Nick Fountain

I did.

It's a pitch deck put together by people selling this loophole idea that was passed around behind closed doors.

Yeah, I got some of those materials.

How did you get your hands on that?

What's the pitch to the ultra wealthy?

Which is like an international money manager.

And this is its sales pitch for Americans to use the loophole.

The pitch lays out how lucrative one of these Maltese accounts could be for different kinds of people.

Like, for example, they talk about this made-up person, Max Franklin, a venture capitalist at a boutique private equity firm in New York, who owns a chunk of a company that's about to be sold for $15 million profit.

Luckily, the pitch goes on.

If Max hires the right people, there is a way for him to avoid this.

Because of Malta's amazing retirement laws, if he just puts a chunk of the company into a Maltese retirement account, when the company is sold, the proceeds will land in his account tax-free.

And when he hits 50, he can start getting his money out, also tax-free, without ever setting foot in Malta.

Because of our amazing tax treaty with Malta.

Saying, yeah, we know this looks too good to be true.

But whether it was a mistake or not, it's right there in the treaty.

Like there was a ticking clock.

Talking about this publicly meant the IRS would see it and take a good hard look.

And when those taxpayers put that money in there, nobody was giving them any trouble.

That didn't happen until the next chapter of the story.