
Derek Sivers Renounces his US Citizenship - secure1234
https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2012/04/30/2012-10274/quarterly-publication-of-individuals-who-have-chosen-to-expatriate
======
cletus
EDIT: 48 upvotes in an hour and this submission just jumped from top 10 to
second page? WTF?

Honestly, the US is the most invasive government in the "free" world I've had
the misfortune to encounter.

I can't think of another developed nation that is quite so overbearing when it
comes to foreign income. US citizens who haven't been in the US for 40 years
and work in other countries STILL need to report their income to the IRS (as
an Australian who lives and works in the US, Australia doesn't care about my
income as one example).

The reporting requirements on tax residents in the US (citizens and non-
citizens) is absurd. If I fail to disclose my retirement account in Australia,
established well before ever working in the US, the US government can
technically imprison me and charge me a penalty of 300% of the value of that
retirement account (all in the name of "fighting terrorism").

What really doesn't sit well with me is the presumption of criminality that
exists in US law (actual and enforced). The presumption of innocence seems to
be some kind of anecdote in history.

I know I'll never take up US citizenship. No thanks. I'll stick with
Australia/Britain (dual citizen) thanks.

In all honesty the only reason I'm even here is because I want to see it (New
York in particular) before it's gone. The US reminds me of the crumbling,
dying days of the Roman Empire.

Don't get me wrong. There are many great things about the US. Up until WWI,
the US opened its doors to those seeking riches, a new life, freedom from
religious persecution and any number of other terrible things in the Old
World. In the span of a century (1800 to 1900), the US had turned itself from
an agrarian backwater into an industrial superpower, a legacy that has lasted
until the present day. The US has certainly played a key part in the
technological progress of the 20th century.

But now the government seems to consist of self-interested parties who are
happy to persecute citizens of every country including its own. It really
seems like it's lost its way and I'm not sure how it comes back from that.

~~~
run4yourlives
Every country has requirements of its citizens. A lot force you to serve in
the Armed Forces. The US doesn't do that.

While I agree that the US isn't as welcoming as it once was and has always had
an onerous tax code, for foreigners it is still a huge benefit to work and do
business there.

The funny thing is that Citizenship in the US has been essentially devalued by
non-citizen working categories that have been developed in order to make the
economy function. Unlike Europe or Canada, the US as a country doesn't really
provide anything substantial to its citizens that make moving from a green
card to a full citizen really worthwhile unless you care that much about
voting.

Green Cards (or equivalent legal status) are gold though. Save the passports
for EU countries or CAN/AUS. :-)

~~~
sjtgraham
Permanent Residents (Green Card holders) also have to pay tax on their
worldwide income, even if they do not reside in the US.

~~~
_delirium
That's true, but adding some of the obligations of citizenship to permanent
residency isn't uncommon, either. For example, permanent residents of
Singapore of military age must serve in its military. Personally, I'd rather
file a 1040 than attend boot camp, so am pretty happy with my U.S.
citizenship, even as an expatriate. :)

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mahmud
As someone who holds three nationalities, and is 2 years away from a fourth: I
look forward to the day I hold none.

Beligerence of the "State" knows no bounds, I hope we can free ourselves from
this regressive construct and, once again, live in this world judged by our
own merit and character, beholden to none.

~~~
jseliger
Maybe, but if you're in a country that's going to hell (Russia invades
Georgia, Rwanda in 1994) and you're a U.S. citizen, you can be evacuated.

In addition, if you're captured in the United States and labeled a
"terrorist," you're less likely to be tortured and held in "black" facilities
if you're a U.S. citizen. Perhaps not an optimal reason, but it still exists.

~~~
mahmud
The U.S. embassy has evacuated my family and we're still paying for it. It's
not free. We could have hired a private militia and escaped to safety for 5%
of what we paid the state department.

