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Facebook, Zuckerberg Sued Over IPO
mrquagmire writes with this snippet from CNET: "Facebook shareholders have sued the social network, CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and a number of banks, alleging that crucial information was concealed ahead of Facebook's IPO. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan this morning, charges the defendants with failing to disclose in the critical days leading up to Friday's initial public offering 'a severe and pronounced reduction' in forecasts for Facebook's revenue growth, as users more and more access Facebook through mobile devices, according to Reuters, which cited a law firm for the plaintiffs."
It wasn't because of taxes, it was because of fraud? hmm
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
First! Sadly, because I got in early, I'm sure I'll lose mod points.
Seriously. The P/E was stupidly high before. Now, even under the revised projections, it's slightly stupidly higher. The stock was due to tank in any case. As we used to say on the playground, "NO DO-OVERS!"
...they came up snake eyes. Or, perhaps a five. Either way, you didn't do your due diligence if you thought that Facebook, today, was worth 100:1 P/E ratio with a solid income track record established. Why is it that people want to sue when their bets went bad. Do you sue the track when that clean looking bay you bet to show comes in fourth because they didn't tell you he was off his feed that morning? Do you sue the casino and Nevada Gaming Commission when you don't ply well at the slots because the adjust the payouts since the last months payout percentages were posted?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The suit alleges that only big time investors were apprised that rising use of mobile would affect revenue. This was known to everyone weeks ago, well before the IPO. here's an article from a week prior to the IPO all about the mobile risks
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/9257232/Facebook-issues-revenue-warning-over-mobile-growth.html
A) Saverin hasn't been involved in the running of facebook in years, and certainly had nothing to do with the IPO, so he will not be the target of this lawsuit in any way.
B) He did give up his citizenship for tax reasons, but not the tax reasons everyone thinks. He cannot and will not escape any taxes on money he made from the IPO, he earned those shares when he was a US citizen and will pay full taxes on them. He renounced his citizenship because he hasn't lived in the US in 4 years and was tired of paying taxes to the US for money he was making working in Singapore, which isn't that unreasonable.
She's of Chinese descent, and was born in Massachusetts and grew up around Boston. Nothing Indian about her.
No, Buffet has clearly stated that he will not buy stock in a company, if he does not know how they make money. That is why he stayed away from .com stocks when they were red hot.
In the long run, he strategy has worked out well for him and his investors.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
He renounced his citizenship because he hasn't lived in the US in 4 years and was tired of paying taxes to the US for money he was making working in Singapore, which isn't that unreasonable.
The USA is actually the only first world country that even taxes their people while they are living overseas. For example in my country you don't need to pay any taxes back home if you live in another country for more than 6 months.
Because they revised their numbers before the IPO, but didn't give those revisions to the people buying it. That's fraud in some peoples' minds. It's mis-representing. It's not buyer beware, it's give buyer something different than you said you were giving them. Your standing is being sold something on false pretenses.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
You're going to need to back that one up. I believe Canada does the same thing.
If there's two there's probably three.
So I'm afraid I don't think what you say is true.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I'm gonna sue that fucking horse!
But isn't Canada just one of the states of the United States?
So, as I read it; those who did gain a lot of free money in the IPO will have to give some of it to those that thought they should have and the lawyers will get their usual substantial cut.
Just a slight variation on the usual IPO feeding frenzy.
yeah, the one with all the money
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
And oil and water, bitches! Don't even think about comin' up here and *liberating* us.
The math says your data is still there... you simply can't access it any more.
Nope, I'm a Canadian who moved to the US. I had to do dual income taxes the first year because I spent a partial year in both countries. After that, it was only US taxes. If I were to actually make income in Canada then it would be a different story, I believe, but I can make as much as I want in the US and not pay income tax to Canada.
In canada we do not no.
You have to pay taxes on overseas income if you are canadian resident, and you have to specially disclose if you have foreign assets over 100k or some number around there. If you are a non resident in canada you still have to file income taxes on income earned in canada, which can then be dealt with through the ungodly myriad of tax treaties.
