
Senators to Unveil the Ex-Patriot Act to Respond to Facebook’s Saverin - kyleslattery
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/senators-to-unveil-the-ex-patriot-act-to-respond-to-facebooks-saverins-tax-scheme/
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ckluis
Anyone notice the tone of the comments? Financial berlin wall being the most
frequent.

Sheer lunancy. Saverin is a world citizen who lived in the US for a time while
it was prudent and now longer does. The policies that cause this should be
looked at rather than creating more broken policies.

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gee_totes
What happens under this law if you are already living in the US and renounce
your citizenship for tax reasons and have no other country of which you are a
resident? Do you get deported to NULL?

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forgottenpaswrd
They are dozens of countries that will give you citizenship if you pay, like
the US does(If you have money you become citizen).

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gee_totes
Is there a list of these countries somewhere? The only country that I know of
that sells citizenship was Sealand (they don't anymore, but they were offering
passports as a fundraiser).

<http://principality-of-sealand.eu/faq_e.html>

Actually, the above website may not be from the REAL Sealand... long story.

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throwaway518
At the moment there's only two countries left that formally and openly grant
citizenship with zero years of required residency in exchange for cash: St.
Kitts and the Commonwealth of Dominica. In the 1990s there were a lot more
(Grenada, Belize, Marshall Islands, etc.). Montenegro used to do this too up
until recently but they came under pressure from other European countries to
stop. Austria is rumoured to do it under their "contributions to national
interests clause" (the one that other countries usually use to naturalise
soccer players) but the price tag is in the 7 or 8 US$ figure range.

<http://ciu.gov.kn/>

<http://www.dominica.gov.dm/cms/index.php?q=node/678>

<https://www.henleyglobal.com/countries/austria/citizenship/>

On the other hand, dozens of countries will give you a _visa_ in exchange for
an investment; there's nothing unusual about the US in that regard, contra
what forgottenpasswrd tries to imply. In some cases the "investment" is just a
purchase of government bonds; in other cases it means an actual business that
is capital-intensive and generates good jobs for locals. After you get the
visa, you still have to actually live there for some period of time and show
evidence of integration (like speaking the language) to qualify for
naturalisation. The amount of money and the period of time range from four or
five figures and a couple of years (Peru, Ecuador, Paraguay, Dominican
Republic) all the way up to seven figures and the better part of a decade
(Hong Kong, Germany).

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WiseWeasel
I could see imposing US capital gains taxes, but barring travel to the US
seems vindictive.

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cleverjake
I believe that is the point, honestly.

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WiseWeasel
Countries should never appear vindictive, as it also makes them look petty and
weak.

[edit] Also, how does it make sense to impose taxes AND bar them from entry?
Seems like more of an either/or type of situation. If someone is paying US
taxes, then obviously they should be allowed entry; no one wants to fund the
mechanism that punishes them. [/edit]

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Duff
Sen. Schumer is in many ways the senatorial equivalent of a personal injury
lawyer who advertises on the back of a bus.

He's a good politician, but a master self-promter. He focuses on hot issues to
get cheap name recognition like the iPhone 4 "antennagate" issue, airport
baggage fees, caffinated malt liquor and similar nonsense.

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cschep
I wonder what would happen if it wasn't such a waste of money to give it to
the government. Would people be more inclined to stick around and do so? I
don't blame him one bit, seems like most of his money would end up bailing out
a bank or something equally disagreeable.

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jbooth
The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club.

If you start from an unproven assertion ('all government spending is waste'),
you can believe whatever you want. Things like, "Hey, I'm not being an out-
for-myself bastard who's reneging on his obligations to society by being a tax
cheat, I'm John Galt! I'm a good guy!".

Without the US ecosystem, it's hard to see facebook being as successful as it
has been. It's pretty weak to turn around after that and say you're not
obligated to pay US taxes.

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gyardley
He presumably paid capital gains taxes on his Facebook stock when he left the
country.

You might find his disloyalty to America distasteful, as I do - if his
citizenship was so easily discarded, perhaps he shouldn't have acquired it in
the first place. You might believe long-term capital gains tax rates are too
low. But if you're implying this man is a tax cheat who's reneging on his
obligations to society, that's just slander. As far as I can tell he followed
the law, paid his taxes, and kept his obligations.

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jbooth
I wasn't slandering Saverin specifically so much as the notion that there's a
principled reason to avoid paying taxes. There are plenty of selfish reasons,
and I'm not Mother Theresa so I'm not claiming to be better than anyone. But
call it what it is.

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gyardley
I know that some level of taxation is necessary to keep society running along,
and am not against taxation _per se_. But I do try to legally minimize my
taxes, because I want my own family to be well-provided for and because I want
to direct my charitable giving to my own community and causes.

If that's selfish, I guess I'm selfish - but is this motivation truly so
terrible?

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jbooth
Nothing so bad about that, I do the same, within reason. I'm just saying
acknowledge it for what it is. And when you have billions, it's a fair bit
more selfish.

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jws
Will this also include corporations that use foreign incorporation to reduce
US taxes?

And I can't connect _…owns an estimated 4 percent of Facebook and stands to
make $4 billion…_ with _…help him duck up to $67 million in taxes_.

He is allegedly avoiding a 1.7% tax on his projected $4000 million? It sounds
a bit of a stretch to say he'd renounce citizenship just to save what amounts
to trading noise. (e.g. AAPL and GOOG each moved more than that in the last 3
hours, in opposite directions.)

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sp332
From what I've heard, the "exit tax" is equivalent to paying capital gains tax
(fairly low 15%) on all stocks you currently hold. His will come to $0.5B in
taxes! So leaving the country might avoid some other taxes that come to $170M.
Anyway he's currently living in Singapore, so maybe switching citizenship
wasn't as big a deal.

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forgottenpaswrd
Wow, it is incredible how the US is becoming more and more of a police state
day after day. The currency devaluation by the Fed, the TSA, the patriot act,
the bail outs, and now trying to prevent by force of the law citizens escaping
the country.

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thrill
We should be creating a tax structure that makes people clamoring to bring
their wealth into the country - not maneuvering to leave.

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mikeash
I really wish politicians were willing to sit back and do nothing for one-off
non-problems. I can't say I approve of Saverin's maneuvering, and dodging
taxes by renouncing citizenship is in poor taste, but do we really need a law
just for this one guy?

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cluda01
There was approximately 1800 people who relinquished citizenship this year. If
each of these people has a net worth over $1m this could very quickly add up
to a significant amount of lost tax revenue.

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gyardley
Let's assume they have an average net worth of not $1M but $10M each, and that
the US government is able to confiscate 100% of it, leaving them utterly
penniless but netting $18B.

The federal deficit for 2012 was ~$1.3 trillion, so that $18B is about 1.5% of
the shortfall.

I'm not saying $18B isn't significant - but focusing on 'the rich' or
'expatriates' or any other high-net-worth group just isn't going to solve
America's problems.