~~~
jstabbac
Could you elaborate? I'm interested in knowing more. Where were you, how much
did it cost, what services were provided?

~~~
mahmud
Somalia 1991. [two-digit]k per person. Do the math.

(I need to ask the family, I remember it being more than 30k)

~~~
igorsyl
Did they disclose the fees before providing this service? Or they just
surprised you with the bill in the mail? Was this tax-deductible?

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mbesto
Not sure if he reason is tax related, but I will say this...I'm not starting a
company abroad without renouncing my US citizenship. I've been living in and
out of the US for the last 4 years now and the fact that we get taxed when we
are outside of the country is ludicrous to say the least. Are we really that
arrogant?

~~~
rdtsc
I wonder it if it stems from entities like corporations and individuals being
treated in a similar fashion by some law. So they don't want to all of the
sudden to have every single US company to end up headquartered in the Cayman
Islands.

Also if they don't do this. It pretty much guarantees that any wealthy
individual will leave the country for a tax haven. Say you reach a $10M/year
income if your tax rate is 30% in US, given your financial status, it would be
very easy for you to move to Mexico or another country and just say "Well, I
am not in US anymore, can't tax me".

Now in actuality this is already happening. They are just making it harder.
They are trying to plug the holes in hunk of Swiss cheese.

~~~
woe
Even if we accept that this is undesirable, surely it is within the ken of
mankind to devise a system that hits these wealthy tax evaders without placing
unreasonable burdens on every single overseas national, regardless of their
circumstances.

------
pinko
Is anyone else slightly surprised that:

(a) this is public info online, and; (b) it's apparently public because, of
all things, HIPPA?

~~~
phren0logy
HIPAA is not really about privacy. The name is a good bit of marketing. Don't
take my word, check it out for yourself.

~~~
Kadrith
HIPAA stands for "Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act" there
is nothing about privacy in the name.

------
sheraz
Eduardo Saverin (of Facebook fame) is also on that list. Also in Singapore, I
think. I wonder -- what their reasons are other than the US tax burden?

~~~
jwwest
A cursory glance at Wikipedia suggests his middle initial is P. The middle
name listed on the register is Luis.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Saverin>

~~~
neilc
A cursory glance at Wikipedia also suggests that "Since 2010, Saverin has
lived in Singapore."

------
run4yourlives
I'm a little disappointed that this would be posted and not include a
commentary about the number of reasons that he would have for doing this.

It seems rather useless to simply troll government websites for "revealing"
data and make no other comment about it. We can add nothing to this data point
beyond conjecture without understanding why a person makes this decision.

EDIT: So people have figured out that he's moved to Singapore and married a
Singaporean, which makes perfect sense given their stance on citizenship in
general.

I know a Singaporean - they don't like losing citizens. Namely, because of the
extensive government involvement in their lives in the form of everything from
social services to national ID cards to military service. The approach is a
much different path of democracy than what we'd be used to in North America.

~~~
secure1234
He didn't marry a Singaporean. His wife was born in India.

~~~
run4yourlives
Good point, his wife is Tamil. I didn't delve into his personal details with
great gusto. :-)

In that case though, given Singapore, it's a good middle ground between India
and the US culture wise.

------
theorique
Does anyone know why?

Tax purposes, political protest, or what?

Also: it's funny that the government misspells the acronym of their own law,
HIPAA.

~~~
marshallp
There's been talk recently of wealthy americans fleeing the country for tax
reasons. If Obama gets reelected, as is expected, he's gonna go all out in his
second term (I'm an Obama supporter but I dislike the idea of taxing the
entrepreneurs more to fund the lazy government workers).

~~~
ajross
...Obama has a propsal to tax entrepreneurs?

Rant time: I _despise_ what political discourse in this country has become.
Rather than talk about policy we've trained everyone (like marshallp here) to
regurgitate sound bites about how this or that politician is "gonna go all
out" to do whatever evil thing sounds fun this week. Look: tax policy is a
bunch of boring laws. You can read them if you like. You can look at proposed
laws and make suggestions, and argue with the specifics of what our government
is doing or what it proposes to do.

