Senators To Unveil the 'Ex-Patriot Act' To Respond To Facebook's Saverin 716
An anonymous reader writes "Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has a status update for Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin: Stop attempting to dodge your taxes by renouncing your U.S. citizenship or never come to back to the U.S. again." See this earlier story on Saverin's plan to make the leap out of the U.S. tax system.
Re:Tax rates (Score:4, Informative)
Reduce taxes by $67 million != only pay $67 million.
Re:God this is stupid (Score:3, Informative)
This is America... the big melting pot and all that... names are the last thing that tell you where people are from here. I live in the area that Schumer (unfortunately) represents. We have hispanics with Polish names, Russians with English names and blacks with Irish names... and most of them are at least third generation Americans.
Re:Not Just Saverin (Score:5, Informative)
Here is a quick one
John Kerry
http://bostonherald.com/track/inside_track/view/20100723senator_skipper_skips_town_on_sails_tax [bostonherald.com]
Re:The nerve (Score:3, Informative)
Man he sure has some nerve for coming to this country and then renouncing his citizenship last year before the IPO was planned. And he really has some nerve paying his exit taxes when he renounced his citizenship and then not paying them after he was already not a citizen. Reading some of the better written articles on the topic today you should know that since he plans to become a citizen of Singapore where he lives and has lived for the past few years you have to renounce your other citizenships, which is exactly what he's done.
Re:Why is the solution to every problem (Score:5, Informative)
Wake up America, the Democrats are NOT the Dems of yesteryear.
Sure they are! [wikipedia.org]
Seems to me, the problem is that at some point people got this crazy notion that certain groups of politicians aren't selfish dicks...
Re:I understand, but... (Score:2, Informative)
It's *NOT* novel, and as I pointed out in the last article's comments page, there's already law on the books that you're liable for 10 years of federal taxes when you expatriate. So in fact, you're already on the hook even if you leave, they just may have been lax in enforcing this before.
Surprise, surprise (Score:2, Informative)
Isn't this *already* a law? (Score:5, Informative)
From 8 USC 1182 - INADMISSIBLE ALIENS: [cornell.edu]
(E) Former citizens who renounced citizenship to avoid taxation
Any alien who is a former citizen of the United States who officially renounces United States citizenship and who is determined by the Attorney General to have renounced United States citizenship for the purpose of avoiding taxation by the United States is inadmissible.
So, what's the point of the "new" proposed law besides political grandstanding?
Tax avoidance is not tax evasion (Score:3, Informative)
Why target only those evade their taxes by renouncing their citizenship? Shouldn't these politicians take a good look at themselves? How many of them use every loophole (or sneaky, illegal tactic) they can find to evade their taxes? These people are not above reproach. Most, if not all, are just as guilty of evading their taxes.
Tax avoidance is NOT tax evasion. There is a big difference between the two.
Re:Not Just Saverin (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not familiar with all the details of this particular case, but there is a difference between paying as little tax as possible (everyone should be attempting to do this...) and committing tax fraud.
In this particular case, the person was born in Brazil, and living in Singapore, and plans to continue to live in Singapore indefinitely. Sounds like the most rational reasons for forfeiting his US citizenship to me.
And from a legal standpoint, as long as he holds citizenship of some recognized country then he is entirely free to do so. However, individuals who reside in the US, and have no other citizenships anywhere else cannot just renounce their citizenship to dodge taxes, because international law does not provide for the existence of individuals without a citizenship. So, one can only renounce ones citizenship if one already has another citizenship. (US Courts have also held that a US citizen cannot lose their citizenship without willful revocation of it, since the Constitution guarantees your citizenship. So, no act of Congress or other legislative body can dismiss a person's citizenship against their will.)
Re:Why is the solution to every problem (Score:4, Informative)
Others might call it being driven from your home by a system they have little to no power to influence.
Are people in refugee camps merely voting with their feet? Sure I'm exagerrating to make a point, but whether you a fleeing a murderous warlord, or fleeing from tax laws you don't like, a lot of people do certainly object to being forced from their homes.
Re:I understand, but... (Score:2, Informative)
If you think the government deserves credit for "allowing" someone to create a successful business, you're a lost cause.
It takes a very small government indeed to create the basic social order needed for a business to operate, and indeed that's a vasnishingly small portion (measured monitarily) of what our government does. Our government is mostly a pension plan with a military, and everything else it does is in the small "other" slice in the pie chart.
Sure, a few pennies from every dollar in taxes go towards the stuff you're talking about but it's the other 80+ cents per dollar that people are complaining about when they complain about taxes. It takes willful ignorance these days not to realize this.
Re:I understand, but... (Score:3, Informative)
If a guy leaves because he has to pay $67 million after earning $4 billion then he doesn't deserve citizenship.
The guy in question didn't just "leave" - he has renounced citizenship himself. The bill in question would tax him anyway.
You know the other country that used to charge people money for leaving (if allowed at all)? The USSR. When Jewish immigrants left the country, they had to basically leave all valuables behind.
Re:So like the Soviet Union? (Score:5, Informative)
It's not about preventing people from leaving, it's about preventing people from leaving solely because they're doing it as a way to cheat the system that is partially responsible for where they are in the first place.