However, if you are *living* out of canada for more than 6 months you are no longer a resident, and do not pay taxes. You also are not automatically covered for health insurance.
*liviing* is important. You can spend 6 months out of canada and still be considered living in canada if you don't have a residence out of the country, and meet the criteria for strong ties within canada (and don't spend 6 months outside of canada in the same place I would presume).
As far as I know the only two countries in the world with citizenship tax are eretria and the US. (http://renunciationguide.com/Citizenship-Based-Taxation-International-Comparison.html) Although I grant that that source is a bit sketchy. Wikipedia says the same thing (that the source is sketchy and quotes the same information).
You're going to need to back that one up. I believe Canada does the same thing.
False. Canada taxes its residents. Canada does not tax its citizens, unless they are also residents of Canada.
Read the explanation from the Canada Revenue Agency:
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/nnrsdnts/cmmn/rsdncy-eng.html
If you want a more detailed explanation of how your residence is determined for tax reasons, you should read Interpretation Bulletin IT-221, Determination of an Individual's Residence Status:
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tp/it221r3-consolid/it221r3-consolid-e.html
So I'm afraid I don't think what you say is true.
ME TOO!!!
you missed the got=not typo. heil grammar!
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
They seem to always get a piece of the action.
Not quite that simple. The complaint is that revenue projections were selectively disclosed to insiders. That is a violation of SEC regulations.
everyone saw how he made the company by stabbing the people closest to him in the back. what did you think he was going to do with the IPO?
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
Isn't Michigan part of Canada or least part of Detroit or something like that?
England does too.
Uh, no it doesn't.
And, pedantically speaking, England doesn't tax anyone.
Rather close? There's an entire key and half between them and they are hit by different HANDS! I figured it out myself, but still, that's a rediculously unforgivable typo. Even Dvorak and Colemak have the same amount of room between them (though Dvorak uses the same hand, but different fingers).
Screw P/E. Another 4 billion people left to grow baby, booyaah!!! This FB stock is gonna go batman! This is a $100 stock, go Zuckie, go!!
but still, that's a rediculously unforgivable typo.
I can't figure out if this is ingenious self-deprecating humor or just run of the mill hypocrisy.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
It's worse than that. It's not some innocuous omission of information. It's information that made them a lot of money at the expense of other investors. I don't know how strong regulations still are, but this sounds like a strong case.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
> and that applies to anything in the world from toilet paper to your stock portfolio
Pretty much the same thing now :-(
I'll try to find the birth tax.
The death tax, 'you' are still getting taxed. It's your money even though you're dead. That still counts as a tax in my book.
So if you make more than 91k you get taxed. So, yes you do get taxed abroad.
Expatriation Tax
It's amazing how complicated our tax code is yet we can't provide basic human needs (IMHO) to our citizens.
Oh, we can. We just decided that "teh socializim is ebil!!11!" and that money is much better used on endless clusterfucks of wars to "bring freedom" while domestically creating a police state, and corporate blowjobs.
Face it. If you want the government to do something right, you have to tell them to make a left turn.
Define "make any sort of money". I make $70k a year as an engineer. Compared to most people it's good. Compared to the top it's a drop in the bucket.
I would have absolutely no qualms paying 50% taxes if it meant I got some sort of services for it like they do elsewhere.
B) Wrong, Saverin renounced his citizenship to avoid paying his 15% capital gains tax on his investment in American companies, including his shares in Facebook. Given his financial situation, it is unlikely that he is "working" in Singapore.
You Canadians have all gathered together in large cities right along the border. Looks like an invasion force :)
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Neither does the US, chillax, too much disinformation here passing for a fact
Yes it does, but there's a large exemption before you have to pay. $90,000 if I remember correctly?
You're kind of ignoring the fact that the regulations require that companies make their financials and relevant information available so that people can do their research and make informed decisions. Exactly as in your car analogy. The complaint here is that they didn't make the relevant information available and thus people were unable to make informed decisions.