But slinging around loaded terms like "taxing entrepreneurs" or "lazy
government workers" is hurting us all, and helping no one but the spin
doctors. Stop it. Try to be smarter than that.

Edit: more spin terms from the reply: "out of our wallets", " _my_ money".
Spin if you want, but if you try to argue about policy using language you got
from cable news, you'll merely perpetuate the current policy situation
(designed almost exclusively to cater to the attention spans of cable news
viewers).

~~~
snowwrestler
One of the pay-fors for the PPACA is a 3.8 additional tax on investment income
above a certain level. Successful entrepreneurs looking to take some money out
of their business have a good chance of hitting this tax.

~~~
ajross
Exactly! So a very broad increase in tax on all (!) investments by all (!)
high income individuals becomes a "tax on entrepreneurs", because the
specifics don't seem so scary unless you make it sound like it hurts something
important.

Here's the snopes page on that very tax:
<http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/realestate.asp> Amusingly, the spin it's
trying to fight is that it's a tax on "home buyers". Apparently the
"entrepreneurs" angle is a new one.

It's a tax. Is it a bad one? Dunno, I think on balance an increase in the
capital gains rate (which is sort of what this is) gated on income level isn't
a _bad_ way to raise that revenue. You have a different suggestion?

~~~
snowwrestler
You're now ranting at my sober and factual comment. My suggestion is to be the
change you want to see: calm down and put more substance in your
communications.

~~~
ajross
I said it was a rant when this subthread started. A "sober and factual"
comment in support of ridiculous spin doesn't qualify, sorry; it simply means
you're spinning well. And given that only one of us linked to an actual
analysis of that law, let's just say I'm greatly amused at your demand for
"substance".

------
runjake
A quick look at US federal records searches pull up at least 3 living "Derek
Sivers". Is there any corroboration from "our" Derek Sivers that this is
indeed him? Otherwise it seems disingenuous to post this on HN under the
assumption.

------
hornbaker
OT, but I'm pretty impressed at that site's design, considering it's a .gov
property.

~~~
andrewcarpenter
Thanks--we appreciate it! More info about federalregister.gov (the site is
fully open source, has a powerful API, etc) can be found on this thread:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2839137>

------
patrocles
The US Tax Code incents US citizens to drop their citizenship before they have
2M USD in net worth.

<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/877>

~~~
runako
At best, you're referring only to US expatriates. The article you linked does
not apply to people living in the US at all.

Also, political innuendo aside, Sivers doesn't mention tax avoidance in his
reasons for moving to Singapore: <http://sivers.org/singapore>

~~~
jlgreco
IIRC, it is impossible to renounce citizenship (and have it be recognized by
the US government) while in the US (being inside a US embassy is I believe not
counted as being in the US, and is indeed required). Expatriation is assumed
whenever you are talking about (American) citizenship renunciation.

------
makmanalp
So, looks like he's in Singapore now: <http://sivers.org/singapore>

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noahc
For those wondering about the Tax issue, I doubt that is the case because of:
<http://sivers.org/trust>

He put the company into a charitable trust, which isn't ever taxed except for
on what he receives from the trust, which is set to the lowest amount
possible.

~~~
patrocles
~20M dollar exit; in the US, trusts have to pay out 5% per year; he has a ~1M
income provided the trust invests well.

~~~
noahc
My understanding is that ~1M a year isn't enough to justify most people
loosing their US citizenship over. However, Derek isn't exactly most people.

My general sense on the issue is that money, in particular taxes, is something
Derek worries about.

~~~
noahc
just noticed this. I wanted to say, "Not something he cares about"

------
jebblue
I'm pretty sure I'd not pick that country to live in:
[http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne+News/Singapore/Story/A1S...](http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne+News/Singapore/Story/A1Story20101022-243590.html)

Short link: <http://goo.gl/0vEQj>

~~~
michaelcampbell
To be fair, the guy in the story you're linking to overstayed his visa by over
6 mos. This cannot be seriously considered an "oversight", and Singapore is
not known for leniency to lawbreakers, which he clearly is. He rolled the
dice, and lost.

