Posted on 05/17/2012 12:26:38 PM PDT by Theoria
Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, who renounced his U.S. citizenship, is now facing backlash from politicians: Two U.S. senators are proposing a plan that would prevent people like Saverin from reentering the country.
As we reported yesterday, by some estimates Saverin may save $67 million in taxes by giving up his citizenship.
"We simply cannot allow the ultra-wealthy to write their own rules," Sen. Bob Casey, the Democrat from Pennsylvania said in a statement. "Mr. Saverin has benefited greatly from being a citizen of the United States but he has chosen to cast it aside and leave U.S. taxpayers with the bill. Renouncing citizenship to simply avoid paying your fair share is an insult to middle class Americans and we will not accept it."
Casey and Sen. Charles Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said their plan — which they've called the Ex-PATRIOT Act — would re-impose taxes on expatriates and they would not be allowed to reenter the country until they settled their tax bill.
Through his spokesman, Saverin has said he didn't give up his citizenship for tax purposes. Tom Goodman, his spokesman, told The Wall Street Journal, Saverin renounced his U.S. citizenship because of the investment restrictions placed on Americans.
"U.S. citizens are severely restricted as to what they can invest in and where they can maintain accounts," Goodman told the Journal. "Many foreign funds and banks won't accept Americans. This was a financial rather than a tax motive."
That statement didn't stop Schumer from issuing some scathing words.
"Mr. Saverin has decided to 'defriend' the United States of America just to avoid paying his taxes," Schumer said in a statement. "We aren't going to let him get away with it so easily. It's infuriating to see someone sell out the country that welcomed him and kept him safe, educated him and helped him become a billionaire."
From the Casey's press release, here's a bit more detail on their plan:
"Under the proposal, any expatriate with either a net worth of $2 million or an average income tax liability of at least $148,000 over the last five years will be presumed to have renounced their citizenship for tax avoidance purposes. The individual will then have an opportunity to demonstrate otherwise to the IRS by meeting specific IRS requirements. If the individual has a legitimate reason for renouncing his or her citizenship, no penalties will apply. But if the IRS finds that an individual gave up their passport for substantial tax purposes, then it will prospectively impose a tax on the individual's future investment gains, no matter where he or she resides. This would eliminate any tax benefit and financial incentive from renouncing one's citizenship. The rate of this capital gains tax will be 30 percent, in keeping with the rate that is already applied on non-resident aliens for dividends and interest earnings."
Somehow, I suspect that his taxes, along with the taxes of the people he employed have MORE than erased any “debt.”
Funny that they never seem to feel this way about illegal aliens and their anchor babies, though.
This was entirely predictable.
You can trust the communists to be communists,
after all.
It just wouldn’t occur to them to change the tax policy that led this man to drop his citizenship.
No! He did it to avoid their confiscatory tax rates, so he needs to be vindictively punished.
What an amazing statement! This implies that he has stolen funds from some program that the treasury supports. I don't even know what to think about these pols.
The sharecropper makes it big and splits so the Master tells him not to come back.
O-o-o-ow, that's gonna leave a mark. (see tagline)
So how many services did this man use and what bill did he stick America with? I doubt he used any social services and
the Senators forget it is his money not theirs.
So what is the new motto of Superman now? “Lying, injustice and the Marxist way?” Reminds me of the original Saturday night live when Dan Akroyd played “Ubermann”...Which was what would have happened if Supermans comet from Krypton landed in Nazi Germany instead of the US midwest. He would have been known as “Ubermann” working for he Nazis, using his X-ray vision to look at the groins of men to see if they are Jews.
” We simply cannot allow the ultra-wealthy to write their own rules
Congressmen and Senators don’t like competition. “
Folks, we have a winner!!
1. Ron Paul was right. The walls are going to be used to keep us in.
2. Who’d want to come here anyway?
“...will be presumed to have renounced their citizenship for tax avoidance purposes. The individual will then have an opportunity to demonstrate otherwise to the IRS by meeting specific IRS requirements. ... But if the IRS finds that an individual gave up their passport for substantial tax purposes...”
IF?
Casey Jr. is as dumb as a rock.
Amazing how, with all the other problems Congress could tackle, two senators have so much time to waste on something this stupid. Why don’t the morons maybe fix the tax code? Of course, knowing them, they would just make the tax code worse.
Bobby Casey is an empty-headed empty suit who got elected on his old mans name here in PA. Tom Smith is the tea-party backed conservative running against him in PA. GO TOM.
You think walls are keeping Americans in?
WHAT "bill"??? He helped create something that didn't exist before. There was no government subsidy or porkulus payment to Facebook. There is absolutely no cost to the American taxpayers. What an imbecile.
Although, I suppose, it might actually be worth it just to have them gone.
“Next they will build a wall to keep the inmates from escaping to more freedom loving countries.”
Everyone laughed when Ron Paul said that if they built a wall on our border, it would be used to
keep us controlled... I did too. Now, I’m not so sure he wasn’t correct on that.
Nothing of substance here — Casey and Schumer just trying to get into the limelight.
Guilty until proven innocent, huh? What a wonderful country we live in with such wonderful "leaders" who "understand" the Constitution.
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