First he helps destroy the credibility of the concepts of privacy and secrecy in the population, and now, with the 3rd largest IPO in history, he's helping destroy the credibility of the economic system...
I don't know if he's more like Jesus or Lucifer, but damn I'm starting to love that guy...
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Yeah, that's their lock-in. And that's not counting all the history (comments, statuses) and photos you might want to take with you.
Yes, there is some lock-in. However, my argument was that their primarily "lock-in" was the network of friends itself, and that this particular "lock-in" can be overcome, if users get angry enough, and if there is a viable alternative. Yes, they won't have their history or posts on their new service, but those things will still exist on Facebook. I would argue that the social network itself is transferrable across different services if a critical mass is reached.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Here's a reference. Only the US and Eritrea are this dumb.
I've lived abroad for more that 20 years, and I am very tired of filing an ever-increasing number of forms with the US authorities. It's not only the IRS, you also have to file separate forms with a separate agency detailing your foreign bank accounts - which, frankly, is none of their business.
The US does allow a deduction against foreign income, but this is worth less and less as the value of the dollar continues to crash. Depends what currency your country uses, of course, but the US doesn't care or make any allowance for that. In my case, the dollar has lost fully half of its value in the last few years. Turn that around: from the IRS point of view my salary has doubled (even though it actually hasn't). Great.
Add to that the pressure the US is applying to foreign banks, in an attempt to rake in money. I won't go into details here, but the US behavior here is closer to blackmail than to any sort of legal proceeding. The result is that foreign banks now ask you up front "are you subject to US taxes?" If you answer "yes", many simply refuse to do business with you. The US government is making it difficult for normal Americans to get on with their lives.
I have also had enough. I will be renouncing my citizenship before the year is out.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
This puts an objective value on his non-marital (pre-marital?) assets, which she presumably therefore wouldn't share in case of divorce. Combine that with his $1/year salary (presumably to avoid any tax other than 15% capital gains), and her half of community property grows at $0.50/year. If she works, she might end up owing him money if they divorce!
Disclaimer: IANAL and certainly not a divorce lawyer. Please correct me if I am wrong, which I probably am.
What if the salesman also owned all of the car review sites? And put a different engine in the car for the test drive?
When you invest, you have to rely (at least to some degree) on the information the company gives you. Sure you could also perform corporate espionage, but most people find jail uncomfortable.
you must be thinking of the ancient slashdot when it was "news for nerds" now... not so much ;)
That's not a large exemption any more because the dollar has been sliding in value for a long time now. It's less than the average salary for software engineers in Switzerland, for instance, and that's with an aggressive currency peg to the Euro. If that peg wasn't in place or was weaker, it'd probably start including all kinds of non-professions, just due to exchange rate disparity.
Isn't Michigan part of Canada or least part of Detroit or something like that?
Not quite, although Canada is one of Detroit's southern neighbours
Actually, Canada doesn't. My brother, a Canadian citizen, lived in Brazil for many years and never had to pay Canadian taxes on money he earned overseas. He works on off-shore drilling rigs and so his workplace was the ocean. He did have to pay American taxes when he worked for an American company and Brazilian taxes when he worked for a Brazilian company. Now that he's moved back to Canada, he'll start paying Canadian taxes again.
They didn't so much "gather". Everybody else just froze to death.
What about the UK? I have heard horror stories about their taxes.
I'm a Brit living in the US, and the only tax I pay is to the US government - federal, state and city! Also, the tax system in the UK is considerably easier to operate within as an employee, as your employer handles your deductions and the Inland Revenue calculate how much you owe/are owed. Apart from a few fringe cases, I have never known anyone who was owed money to / was owed money by the Inland Revenue at the end of the year, so I guess the employers know exactly how much to deduct.
