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Facebook Co-Founder Saverin Gives Up U.S. Citizenship Before IPO
parallel_prankster writes "Bloomberg reports that Eduardo Saverin, the billionaire co- founder of Facebook, has renounced his U.S. citizenship before an initial public offering that values the social network at as much as $96 billion, a move that may reduce his tax bill. From the article: 'Facebook plans to raise as much as $11.8 billion through the IPO, the biggest in history for an Internet company. Saverin's stake is about 4 percent, according to the website Who Owns Facebook. At the high end of the IPO valuation, that would be worth about $3.84 billion. Saverin, 30, joins a growing number of people giving up U.S. citizenship, a move that can trim their tax liabilities in that country. Saverin won't escape all U.S. taxes. Americans who give up their citizenship owe what is effectively an exit tax on the capital gains from their stock holdings, even if they don't sell the shares, said Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, director of the international tax program at the University of Michigan's law school. For tax purposes, the IRS treats the stock as if it has been sold.'"
Yeah... a guy who created a giant marketing scam based on US laws and protections, and is now dodging taxes. Wonderful. You Ayn Randians can have 'em.
Actually the tax is quite low - 50 years ago, the tax was a lot higher.
And too many people don't understand that the government has no money of it's own. It must confiscate it from the citizenry.
The fabled Robin Hood is often mis-characterized. He wasn't robbing the rich to give to the poor. He was robbing the government (Sheriff of Nottingham) to give the people back their own tax money the Sheriff mercilessly demanded by force.
I'd tackle the discretionary spending in the defense budget first. The government is spending $666.2 BILLION there, as opposed to $80.6 billion on "health and human services" of which welfare is a part. Source.
If we reduced the U.S. Government (as a whole, not just defense) to the size it was in the 1990s you could do away with the income tax completely. Source. And think of how big the government was in the 1990s. What taxes could we eliminate if we reduced the government to the size it was before LBJ's "Great Society" (1965), the "New Deal" (1933), or even the income tax itself (1913)?
Liberty in your lifetime
Let's just shut down schools, hospitals, and such. The market will provide. I can't wait to go to the Disney Exxon-Mobile ER and pay a fair market price of $5,000 for a visit that formerly cost $75. The security I will feel knowing that the fire department (which will only exist in communities with enough fires to provide demand) will automatically debit my bank account when they come service a fire in my building.
Ayn Rand was a hypocritical fool who shunned the very value of society only to feed off it in her own time of need.
"Going Galt" is a breaking of the social contract after having benefited from it, and deserves no more admiration than that afforded the bully who steals your lunch money to sneak out and stuff his face with McDonalds.
Fixed that for you. What would have been really cool is instead of his dad shipping Eduardo to Miami for safeties sake, the boy got his education old school, getting kidnapped for ransom and/or knifed outside a club in Sao Paulo. But no, he got a respite while raking in some unearned income in Brazil from the safety of FL. Next, he won the lottery when one of his few friends at Harvard needed some start up money for a social networking idea.
Now, he flips the bird to the country that gave him the safety, and an environment to make a major move up the SE ladder, because it's all his HIS! Well, screw 'em, and put 'em on a no-fly list as an ingrate of the First Degree, Order of the Asshole.
Frankly, we're not losing much when the likes of him take off: one of many sociopathic money grubbers constantly looking to game the financial system (privatize the profits, socialize the loses), and whose investments know no border no matter where they've bought a condo. If he participates in fucking the banks in Singapore like his kind did in the US, he'll end up in gaol faster than he can whine "class warfare".
Luke, help me take this mask off
What a lot of anti-tax folks don't realize (or choose to ignore) is the fact that a tax regime that creates a civil society (educated, healthy populous, rule of law) in turn creates an environment that allows companies like Facebook to flourish. It's much harder to create wealth in an environment where your employees are illiterate, hungry and sick and corruption is rampant. Sure, you can drill oil wells or mine for gold, but you can't really create companies with IP in those environments. I guarantee you the next Apple or Google is not coming in Nigeria. Why do you think India is working so hard to create institutional change?
"I can't wait to go to the Disney Exxon-Mobile ER and pay a fair market price of $5,000 for a visit that formerly cost $75."
Are you sure it would work out that way? You might plot the price of lasik and related eye surgeries over the last 20 years to see what less-regulated market might do.
There's a difference between opposing the actions of your country, playing corporate tax games, trying to change things, and a whole range of other activity, and--- explicitly renouncing your nation. Bill Gates has never held up his right hand and under oath renounced America. Most Americans wouldn't either, not even very wealthy, very libertarian ones.
