Taxes in the USSR were more along the lines of, “Give up your land to the collectivist effort or we will kill you.”
No exaggeration. The US isn’t really like that. I mean, yeah the Indians I suppose, but since then not especially…
Or, simply, “All land is now state property. No, there’s nothing you can do about that. If you make a fuss anyway, we’ll kill you.”
Because the government shouldn’t be acting like a jilted girlfriend?
I find it ironic that despite the whining about how Republicans hate non-citizens, it’s a Democrat who thinks that a law abiding individual free of infectious diseases should be prohibited from entering the country specifically because they are not a US citizen.
What makes you think he’s free of infectious diseases? 
This is your characterization of tax evasion?
Tax avoidance. Tax evasion means committing fraud against the government so they falsely think you owe them less than you really owe them. Tax avoidance means changing your behaviour or bringing it to the IRS’s attention so that according to the government’s own rules you actually do owe them less money.
Schumer isn’t doing this to punish criminals, he’s just pissed off that someone would have the audacity to not give him more money than he is legally entitled to.
If he ditched his citizenship simply because he wanted the benefits of living here without having to pay the dues, then no, I don’t think he should be here. It has nothing to do with him being a non-citizen. He doesn’t want to BE a citizen, but he still wants the benefits of being one. As someone mentioned above, can’t have your cake and eat it too.
It’s like you join a club, and pay dues, but don’t like paying them, so you decide you don’t want to be a member of said club. Okay, fine. But that means you can’t stay in the clubhouse and enjoy the perks.
But the government IS legally entitled to it.
Saverin is exploiting a loophole. The government is closing it because it is a bullshit loophole. The person was a US citizen, he benefited from all the US has to offer which created his opportunity, the company is in the US, the stock is listed on a US stock exchange. Why should where he lives matter?
Everything about this was generated in the US. AFTER the fact he wants to bolt and dodge the tax.
Fuck him. If he didn’t like the deal in the US he could have moved to (I dunno) Somalia or something and started the company there. No taxes…he should be in heaven.
If he’s a badass entrepreneur and the country he is in provides him nothing then anywhere will work.
Face it…fucker got lucky…twice (Facebook then in the courts). And it all 100% happened in the US so seems to me Uncle Sam deserves his cut.
The interesting question which isn’t being asked here, is why does the US of all countries tax people on world wide earnings even if they are not residents of the US?
In most countries if you leave and live in another country and earn money there you only pay tax in the country you are resident in. As an Australian I can legally move to Singapore, live there and only pay Singapore taxes on the money I earn. I can keep my Australian passport without a problem.
What exactly makes the US so special that its government deserves money that non-residents earn outside the US?
Maybe you’re not aware of this, but we do let non-citizens into the country - that’s why we have these things called “visas” and even “green cards” which let a non-citizen stay in the country indefinitely.
Bullshit. The government’s own laws say they aren’t.
WRONG. Have you ever seen a commie drink a glass of water ? Vodka, that’s what they drink, isn’t it ? Never water. On no account will a commie ever drink water, and not without good reason.
I left the USA ten years ago, have maintained a foreign residence ever since and last year paid over $40,000 in tax to the USA. What did I get for it? Nothing. I never used the US Embassy services, or any other US government services either.
Why should I be paying tax to a country I don’t live in?
The worst part is capital gains… If I sell my apartment here (bought with money I earned here), and earn a profit, why the hell should the US get a dime? The money was never in the US.
I can kind of see this logic, but does it apply here or is this a tangent?
Near as I can figure Facebook is an American company and this dude was working in America
Now if I moved to Japan, and I worked for a Japanese company, and paid my taxes in Japan, and THEN the USA came after me I might just be inclined to tell them to to go pound sand.
That doesn’t seem to be the case here.
OK - I have to say that just like coremelt, this seems unfair to me.
Question - why do you pay it? Do you return to the US every now and then and don’t want the hassle? I mean, if you’re never comming back, for lack of a better term, “fuck 'em”
I have family in the US that I like to visit and it’s the only country where I have citizenship (since even if I was born here and lived here my whole life, I could never get citizenship). If I simply didn’t pay my US tax (easy enough to do), they would surely come after be when (a) I visit the US or (b) when I renew my passport every 10 years. Plus, I may want to return to the US in 20 or 30 years if it starts to function better.
$40K is a bunch of money to send to a government on the other side of the world for no good reason.
Banning re-entry is already the law, and has been since 1996. So now we shouldn’t enforce the law?
These backronyms (“Ex-PATRIOT”) are really starting to grind my gears. Are they going to be whole sentences soon?
At least CCCP was a valid initialism. Not everything they did was bad.
I’m not exactly sure what this new alw is supposed to do but it does seem unfair to apply higher capital gains rates to expats than to citizens. If you want higher capital gains rates then have higher capital gains rates but this particular part fo the law that would apply higher rates to capital gains of expats is stupid considering there is a marking to market on expatriation. The notion of extending tax jurisdiction for a decade after expatriation is not a new idea. that’s the way it was before 2008.
I don’t think this is being presented as good policy so much as it is being presented to highlight the whole “rich getting away with not paying taxes” sentiment.
Only the ones who expatriated for tax reasons. Those people have been persona non grata for as long as I can remember.
No I think he’s trying toplay up the notion that the rich are getting away with murder these days.
Schumer is hardly a credible source for tax policy. After railing against taxation of carried interest on hedge funds, he immediately backed off after a conversation with several large hedge fund donors in NYC citing the (not credible) threat that these folks would all move to London if we raised taxes on them. The real threat was that these hedge funds would start funding Republicans rather than Democrats.
Its not a loophole. Do you think that that A French investor who buys and sells stock in a US company that trades on the NYSE has to pay US taxes on the gains on those trades?
He’s not dodging the taxes. He is probably paying hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes. The Expatriation Tax taxes Saverin on the difference between his investment in the facebook stock and the value of the facebook stock the day before he expatriated. If the value of the facebook stock goes up after he expatriates, then he is not subject to US taxes on any gains after he renounces citizenship and on the other hand if facebook stock drops, he is not entitled to a deduction for any losses after he renounces citizenship.
There is a question about using insider information to time expatriation. For example if I own a small oil company (that is publicly traded) and I strike oil and immediately expatriate so that my stock gets valued at yesterday’s value, there are some issues there but Saverin’s expatriation date is nto particularly suspicious.
America gives you a pass on the first 100K or so of your foreign earned income.
He cannot spend more than 30 days a year in the US or he will be subject to US taxes for that year.
You can still visit the US for up to 30 days a year without subjecting yourself to US taxes for that year. If you do this, don’t spend 30 days a year in the US. Spend a couple of weeks because you never know when someone is going to have a wedding or funeral. I heard of a guy that had to choose between attending a funeral and paying a US tax bill or skipping the funeral.
You are still subject to US tax, you just get a $90K exclusion or so on earned income, but no exclusion on capital gains. So if I sell my apartment and move, I have to pay capital gains on it, even though the money was earned outside the US and will be re-spent outside the US. And with bona fide residence the 30 day limit doesn’t really apply - I can spend 60 days in the US and it is pro-rated… and least for income. No break at all on capital gains… they get you for gains on currency transactions too.