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Senators To Unveil the 'Ex-Patriot Act' To Respond To Facebook's Saverin
An anonymous reader writes "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." See this earlier story on Saverin's plan to make the leap out of the U.S. tax system.
A) More government/laws
B) More Taxes
C) More War
D) All of the above
Why target only those evade their taxes by renouncing their citizenship? Shouldn't these politicians take a good look at themselves? How many of them use every loophole (or sneaky, illegal tactic) they can find to evade their taxes? These people are not above reproach. Most, if not all, are just as guilty of evading their taxes.
Like the Soviet Union where you can't leave?
Or like Nazi Germany, where you can leave, but not bring any of your valuables?
The move was likely a financial one, as he owns an estimated 4 percent of Facebook and stands to make $4 billion when the company goes public. ...
Saverin’s move, which they dub a “scheme” that would “help him duck up to $67 million in taxes.”
You're telling me he only has to pay 1.6% on $4 billion? Goddamn the rich have it good.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Senators to drastically simplify the tax system and eliminate loopholes?
Instead, these two people are going to overreact to the publicity received by this particular individual and create a bill to address him and the people like him (I believe under a couple thousand people over the last few years). It will do little to impact the nation as a whole.
Imagine if they were to put their effort into fixing the root of the problem...
With asshats like Chuck Schumer in office, what makes him think Saverin (and many others) *want* to come back? It's a little like a hotel manager banning you from his hotel after you complain about the fact that someone took a crap on the room's bed.
Capital gains are already due when you renounce your citizenship. Placing the burden of proof on someone to prove they aren't renouncing for tax purposes is ridiculous, and possibly unconstitutional. Why would I need a "valid" reason to renounce my citizenship? And adding a clause to bar the person from reentry for life is just petty. Blaming people for leaving when we have laws and policies they disagree with is pointing the finger in the wrong direction. Either we don't want those people here anyway, or else we're the problem.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Expatriates from every country have family, friends, and historical ties to the country they came from. Denying visitation for that reason is morally wrong. Moreover I'm universally opposed to bills of attainder and ex-post-facto laws. They were stupid and contemptible back during the ACORN stupidity, and they're still an unreasonable abuse of legislative power now. If this act applies in any way to Saverin, it would be an undermining of the rule of law.
Why are your senators always so mad?
It makes them look busy.
Doing it as an individual is novel. However, it is a very common case for companies to do this - take all the benefits of incorporating in one place, then set up shell corporations to book all your profits elsewhere wherever taxes (and services, but it doesn't matter) are minimal. But then when somebody infringes their rights, they come crying to the powerful government where they incorporated (which actually has expensive stuff like courts and diplomats and armies to impose a global Intellectual Property regime... It's especially common among high-tech companies.) So if you include that, it is actually a large issue.
I'm not too comfortable with this particular law for some reason. I think I'd rather see nations work together to close the inter-government loopholes in corporate taxes instead.
This is America... the big melting pot and all that... names are the last thing that tell you where people are from here. I live in the area that Schumer (unfortunately) represents. We have hispanics with Polish names, Russians with English names and blacks with Irish names... and most of them are at least third generation Americans.
Because he didn't make any of that money based on Government-subsidized infrastructure, did he? Like, for example, the protocols and research necessary to create the Internet?
This is like someone making shedloads of money with a trucking company, and then doing everything possible to not pay for roads.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
I think they're pissed off because it's the most uncomplicated way (and fully legal) of avoiding taxes. You don't even need to hire expensive lawyers or anything, like many of them senators probably have, in order to evade taxes. It's ENVY!
As a nation of immigrants, I sometimes wish say China or another major country would try to pull the same thing with their citizens who have emigrated to the U.S. We would hear all kinds of politicians going high and right about human rights and violations of national sovereignty, etc.