I suspect Saverin had no such compunctions because he never really considered himself American in the first place. So to him being in the U.S. for a few years was just a bit of a game, a chance to make a quick buck; he had no loyalty to the country, despite the oath he took. So it was just as easy to recite an empty renunciation as to recite his empty oath of citizenship, all just an accounting game.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Did you mean:
How horrible is the Singapore military for the son of a billionaire?
You're just jealous. What is a "good" American anyway? Someone who is pro Police State, likes police brutality and an official policy of sexually assaulting all children who wish to travel by air? America certainly doesn't stand for liberty anymore. The last time the majority of Americans were Libertarian was back when horses and gas lanterns were high tech.
Aside from violence, stupidity, ignorance, and cruelty, America doesn't stand for very much anymore. Those of us who have spent time living abroad often find ourselves ashamed to admit our nationality. I've often been told that I "seem nice for an American". That's the kind of country we are now. Our country used to stand for something. A philosophy. An ideal. Sort of like Soviet Russia or Cuba. Now we don't stand for anything except brutish ignorance and violence and maybe fascism. When people think of America they think of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Of senseless sadism and torture for its own sake. I think you'd be surprised at the number of people who would jump at the chance to change their nationality from American to something else regardless of their tax bracket. Singapore is a sort of semi-benevolent dictatorship, but in many ways it's a nicer place to live than the U.S.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
A place where you can start your own business without getting sued into the ground by established interests who've bought politicians?
I live abroad too, in a lot more enlightened place than Singapore, and yet I haven't renounced my American citizenship for a quick buck.
If he had changed his citizenship for some kind of moral reasons, that's legitimate. If it's just for money, that's beneath contempt.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Or maybe....the income tax started out as a tax on the wealthy, who didn't like it, but who needed large government services--like, say, a large global military presence to protect their overseas investments. (You don't think our military is spread all over the world because we feel like it, do you?)
Maybe those same people who BUY AND PAY FOR LAWS managed, over the course of a few decades, to get the laws shifted so that the tax burden now falls on working people instead of the wealthy, who benefit the most from very expensive things like armed ships, planes, and troops protecting their assets, lavish and ever expanding international airports, transcontinental transportation systems, diplomatic missions that seem rather preoccupied with protecting the rights of wealthy corporations and individuals overseas, an educated workforce, police to keep the educated workforce in line and compliant, and of course a huge spying apparatus that most likely illegally snoops on US citizens looking for people with wrong thoughts and almost certainly is engaged in industrial espionage on a massive scale?
Kinda depends on how you look at it, huh?
Please show me where I consented to this contract.
Your parents consented to it for you when they either gave birth to you in the US or brought you here. Presumably you are now of legal age. If you wish to no longer be bound by that contract, I suggest you leave the country, forfeit the priveleges of the civilized society that has already given you countless advantages and protections without which you would likely be destitute or dead, and find some place else in the world to hang out with other 'rugged individualists'. Good luck with that.
PS I used to be a Randroid too, and once upon a time I would have agreed with you. Then I grew up, attained some sophistication, discovered empathy, and got a clue.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Of course, back then, you worked till the day you died, since there was no Social Security. And that would be quite soon if you got sick and didn't happen to be wealthy, since there was no Medicare or Medicaid. And let's not forget that there were no food stamps or WIC checks, so if you were poor, you were liable to starve. That is, if you didn't rob or kill to get your food.
And there were no battered women shelters, or protections of any sort for abuse victims. And there were no regulations to stop companies from dumping all sorts of nasty shit into your air or water, or outright putting it into your food as filler. And of course your employer could force you to work 12 hours a day, with no weekends, and no overtime -- not that it mattered, since they could also pay you in scrip which was only good in the company store.
I don't see why you glorify that time period. The workers of the time hated it so much that they fought like hell to get us unions and social safety nets. Why are you so eager to throw away everything they worked for?
I'll tell you what. If you don't like paying to live in a civilized society, then you are welcome to get the fuck out. We'll be better off without you.
So renounce your citizenship and go elsewhere.
By remaining, you are implicitly saying that you can live with this system, or that it is at least better than any other alternatives.
I don't agree with how every cent of my taxes are spent, but that's what comes with representative democracy.
The benefits I net (security, social safety nets, police, fire, EMS, food inspectors, FAA, etc., etc.) far outweigh the things I don't like ("elective" war, eleven carrier groups, corn subsidies, etc.).
Nobody is compelling you to stay.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
Considering America is the spiritual home of "money = moral", I'd say he's doing exactly what the country taught him...
Really? When was the last time you were in a housing project? Did you take ANY time to get to know the poor? Or are you making blanket assumptions based on lame and uninformed propaganda?
