I have never tried to deposit anywhere near the majic $10,000 at any one time.

This Canadian girl lost her insurance coverage. She should have read HTBI.

Submitted Link #1: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091121/wl_canada_afp...

I'm probably supposed to have a MD driver's license but I don't want one so I never got one.

Actually I have license plates from a third state. It's never caused any problems.

Wendy, I have a stalker whose primary target is my girlfriend. Myself and others helped her get out of an abusive relationship and her abuser turned his abuse to everyone who helped her.

The stalker/abuser used the internet to make everyone lives hell. We used the internet to turn the tables on him. We have a ton of information which is public records. Several older police reports had his social security number and DOB on them. We, as a group, outsource the job of posting all his public information on websites all over the world.

If you want to expose everything this guy is doing and not have it traced to your location outsource the job. IF IT'S PUBLIC RECORD POST IT!! A lot of companies are using the internet to investigate current and future employees. Finding his comings and goings posted on the internet may be a wake-up call for him. When he realizes someone is spying on him he may change his ways.

There are several companies on the internet such as rentacoder.com, elance.com, etc where you can post your job request. Use a public computer far from home. All you need is a simple post asking for someone to post and/or create websites for you. Don't give any details in your job request. People from all over the world will bid on the job. Several teams created websites about our stalker on websites whose language we cannot pronounce.

After several months our stalker's identity was stolen and is now used all over the world. He's spending a ton of time looking for our websites and putting out fires.

WARNING: HE CAN DO THE SAME TO YOU!!!! BE CAREFUL

I’ve been working with Linux both in corporate and personal environments for the last 12 years. I have also run Linux as a primary desktop OS on and off throughout my career, so I’d like to offer my opinion on the matter.

First, I’d like to state that I personally do not believe there are backdoors in Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, or any other version of Windows. As a network security consultant, I frequently perform penetration testing against Microsoft operating systems. The best security policy is to leave every door closed, and every window shut (no pun intended). If there are no services accessible on a machine from the outside world, there is nothing to exploit. In other words, even if there were some sort of backdoor in a running Windows service, there is nothing to exploit if the service is not accessible (firewall). In addition, if the inverse was true – that is, the Windows workstation was calling out to some secret rendezvous server on the Internet, this would be apparent not only in the netstat tables on the machine, but to any firewalls between the workstation and the Internet. In the last year, my heavy testing of Windows 7 security has yet to uncover such a scenario. None of the other thousands of people testing Windows 7 (or any other Microsoft OS) have uncovered such a scenario, either. You are fine using a Microsoft OS, as long as it isn’t pirated. Pirated systems have trouble running Windows update (patching), which leaves you vulnerable to actual, non-imaginary, exploits.

That being said, I choose Windows XP Pro as my tried and true desktop OS. Put simply, XP does everything Vista and Windows 7 do, but much more quickly and without all of the bloat, bugs, and interface dumbification. On my Windows XP workstations, I run TrueCrypt and encrypt the entire system drive. I know there are varying ideologies here about the use of encryption, but I don’t leave home without a fully encrypted machine. Ever. For added “security” I use the TrueCrypt option to modify the boot loader to simply display “Missing operating system” instead of the standard TrueCrypt password prompt. If I am stopped and forced to power on my machine, instead of it asking for a password, I can give the excuse that I got a virus and it wiped out my machine. Yes, I’m aware that if someone were to take the drive and analyze it, they could locate the TrueCrypt boot loader, but I’m not really hiding from those types of people. The “super duper secret data” they are after is stored elsewhere.

As for Linux, it is a powerful operating system that is capable of many different functions. Because there is a huge community reviewing and improving the source code, security fixes are often released very quickly. It is a very secure OS, with no backdoors, and a huge community of 24/7 auditors. For most casual Windows desktop user converts, however, it can be a bit much to digest, especially when things don’t work correctly out of the box. I have yet to encounter a Linux distribution (distro) where EVERYTHING just works with a default install. I definitely encourage you to try it out though. Here are the steps I recommend to all individuals interested in Linux.

First, make a list of every Windows program that you simply cannot live without. Go to www.osalt.com and search for Linux alternatives. You may be able to find some very good alternatives to the Windows apps that not only run on Linux, but also on Windows (with the GTK+ toolkit, etc). Next, test those alternative apps (that run under Windows) to see if they will truly be able to replace the native Windows counterpart. For example, OpenOffice is a Microsoft Office replacement, Firefox can replace Internet Explorer, Planner can replace Microsoft Project, etc. Personally, there are several apps with (in my mind) no acceptable replacements under Linux, including Microsoft Visio (some people recommend DIA), Adobe Photoshop (some people recommend GIMP), Adobe Acrobat Pro (no alternative), and many hardware drivers.

Second, visit www.distrowatch.com to research some of the many Linux distros available. That being said, you are better off sticking to one of the main distros, which include Ubuntu (most popular), Fedora, or OpenSUSE. You mention Puppy Linux, which is actually the 7th most popular distro. I would avoid it.

Third, test out the “live” version of each of the three distros (if available). You can burn a live distro onto a flash drive or CD/DVD, boot your computer from it, and test the entire functional operating system (complete with applications) without ever writing a single byte to your hard drive. I actually use this method to boot a customized version of Linux called “Backtrack” to perform network penetration testing and test the security of wireless networks. Live distros are also great for anonymous web browsing from free wifi connections. As soon as you power off your machine, every speck of data is gone because it was stored in RAM.

Lastly, once you have selected a distribution that you like, copy all of your data to a flash drive or CD/DVD, install Linux (preferably on a separate hard disk so that you can revert back to Windows if necessary), and copy your data over.

Good luck…