One could argue that what FaceBook co-founder Eduardo Saverin did was unethical, but despite all of that, the right to emigrate and ex-patriate is a basic human right that is enshrined in U.S. and in international law. Punishing individuals who exercise a basic human right is by definition tyranny.
A simple tax code, without flexibility in interpretation (which means that IRS just says "no you can't do that" even though there isn't any specific justification in the code), means giant loopholes and tax evasion in practice.
A substantial fraction of the tax code is the way it is because they are patches done to attempt to preclude diversions of income which were not intended by the simple code.
All sorts of very simple appearing programs in fact have egregious security bugs in the corner cases.
That someone is successfully abusing the system better than they are.
Would the damn Senate please GTFO of meddling in individual cases, please? Terry Schiavo, Eduardo Saverin? Dear useless fucking politicans, please address the problems of the HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of citizens first. And if you must legislate over 1 "person", do so for the fucking "corporations are people too my friend".
Not that I sympathize with this slimy tax-dodger, but I hope he gets away with it.
The value of his demonstration on how the rich view the world is worth more to the world (and the American public) than the taxes he owes. I don't want that demonstration stopped.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Man he sure has some nerve for coming to this country and then renouncing his citizenship last year before the IPO was planned. And he really has some nerve paying his exit taxes when he renounced his citizenship and then not paying them after he was already not a citizen. Reading some of the better written articles on the topic today you should know that since he plans to become a citizen of Singapore where he lives and has lived for the past few years you have to renounce your other citizenships, which is exactly what he's done.
don't we have much bigger things to worry about? This isn't a common case....well, it might be if things continue the way they are going.
From the article, "Last year 1,700 people renounced their U.S. citizenship." YES, for a nation of only 313 million, 1,700 people renouncing their citizenship in a single year is a major problem. I for one am glad our Senate is on it.
I don't see why we should ever approve visas to any naturalized citizen who renounces their citizenship.
I don't care about the tax reasons, that's a red herring as far as I'm concerned.
As far as I know, it was US policy in the past to refuse visas to ex-citizens, it's a good policy and we should continue to have it.
It is not a right for foreign nationals to visit the US, and visiting can be regulated with almost no restriction (I can't think of any limitations, maybe for diplomats)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
It's *NOT* novel, and as I pointed out in the last article's comments page, there's already law on the books that you're liable for 10 years of federal taxes when you expatriate. So in fact, you're already on the hook even if you leave, they just may have been lax in enforcing this before.
Exactly. All the massive companies have their main corporate body elsewhere in a tax havens, and you get bet the main shareholder have their wealth set up in a similar manner.
Perhaps the politicians would be better off serving the public and not setting up laws to facilitate the above for a quick back-hand in their own self interest.
>>Who puts Saverin's house out when it is burning out of control?
Singapore.
>>Who paves the roads and repairs the bridges that Saverin's luxury cars utilize every day?
Singapore.
>>Who delivers the mail that Saverin relies on for his business and home operations?
Singapore.
>>Who manages the pipes and treatment of the shit that Saverin dumps down his toilets every day?
Singapore.
>>Who patrols the streets that Saverin lives and works on, protecting him from crime?
Singapore.
>>Who watches and protects the nation of America when terrorists and other countries seek to destroy Saverin's way of life, property, and business interests?
America, but he lives in Singapore and has for three years so he couldn't care less.
Because he didn't make any of that money based on Government-subsidized infrastructure, did he? Like, for example, the protocols and research necessary to create the Internet?
All valid points. However, I am a little bewildered as to why you have stood idly by whilst China conducts massive commerce over the same infrastructure with money actually leaving the USA and no sales tax being paid on those transactions to the American government. Where is your outrage there? Not only is that like a truck drive avoiding paying for roads, it's like a truck driver driving your money away on those same roads. Why is this not outrageous?
This is like someone making shedloads of money with a trucking company, and then doing everything possible to not pay for roads.
