Facebook IPO
It’s happening and a company that produces little has a lot of damn money. Also, one executive has renounced his citizenship to avoid taxes. Reap, sow. Anyway, we can’t have people going Galt so there ought to be a law: 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.
Update: What’s next, fences?
May 17th, 2012 at 10:12 am
I saw an article recently that said more and more people are renouncing their citizenship (people who already live oversees) because of the IRS reporting requirements.
Not to dodge taxes either because most that are renouncing dont even owe anything.
May 17th, 2012 at 10:12 am
“or never come to back to the U.S. again”
I think thats his plan.
May 17th, 2012 at 10:18 am
Well, yes, renunciation of US citizenship is already in the immigration code. No visa for you.
May 17th, 2012 at 10:19 am
Schumer is just a posturing clown.
May 17th, 2012 at 10:35 am
So let me get this straight: Schumer is anti-immigrant? Isn’t that racist? That’s what he claims when people call for stopping illegal immigration.
May 17th, 2012 at 10:37 am
Comment of the day: “Hey I have a great idea: let’s build a wall manned with machine gun toting guards to prevent our people from leaving”
hahahaha
May 17th, 2012 at 10:48 am
Kind of a dick move, but whatever. The guy only became a US citizen in 1992.
May 17th, 2012 at 10:51 am
Chuckles Schumer is just mad ’cause the guy is keeping Chuckles from spending the money foolishly.
May 17th, 2012 at 11:06 am
Schumer is a thug and clown.
May 17th, 2012 at 11:14 am
“Kind of a dick move, but whatever. The guy only became a US citizen in 1992.”
And the IRS taught him that was a mistake. It happens to all of us. Hence why every gun shop in Mass has at least one Desert Eagle in the used racks. They’re all pre-ban guns, so they SHOULD be in short order….but people buy them, and realize their mistake.
I’m sure there are lots of used Taurus Judges in the free states too…
May 17th, 2012 at 11:15 am
Regarding your update, I am reminded of this:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5128943945501615502#
May 17th, 2012 at 11:50 am
I’m actually old enough to remember when people actually came to America seeking personal and economic freedom, rather than fleeing it…and those immigrants were often punished for doing so by the tyrants they fled, often with the very same sorts of laws as Chucky Schumer’s “Ex-Patriot Act.”
What an appropriate name for the proposed legislation, by the way. It manages to be both Orwellian and McCarthyite at once. And it also perfectly describes the tyrants who proposed it.
May 17th, 2012 at 12:31 pm
Chuckie, if he is such a bad guy for leaving, why did DoJ send him a gun?
May 17th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
Justin: Not a dick move. Congress “rewarded” this guy for creating wealth by slapping excessive taxes on him.
He should leave now, before assholes like Chucky Schumer can get a chance to put a Berlin Wall up to keep the slaves from fleeing.
May 17th, 2012 at 7:13 pm
Loophole: people doing legal shit I don’t like.
Chuck is a whiny bitch.
May 17th, 2012 at 7:38 pm
Wait, renouncing US citizenship means you can’t return to visit relatives and friends? Did we somehow slide back into worse than USSR?
May 17th, 2012 at 7:55 pm
Schumer does not belong in the U.S.
May 17th, 2012 at 9:34 pm
Now if Schumer’s stupid bill passes, [which it won’t because the Democrats right now are specializing in not passing any legislation including budgets (Obama’s budget got zero votes of any party in both House and Senate … yep, zero votes from his own party)], consider the implications.
Next time some very wealthy person considers investing in the US and becoming a US citizen, what is his accountant going to tell him? His accountant is going to tell him to avoid becoming a US citizen at all costs.
That’s the kind of insanely stupid incentive that Schumer stands for. Well, I’m lying because Schumer would probably not vote for his own bill if it has any chance of passing. That’s how dishonest Schumer is.
May 17th, 2012 at 11:47 pm
Leftists don’t have a problem with walls and fences. They have a problem with the direction the machine guns are pointed in.
May 18th, 2012 at 7:47 am
Schumer should be stripped of citizenship and deported for proposing such crap. Bring back exile!
May 18th, 2012 at 4:10 pm
When I first started commenting on this blog (almost 10 years ago, yikes), I was the damn foreigner. I’m proud to say that a month ago, I was naturalized and am now a US Citizen. I am registered to vote and can’t wait to perform my civic duty on June 5. I could have signed up for an absentee ballot, but really want to have the experience of walking into the polling booth, casting my ballot and getting my sticker saying that I voted.
What offends me about Eduardo Savarin is the idea that US Citizenship is something that can be attained and renounced when it is convenient for that person. Eduardo’s family came to the US because they were concerned about their children being kidnapped and held for ransom. America provided a safe place to grow up and thrive.
I think its safe to say that without moving to the US, Eduardo likely would never have gone to Harvard and never met Mark Zuckerberg and never attained the wealth that he now enjoys.
America was good to Eduardo Savarin and he renounces his citizenship to save himself a few bucks. This, to me as a newly minted citizen, is completely outrageous. There were Americans who renounced their citizenship when Bush was elected or when America went to war in Iraq and Vietnam before then. Those too are crazy.
We live in a democracy. If Eduardo doesn’t like US tax policy, he can vote, give money to candidates (and unlike most of us) donate to Super PACs to influence policy.
The reality is that we as a country lose little from Eduardo renouncing his citizenship. If he doesn’t like it, why should we allow him back? Some have noted that tax policy caused him to renounce. Canada (the country of my birth) has a policy whereby citizens moving out of the country have to pay an exit tax. If the US had a similar policy, we would have collected far less tax from Eduardo than we are now.
Now don’t get me wrong, there are things that should change. FATCA has been an issue with foreign banks for quite some time and is far too far-reaching. Back in the day, US Citizens with less than $80k in income didn’t have to file US returns. That was repealed under one of the Bush tax cuts. Filing a return as an ex-pat is much more complicated than logging into TurboTax as there are generally going to be issues with tax treaties and what not. A proper return is going to cost a taxpayer a sizable sum and only the wealthiest should be made to bear that burden.
That said, I’m disappointed that Eduardo’s renunciation of citizenship is being treated as a means to attack tax policy. It is quite simply ungratefulness for the privilege of being a citizen of a country that many people around the world would die to be a part of.