Your statement positively oozes contempt for people you quite obviously have no clue about. In my mind, anyone who sneers at a human being because of their poverty is worse than a card-carrying KKK neo-nazi. It's every bit as prejudiced as the belief that a person's color has anything to do with their character.
I spent years working with the poor; I spent more time in the projects than many of the residents. I took the time to get to know them as human beings.
In my experience, their situation has absolutely nothing to do with not wanting to work. I get so sick of hearing ignorant pricks say some lame line like "work at McDonalds." There is no unlimited supply of jobs available anywhere. The poor want jobs - badly. They want to work, and do so when they can.
But you know what? The kinds of hours they have to work isn't sustainable by the human body. The body inevitably breaks down from the strain, and they eventually cannot physically go to work. I've regularly seen people work to the point they pass out, after which they are fired. I know because I paid for college by working at such a job. Naturally, the corporation provides no health care coverage, so there is no treatment or physical therapy to get them back into the work force. Workman's comp? Are you joking? You haven't seen corporate america at work.
I'm convinced those who are constantly whining about 'the lazy poor' understand a lot less about economics than the teenage dropouts they demonize.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
This is mostly correct, although there are plenty of wealthy people out there that don't become such parasites.
Not understanding this is one of the reasons why no amount of government interventionism ever seems to help the poor or middle class in the long run. The wealthy parasites in and behind government (bankers, financiers, and similar assorted rent-seekers---all non-productive types) steal from the poor and middle class. When the people finally get sick of it, their anger and envy is directed toward "the rich"---which inevitably falls on the productive rich (entrepreneurs, businessmen, upper middle class), not the parasites who are truly responsible for the mess.
New laws are passed, new regulations are created, taxes are increased---all of which impact the poor, the middle class, the small businessmen, and other productive people. The parasites already know how to work around such laws and taxes because they wrote them---and wrote in the loopholes! So the end result is more people are pushed down into poverty while the parasites get richer.
Liberty in your lifetime
No, (immoral) rich people will hire accountants and lobbyists so they can pay the absolute minimum.
They'll stick around and use society's benefits while not wanting to pay for them.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
We were still in building-a-superpower mode long after the institution of the income tax and the New Deal, and probably even after the Great Society. The downfall didn't start until the 80s, with its massive tax cuts, deregulation, explosion of Wall Street gambling, and culture of greed. Yes, all that stuff probably made us a bit richer in the short term, and it made some people a lot richer. But in the long run, it's destabilized the markets and encouraged businesses to focus on quarterly profits at the expense of long term planning.
Inflation's a bitch.
Your 1990 budget is spending 1990 dollars. Your 2012 budget and income tax figures are in 2012 dollars. Adjust for inflation, and federal spending in 1990 was closer to $2 trillion.
From that point on, your math all falls apart.
The government of Singapore builds flats for its people not because the government of Singapore likes to, but it had to
Tell that to people like us who live in Hong Kong. Honestly we're dying to have that kind of government "subsidy" (even if the government there makes money from it).
Geographically Hong Kong is pretty much like Singapore -- limited land mass, large population, and basically an "island state" by being administratively separated from mainland China.
Here, the government basically colludes with property developers to push up the price of housing beyond the means of the average citizen. Government officials routinely retire to become a "consultant" of land developers. The economic policy of the current administration is to keep the economy afloat by producing and maintaining a massive housing bubble.
The government terminated their subsidized housing program about a decade ago, basically because the property developers and speculators were "not earning enough" or that they'd been badly burnt by the housing bubble of 1997 (of course they'd never admit to this). Instead of allowing the average citizen to get a share of the pie when property prices are high, the government and the large property developers are reaping all the profits and all we get are unaffordable housing at inflated price that is basically shit. Heck, I come from a relatively wealthy family living in an apartment with a market price of USD$1million+, but honestly you probably wouldn't want to live in my home.
And what does the government say in response to these hardships (that they artificially created by restricting the use of land)? "Just work harder, you'll be rich someday" or "the purpose in life is not to buy an apartment", that sort of crap (yes, that's what they really say, literally).
In reality, people are forced to rent "beds" (not apartments, not rooms) for exorbitant prices. "How many poor Hong Kong people can you fit into a tiny apartment?" The answer could surprise you. I think a hundred miles north in some foxxconn factory the living conditions are probably better (I'm not kidding).
I'm "lucky" to have a room of my own with a bed and a desk. That's what you call luxury around the area.
*Still* think the Singaporean government had to build houses? The puppets in our government beg to differ. You'd be surprised how much of a shitty job they can get away with. Singapore, for all its anal restrictions about free speech and chewing bubble gum, are actually doing more than is "necessary" in welfare.
(Sorry for the rant.)
Don't quote me on this.