Look, my initial reaction to this story is identical to yours. I see this guy go to Harvard, reap the benefits of being in a safe country with tax dollars that create the ecosystem for something like Facebook to flourish and then when it comes to his turn to put back into the system, he kites off. Well, the story isn't that simple, he was born in Sao Paulo and probably is one of the people the US has brain drained from India, Brazil, etc in order to bolster our own economy. On top of that, Facebook is a global phenomena by now with serious activity world-wide. So, you know, I don't feel so bad that now Singapore or where ever he takes up residence has "reverse brain drained" the US in this instance due to "steep" taxes. I'd be more upset if Zuckerberg did it but in the end, this single IPO is probably trivial compared to every company maneuvering "sales" to Ireland and the Netherlands to avoid paying billions of dollars to the United States each year. This is a one time thing and I think the "Ex-Patriot Act" is garbage when they should be targeting the systematic avoidance done by almost every company that can claim international sales. Poor poor Eduardo, he was just being an efficient little Capitalist.
With corporate person-hood becoming a major problem, will the "Ex-Patriot Act" apply to these tax evasion strategies of which everyone is guilty?
My work here is dung.
It's not entirely to avoid taxes - he'll pay those regardless. It's to make it easier to do business in other countries. There have been a few articles on ex-pats, and the legal hoops through which people and foreign banks, in particular, have to jump is ridiculous, if not downright onerous. Some foreign banks have simply refused to do business with Americans because of these stupid regs. It's as if the good ol' US of A owns your ass, even if you're not in this country, or making money, here.
Schumer - my senator, unfortunately - is just grandstanding, once again, the pissbag...
Isn't that why many companies are based in Delaware, but actually use that court district in East Texas to file IP suits?
I think I read once how there is some office building in DE that on paper houses like 200 different companies. Each suite is only like 100 sq ft so it can support a ton of companies to each have their own address, even though they are never used.
From 8 USC 1182 - INADMISSIBLE ALIENS:
(E) Former citizens who renounced citizenship to avoid taxation
Any alien who is a former citizen of the United States who officially renounces United States citizenship and who is determined by the Attorney General to have renounced United States citizenship for the purpose of avoiding taxation by the United States is inadmissible.
So, what's the point of the "new" proposed law besides political grandstanding?
Why target only those evade their taxes by renouncing their citizenship? Shouldn't these politicians take a good look at themselves? How many of them use every loophole (or sneaky, illegal tactic) they can find to evade their taxes? These people are not above reproach. Most, if not all, are just as guilty of evading their taxes.
Tax avoidance is NOT tax evasion. There is a big difference between the two.
I once worked with a guy named Zoltan. He insisted he was not an exiled king of Mars, but I was on to him!
Except he's not dodging taxes -- he paid what was owed and then he left. (And if he didn't/doesn't pay, you can be sure he'll be extradited.) He's *potentially* avoiding future taxes, but the value of Facebook could crash too. Also, by not living here, he's not enjoying (from a legal sense) the privileges and protections that go along with citizenship, so why should he subsidize those things?
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Yes they are, if you have ever dealt with the IRS as a expat, or tried to setup banking in another country with the US as your nationality you would do exactly the same thing. No bank wants to deal with you, the IRS requires immense amounts of info on every single account you hold and the fines for making a mistake as unbelievable.
If you don;t plan on returning its actually a decent way out of the IRS system.
I find it quite bad if the Senate is actually doing this in response to one guy leaving. The constitution offers us 2 key protections that I wouldn't want to live without:
* No ex post facto laws.
* No bills of attainder
In other words, the congress is forbidden from using their power to make laws to punish people they don't like especially after the fact. That leads to the worst sort of tyranny. Any law crafted to target one individual (or a very smal group) is effectively a bill of attainder, even if it doesn't mention them by name.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Back in 2007, Halliburton was making so much money off no-bid war-related contracts, it moved headquarters out of America in order to avoid paying taxes on all the money it was making from the US government.