~~~
jebblue
I agree they were enforcing their laws but to me they seem a bit harsh. I'm
glad that in the US you don't get harsh punishment for being here illegally.

~~~
michaelcampbell
...yet. Will be interesting to see what happens after the next presidential
election.

~~~
jebblue
I think the US will never create a law stating to cane people who are caught
here illegally; regardless who occupies the White House.

~~~
michaelcampbell
I agree, but there are other ways to do "harsh punishment". Still, I get your
point; the US will probably never be as harsh as many other places.

------
akoumjian
I find it more interesting that this publication of names is part of HIPPA. I
really wish each piece of legislation was restricted to small units of scope.

~~~
sp332
Anything significant requires a lot of compromises in the legislature. It
makes sense to put all the compromises in one bill so they can all be passed
at once. Otherwise after a few pieces had been passed, the other legislators
could reneg on their parts.

~~~
akoumjian
I could be wrong, but I believe a Schulze method would solve that. The
compromises could remain independent pieces which pass or don't pass depending
on a preference matrix.

------
Mz
OT: Anyone know of online resources regarding dual citizenship issues?
(Specifically German-American.)

Thanks.

~~~
woe
Germany has a very restrictive dual nationality policy. Though technically
their rules do permit an immigrant to apply to be permitted to keep his
original nationality, this is not something you can expect.

~~~
Mz
Thanks for replying, though I seem to have given the wrong impression. I am a
former military wife. One of my children was born in Germany. I have told him
it would be a bad idea to just show up in Germany. My understanding is he has
dual citizenship and could potentially be drafted. The discussion here made me
wonder if there might be more info online regarding potential repercussions of
his status. I have no plans at this time to move outside the country, so I was
not inquiring about pursuing dual citizenship.

Again, thanks for responding.

~~~
woe
Ah, OK.

Germany has always been a "jus sanguinis" country, meaning that the basic
principle of its nationality law is blood descent. This stands in contrast
with "jus soli" countries like the United States where the basic principle is
place of birth. A child born in Germany is not automatically a German
national. It used to be that birth on German soil was completely irrelevant to
questions of nationality, but children born in Germany since 2000 can acquire
German nationality by birth if one of the parents was a long-term permanent
resident. I question whether a military baby would qualify, as a soldier
stationed in Germany would presumably not be there under a German permanent
residence permit.

Assuming for the sake of argument that your son did have German nationality,
he would certainly be subject to the draft - if it still existed. Germany
ended compulsory service last year. But this does point to a larger issue:
anybody with multiple nationalities is fully subject to all the legal
obligations imposed on citizens of each country.

(I am not an immigration lawyer, but I've sent a lot of time researching
nationality issues. I've also spent some time in German embassies: I have a
German wife and a child who is therefore also German by virtue of jus
sanguinis.)

~~~
Mz
Thank you very much. That makes me wonder if I qualify as a dual citizen. My
mother is German and did not make her American citizenship until I was 18. My
father is American and I was born in the U.S., so I definitely have American
citizenship.

Also, I will note that the son in question is in his early twenties. So it
sounds like he is not a dual citizen and does not need to worry about the
draft..etc.

Again, thanks!

~~~
woe
If you're older than 37 you're probably out of luck, since before 1975 Germany
operated a lovely double standard: citizenship was transmitted based on the
father, not the mother.

Have a look here: [http://www.auswaertiges-
amt.de/EN/Infoservice/FAQ/Staatsange...](http://www.auswaertiges-
amt.de/EN/Infoservice/FAQ/Staatsangehoerigkeit/Uebersicht.html)

~~~
Mz
Again: Thanks.

------
mariuolo
Who?