That sounds familiar. When Soviet Union was preventing [wikipedia.org] Soviet Jews from leaving the country for US or Israel, the most popular argument was that those Jews have enjoyed all the benefits of the socialist society, most notably free university education (but also healthcare etc), and therefore they "owe" it to the state to repay by their work.
Eventually, USSR has enacted a law where emigrants who had university education, had to compensate the state for it before they were allowed to it. US responded by enacting the Jackson-Vanik amendment [wikipedia.org] (which, by the way, is still in force today).
Re:Why is the solution to every problem (Score:4, Informative)
When the President wants to "protest" a bill, he does something known, in laymans terms, as "Veto".
Its one of the minor powers that comes from being president.
Re:I understand, but... (Score:4, Informative)
You've lost me. An American drop owns something ... somewhere .. that doesn't appear in the sentence. And some unnamed neuter object (perhaps the one that just went missing) has (or is) most excellent.
Is moving out of California unpatriotic? (Score:2, Informative)
Consider this...
If you lived in California and thought their taxes were too high, would it be "unpatriotic" if you decided to move to another state?
What if California decided to charge you an exit tax and sent you a bill after you moved? Would you consider that to be fair? After all, you lived in California and were able to take advantage of all the wonderful opportunities and benefits provided by the California government.
After you have sold all your property and moved out of California, you now work in Florida and earn all your money in Florida. However, the state of California says you still must report and pay taxes on the money you earn in Florida. They give you credit for Florida taxes, but they still want want you to pay taxes on your Florida income. Also, besides making you pay taxes, California wants you to give them the details of any financial accounts you have in Florida. Would you consider that to be fair?
Here's another scenario...
Let's say that both of your parents were born in California, but you were born in Florida and have lived there all your life. You've never even been to California.
One day, you receive a tax bill from the state of California. They claim you owe them taxes because both of your parents were California citizens, so therefore you must be a California citizen and owe taxes there. Would you consider that to be fair?
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If you think the above situations are ridiculous, then just substitute "USA" for "California" and "Singapore" for "Florida". Then you'll discover that everything is absolutely true. You'll also discover why many people have made the quite rational decision of renouncing their USA citizenship.
The USA is the ONLY country that requires its non-resident citizens to report their world-wide income and pay taxes on it. If a USA citizen moves to Singapore, they are still legally required to report their income and pay taxes back to the USA. They are also required to report any financial accounts they may have in Singapore. A Canadian or Brit (or a citizen of any other country) living in Singapore has no such requirements. Not even citizens of semi-socialist countries like Sweden and France require their non-resident citizens to report foreign accounts or pay taxes back home. They may be required to pay taxes in Singapore, but once they've been gone from their home country for a certain period of time, they are no longer required to pay taxes there.
Think the last scenario mentioned above is far-fetched? It's not. There are thousands of American citizens living in Canada who have never even set foot in the USA. Their parents were American, so that makes them American citizens. Now the IRS is going after them and requiring them to report their Canadian assets (like bank and retirement accounts) and to pay taxes on income earned in Canada.
Instead of spouting ignorance, do your homework and you may discover why Mr Saverin's decision makes perfect sense. Especially when he is originally from Brazil and may not have any deep connections to the USA.
The USA is not the home of liberty and freedom. USA tax policies are anti-freedom and out-of-step with the rest of the world. It's like telling a slave they are free to leave the plantation, but you still have to pay money back to the plantation owner. After all, you had the "benefits" of living on the plantation.
Some taxes are necessary, but if you think the current tax structure and bloated government is reponsible for "creating the internet" or other such nonsense, then think again. Yes, the original internet may have been created by the government-funded DARPA project, but do you really think that we would not have something like the internet today if DARPA had never existed?
Do you think that the telegraph and telephone would not have been invented if Morse and Bell had never lived? Do you think man would never have flown if the Wright brothers had decided to stick to bicycles? How did radio and television co
Re:Why is the solution to every problem (Score:2, Informative)
I mean seriously.. it was common knowledge when Obama did his whole "in protest" public relations stunt that he was full of shit.. and now 5 months later you come along, ignorant as fuck, and ask for a citation?
Now just shut the fuck up... you are not qualified to comment on current events because you are completely fucking oblivious to them.
Re:I understand, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Small government? Small government gave us Love Canal, the Housing Crisis that only took down the entire U.S. economy and gave the world's economy the flu, Enron, the toxic sludge flood in West Virginia from the Martin County Coal Corp., L.A.'s air quality before the EPA forced them to clean it up, etc...the list is quite long.
Small government means no FDA to make sure your prescription isn't ground up beetles. It means no high fund to fix the interstate network's bridges (yep, those states are going to get right on top of that one). No NTSA to do post mortems on plane crashes because you can always trust the airlines with your safety. No SEC to make sure you aren't buying that swamp land masquerading as a gold fund.
Grandma doesn't get her SS check, you know the one, the one that prevents her from having to move in with you. Grandma also won't get her medicare, you'd pick up her medical expenses for her, right? While we're at it, lets turn the mentally ill out of their group homes, you have some extra room in yours, right?
The list goes on. Fucking grow up already.