Very clever Mr. Schumer!
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Didn't the Beatles move to the US to avoid The Taxman? I guess it's ok to come to the US to avoid taxes, but you shan't dare leave...
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
They aren't doing it to get Saverin after the fact.
They're doing it to make goddamn sure that nobody else gets any similar ideas.
Rather like the Berlin Wall, or other forms of capital controls. If Atlas starts to shrug, you chain him down.
If a guy leaves because he has to pay $67 million after earning $4 billion then he doesn't deserve citizenship.
It was the 'system' who allowed him to earn that money in the first place.
No sig today...
Don't smoke, don't feed the homeless, don't pick which lightbulb you like, etc., etc.
Your own food is too fatty, salty, etc.
Liberals don't believe in a right to privacy except for the sexual sphere of life. They are busybodies par excellance.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
But he is moving to Singapore which has a zero capital gains rate - so unless the U.S. drop's it's capital gain to zero....
On the other hand, it's not like he is not paying his taxes. When he drops U.S. citizenship he has to pay capital gains tax on the FB stock as if he had sold it - so he will be paying taxes. Add to the face that many slashdotters think that FB stocks is going to zero soon it would be in the US interest for him to pay capital gains tax now. What is happening is the US is forgoing potential future capital gains.
And in the larger picture, we should be less petty. If we want to grow that means engaging in the world. In order to attract the best people and best opportunities we need to be open. If we selfishly hold to tightly to what we have today we won't have it tomorrow.
If he gave up his citizenship, he is no longer a citizen of the US and gets none of it's protections. He is not being charged with a crime after the fact, he is just not getting back into the country he renounced.
If a guy leaves because he has to pay $67 million after earning $4 billion then he doesn't deserve citizenship.
It was the 'system' who allowed him to earn that money in the first place.
Wait. The 'system' allowed him to earn that money? You mean the 'government', right? They don't do shit to help people earn money. They do everything they can to take earned money away. Why else would they be after him and threatening to end people's citizenship because of this? They didn't get 'their cut'? Sounds more like the mafia than a government.
Taxes are for the poor and the ignorant. The tax laws are written by wealthy law-degree wielding politicians and their corporate campaign contributors. There are no "accidental" loopholes. If you are middle class, live frugally all your life, you are sooner or later going to be in for a rude awakening. If you are an emerging rap star, athlete, lottery winner, or you inherit your great uncle's farm, you are going to get nailed. But if you come from wealth, or if you come into wealth through scheming, nepotism, and bribery, then you likely know how important it is to have a good wealth management company, tax advisor, and asset protection attorney. This is why you read about rich people declaring bankruptcy and then buying out some multi-million dollar company in just the next year. At some point your wealth grows to such an extreme point that you must protect it from the greedy masses of democratic societies. This is the world where you
incorporate in the Cook Islands
bank in the Cayman Islands
maintain residence in Monaco
maintain citizenship in Switzerland
register your yacht in the Bahamas
spend most of your time traveling the Caribbean and Pacific Islands
It doesn't hurt to befriend a lonely and isolated dictator or two.
That said, I'm pretty sure this isn't going anywhere. Republicans, for one, will oppose it just because it comes from Democrats.
Or maybe the fact that it will cost more money to get this law written, debated, passed and enforced than we would see from it. Or is this more about envy because someone is making more money and not paying taxes on it?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
What do you think allowed Facebook to incorporate in the first place? What do you think allows them to issue stock? What do you think allows private individuals to own property (such as stock)?
Finally, they are not threatening to end his citizenship, HE RENOUNCED IT.
Are you really that stupid?
If you think the government deserves credit for "allowing" someone to create a successful business, you're a lost cause.
It takes a very small government indeed to create the basic social order needed for a business to operate, and indeed that's a vasnishingly small portion (measured monitarily) of what our government does. Our government is mostly a pension plan with a military, and everything else it does is in the small "other" slice in the pie chart.
