Over the years many global investors–including Americans–have sought to safeguard their assets and protect their financial privacy by opening accounts with banks in Switzerland.

Some, no doubt, had the intention of evading taxes by sending assets to Switzerland.

But avoiding taxes is far from the only reason for an investor to want to preserve assets.

Nevertheless, the US Treasury Department–more specifically, the Internal Revenue Service–will soon have free access to the accounts of nearly 4,500 American investors with Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) as a result a strong-arm deal in which the US threatened the Swiss bank with sanctions if it did not open up its books to US regulators.

This deal was originally reported as impacting about 4,500 American investors, but more details are emerging as time marches on. It is now being reported in the press that 10,000 accounts at UBS are being looked into by the IRS and it has also been suggested by The Wall Street Journal that other Swiss banks–with as many as 52,000 American accounts–will also be targeted in similar deals with the US Treasury Department.

Furthermore, the long arm of the US Treasury will now reportedly move into Asia, where other Americans have sent assets to protect them from hazards like a collapse in the US dollar, frivolous lawsuits or some other issue or crisis centered in the USA.

Now, the ability of Americans to preserve their assets by seeking safe haven overseas is certainly being called into question to say the least and, in the process, with no due process, Americans’ financial privacy is being trampled as the IRS claims to be in pursuit of tax evaders.

In today’s financial world, there are few safe havens left and even fewer means of preserving financial privacy. Luckily, those who have acquired Rare US/Numismatic Coins have the benefit of both.

Not only due rare coins provide diversification because they tend to move in the opposite direction of paper investments like stocks and bonds, but they also are one of the few remaining asset categories that can be accumulated privately. Moreover, unlike gold bullion, rare coins are exempt from the provisions in existing federal law which provide for the confiscation of privately owned gold at the discretion of the president.

As financial privacy becomes a relic of the past and government continues to grow and impose itself upon our daily lives, financial and otherwise, it is comforting to know that rare gold coins continue to offer a portable, private way to preserve wealth.