Sure, a few pennies from every dollar in taxes go towards the stuff you're talking about but it's the other 80+ cents per dollar that people are complaining about when they complain about taxes. It takes willful ignorance these days not to realize this.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The government is effectively paying him $67M to take $4B and invest it in Singapore instead of the US.
More power to him, so long as the government is insisting on getting paid AMT or capital gains now on unrealized income from an appreciated investment which hasn't been sold.
The problem is that they want their poind of flesh now, rather than waiting for it to turn from an investment into "mall money" (money you can take down to the mall and spend).
I knew, though not well, a Netscape guy who was a paper multimillionaire when the Netscape IPO happened. In order to make it a long instead of a short term capital gain, and thus pay less tax, he did an exercise and hold, rather than a same day sale. Then the .bomb happened and the stock price tanked. So there he was with a couple hundred thousand in share value, and the government wanted their 35% of the $27M they valued it at at the time the options were exercised.
Eventually he killed himself, rather than going to Federal (debtor's) prison for tax evasion, since you can't dismiss taxes owed through bankruptcy.
Capital gains taxes as a matter of public policy are potentially defensible, even though they make you pay taxes on an investment of after-tax income and therefore amount to a surtax, but AMT is just asinine: the government can wait to get its money until I get my money.
-- Terry
And somehow the money he paid in taxes while residing here was deemed his fair share at the time, and he should be retroactively taxed more for those service if he later derives some huge benefit from those services? Should every person who gets an education in the U.S. have to pay some tax to the U.S. for the rest of their lives, no mater their citizenship and place of residence?
I'm not comfortable with the idea that he was somehow building up some secret debt while living here and working here, and "paying his fare share" in taxes and creating tons of jobs. If after he leaves and changes his citizenship, he later derives some benefit from what he did in the U.S., more power to him.
We already have a tax system that's so complicated as to be unenforceable. It costs us billions of dollars a year to try and audit the tax system, and further billions are lost to tax fraud. Let's not make these leaks in the system greater (and drive away entrepreneurs) by devising further complications in the tax code to try and account for these "almost realized, 99% certain" gains before people move change citizenship and move overseas.
Copyright Violation:"theft, piracy"::Anti-Trust Violation:"thermonuclear price terrorism"<-Overly dramatic language.
If a guy leaves because he has to pay $67 million after earning $4 billion then he doesn't deserve citizenship.
The guy in question didn't just "leave" - he has renounced citizenship himself. The bill in question would tax him anyway.
You know the other country that used to charge people money for leaving (if allowed at all)? The USSR. When Jewish immigrants left the country, they had to basically leave all valuables behind.
If you think the government deserves credit for "allowing" someone to create a successful business, you're a lost cause.
It takes a very small government indeed to create the basic social order needed for a business to operate, and indeed that's a vasnishingly small portion (measured monitarily) of what our government does. Our government is mostly a pension plan with a military, and everything else it does is in the small "other" slice in the pie chart.
Sure, a few pennies from every dollar in taxes go towards the stuff you're talking about but it's the other 80+ cents per dollar that people are complaining about when they complain about taxes. It takes willful ignorance these days not to realize this.
I'm not the GP, but I guess you're right. I think your assertion is crazy. Remember we are talking about Facebook, which requires the internet to exist in the first. The internet is one of those projects created by throwing ridiculous amounts of money at the military. And that's not to mention all of the infrastructure and education funding which meant Facebook actually had employees and customers.
Feel free to run your businesses entirely in Sri Lanka, but in the real world, governments are useful and taxes are needed to fund them.
Who puts the fire out if Facebook catches on fire?
I would assume that Facebook, being a corporation headquartered in U.S., also pays its taxes there. Why should a private shareholder be concerned about that, anyway?
I own shares in some Russian companies - does this mean that Russia is entitled to tax my American income?
You've lost me. An American drop owns something ... somewhere .. that doesn't appear in the sentence. And some unnamed neuter object (perhaps the one that just went missing) has (or is) most excellent.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
This was done by the USSR, Jews wanted to leave for Israel? Not before you settled your debt which strangely non-jews just didn't seem to have.
Actually, the law in question applied to all citizens of the USSR who had tertiary education, not just Jews. It was just that most who actually wanted to emigrate were Jews, and most of them had university diplomas. Other people simply didn't have any country that would readily offer them citizenship if they'd emigrate.
Why are they safer in Luxembourg? A typical English football crowd could pwn their army, nick their Porsches and drain their wine cellars in about 15 minutes.
Unless the Belgians came to their aid.
Then it'd only take 10, drrrrrTISH.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Consider this...
If you lived in California and thought their taxes were too high, would it be "unpatriotic" if you decided to move to another state?
What if California decided to charge you an exit tax and sent you a bill after you moved? Would you consider that to be fair? After all, you lived in California and were able to take advantage of all the wonderful opportunities and benefits provided by the California government.
After you have sold all your property and moved out of California, you now work in Florida and earn all your money in Florida. However, the state of California says you still must report and pay taxes on the money you earn in Florida. They give you credit for Florida taxes, but they still want want you to pay taxes on your Florida income. Also, besides making you pay taxes, California wants you to give them the details of any financial accounts you have in Florida. Would you consider that to be fair?
Here's another scenario...
Let's say that both of your parents were born in California, but you were born in Florida and have lived there all your life. You've never even been to California.
One day, you receive a tax bill from the state of California. They claim you owe them taxes because both of your parents were California citizens, so therefore you must be a California citizen and owe taxes there. Would you consider that to be fair?
-------------
If you think the above situations are ridiculous, then just substitute "USA" for "California" and "Singapore" for "Florida". Then you'll discover that everything is absolutely true. You'll also discover why many people have made the quite rational decision of renouncing their USA citizenship.
The USA is the ONLY country that requires its non-resident citizens to report their world-wide income and pay taxes on it. If a USA citizen moves to Singapore, they are still legally required to report their income and pay taxes back to the USA. They are also required to report any financial accounts they may have in Singapore. A Canadian or Brit (or a citizen of any other country) living in Singapore has no such requirements. Not even citizens of semi-socialist countries like Sweden and France require their non-resident citizens to report foreign accounts or pay taxes back home. They may be required to pay taxes in Singapore, but once they've been gone from their home country for a certain period of time, they are no longer required to pay taxes there.
Think the last scenario mentioned above is far-fetched? It's not. There are thousands of American citizens living in Canada who have never even set foot in the USA. Their parents were American, so that makes them American citizens. Now the IRS is going after them and requiring them to report their Canadian assets (like bank and retirement accounts) and to pay taxes on income earned in Canada.
Instead of spouting ignorance, do your homework and you may discover why Mr Saverin's decision makes perfect sense. Especially when he is originally from Brazil and may not have any deep connections to the USA.
The USA is not the home of liberty and freedom. USA tax policies are anti-freedom and out-of-step with the rest of the world. It's like telling a slave they are free to leave the plantation, but you still have to pay money back to the plantation owner. After all, you had the "benefits" of living on the plantation.
Some taxes are necessary, but if you think the current tax structure and bloated government is reponsible for "creating the internet" or other such nonsense, then think again. Yes, the original internet may have been created by the government-funded DARPA project, but do you really think that we would not have something like the internet today if DARPA had never existed?
Do you think that the telegraph and telephone would not have been invented if Morse and Bell had never lived? Do you think man would never have flown if the Wright brothers had decided to stick to bicycles? How did radio and television co
Small government? Small government gave us Love Canal, the Housing Crisis that only took down the entire U.S. economy and gave the world's economy the flu, Enron, the toxic sludge flood in West Virginia from the Martin County Coal Corp., L.A.'s air quality before the EPA forced them to clean it up, etc...the list is quite long.
Small government means no FDA to make sure your prescription isn't ground up beetles. It means no high fund to fix the interstate network's bridges (yep, those states are going to get right on top of that one). No NTSA to do post mortems on plane crashes because you can always trust the airlines with your safety. No SEC to make sure you aren't buying that swamp land masquerading as a gold fund.
Grandma doesn't get her SS check, you know the one, the one that prevents her from having to move in with you. Grandma also won't get her medicare, you'd pick up her medical expenses for her, right? While we're at it, lets turn the mentally ill out of their group homes, you have some extra room in yours, right?
The list goes on. Fucking grow up already.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Actually you could argue that it was the education that he received in Brazil that allowed him to take benefit of the system and make money. And his genes which he got from Brazilian parents. Because if simply "system" were enough to make you billionaire, everyone in the system, i.e. every American would be a billionaire.
Thousands of immigrants (including myself and either you or your ancestors) come from rest of the world to US shores. We learn on taxpayer's money in our home countries. And when we are of age to really start producing, we come to USA, which is totally unfair to our home countries. That is hard choice, but nonetheless we make it. Because USA is good place to live. People in our home countries don't like it, but on some level they understand the choice and welcome us nonetheless when we go back.
Do we as immigrants benefit from USA as a country? Certainly yes. But USA also benefits from getting talented, educated people with new ideas having directly available for work, without spending a penny on their education and upbringing. If USA did not benefit, it would simply not allow us to immigrate. Try being a 60 year old and immigrating here.
That's why I don't understand the outrage. Are you complaining this renouncing citizenship thing as unfair? But then why didn't you complain when you were "in money" in this game? Why shout only when things are not in your favor? That just sends a bad signal.
It means no high fund to fix the interstate network's bridges (yep, those states are going to get right on top of that one)
Why the fuck do you think the states have zero money to tackle any of this crumbling infrastructure?
It's the same reason people don't have any money to start businesses, businesses don't have money to hire people, etc:
THE GOVERNMENT KEEPS TAKING IT ALL FROM THEM
Yeah, the government had nothing to do with the creation of the internet, the roads he uses to drive to work every day, the electrical grid that powers the computers used to access Facebook, the funding of the educational institutions that formed the initial userbase of Facebook, or the propping up of the financial system that completely shat itself in 2008! We better hope this John Galt doesn't decide to withdraw his enlightened ability to create wealth from our society or we're done for!
Seriously, if you could stop masturbating to Ayn Rand for three seconds and actually think about it, maybe you'd realize that public investment in infrastructure and research is a huge part of what made this country what it is, and the fact that we've been underfunding them for almost thirty years is, while hardly the single cause of our national decline, certainly not helping things.
And the Slashdot summary is, as usual, a fucking travesty. The "renounce your citizenship specifically because of taxes and you're not allowed back in the country" clause is already law and is part of the form you have to sign to renounce your citizenship. What the article actually says is that Schumer and Bob Casey are proposing a special tax on people who renounce their citizenship specificially to avoid taxes.
Small government gave us Love Canal,
You're right, but not in the way you think. The Hooker Chemical Co. was forced (by local govt) to sell the land their chemical dump was under. They sold it with the proviso that nothing ever be built on it. The government later overruled that proviso.
Government is just people. Most of them (both in and out of government) are idiots. Personally I prefer to give idiots as little power as possible. Sure, they do some good things, but when they fuck up, they fuck up big time. Go ahead, dig into the housing crisis and Enron too, and you'll find fucked up government policies amplifying the bad that greedy individuals did.
-- Alastair
I think he was pointing to your illiterate looking "drop's". Why did you do that? Finger slip off the "p" and hit the ' by mistake? That would be my guess. If you'd said "door's" I'd have thought you an idiot since the r ans s are nowhere near each other, but I suspect it's just a typo.
Free Martian Whores!