Here in the US the situation is far more complicated even for someone in such a trivial tax situation as myself - no investment earnings, mortgage, other revenue sources, etc. I have to wade through hundreds of pages of explanatory documents to fill in boxes which the IRS then go and check independently anyway. What's worse is that most tax software doesn't work for Non-resident Aliens, so the people who most need help with the tax system are left to figure it out by themselves or pay an extortionate fee to an accountant.
No they're not. Most comparisons showing an "incredibly low" tax rate for the U.S. only look at Federal taxes, forgetting that the U.S. has substantial local government taxes which are absent in other countries. If you add up all the Federal, State, and local taxes, the U.S. ends up around a 25%-30% effective tax rate, vs. around 30%-40% for Europe. Lower yes, but only slightly.
- users increasingly engage with competing products;
- we fail to introduce new and improved products or if we introduce new products or services that are not favorably received;
- we are unable to successfully balance our efforts to provide a compelling user experience with the decisions we make with respect to the frequency, prominence, and size of ads and other commercial content that we display;
- we are unable to continue to develop products for mobile devices that users find engaging, that work with a variety of mobile operating systems and networks, and that achieve a high level of market acceptance;
- there are changes in user sentiment about the quality or usefulness of our products or concerns related to privacy and sharing, safety, security, or other factors;
- we are unable to manage and prioritize information to ensure users are presented with content that is interesting, useful, and relevant to them;
- there are adverse changes in our products that are mandated by legislation, regulatory authorities, or litigation, including settlements or consent decrees;
- technical or other problems prevent us from delivering our products in a rapid and reliable manner or otherwise affect the user experience;
Whoever exercised due diligence did not buy, yet...
http://secfilings.nasdaq.com/filingFrameset.asp?FileName=0001193125-12-034517.txt&FilePath=%5C2012%5C02%5C01%5C&CoName=FACEBOOK+INC&FormType=S-1&RcvdDate=2%2F1%2F2012&pdf=
Jose T Oliveira Jr.
If Canada wants Detroit, they can have it!
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
It depends on the state, but generally whatever you have before the marriage, you can keep afterwards. The issue gets a bit murky though when you're dealing with stocks. First off, any dividends earned after the marriage are community property, and typically any increase in the value of his stock (if he sells it while they're married), can also be considered community property, and possibly even if he DOESN'T ever sell it, she might get some of the shares the value of which would match the increase at the time of the divorce. The issue gets even murkier if there's dividend re-investment going on, since now the stock purchased with dividends IS community property, while the rest isn't.
It's better to just not get a divorce. If that isn't an option, it's a much better choice to just not get married in the first place.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
"Surrender her pronto, or we'll level Toronto!"
Er... why?
I'm actually surprised Switzerland, France, Israel and a few others don't have citizenship taxes as well. For those countries citizenship entitles you to a whole lot of protection internationally (from extradition, for your investments etc.). Some countries (notably poor ones) don't have citizenship taxes but they are supreme assholes about what you can take in and out of the country.
Having a citizen who doesn't pay taxes can pose real problems, and having citizenship in certain countries provides a lot of privileges (e.g. having citizenship in any EU country lets you work and immediately claim residency in any EU country sort of thing, I think it's more complex than that though). I remember a few years ago when there was an evacuation of foreigners from Lebanon Canada was cooperating with brazil to get each others nationals out (no idea why brazil). The problem with this plan is that it was costing a shit load of money to get people out, and not all of them would be able to pay it back even if you demanded it of them. So who's footing the bill? Those of us who pay taxes back in canada. Now that's a bizarre rare event and shit happens, but if you can use your citizenship as a shield to get away from something you did elsewhere that does incur a cost to the government.
For most countries it's probably not worth it for the relatively small amount of money they'd get. But I would have expected that a few other places would have had citizenship taxes.
Wow, back peddle some more. Remember, you are backing up this statement:
It's your responsibility to figure out if the story is too good to be true.
No, that is wrong. The responsibility is those who have the information to disclose it properly. Not for some investors to have access to information that others do not. It is called Insider Trading and it is illegal.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Think about your statement for a minute. You do realize that Ross Perot ran, and nearly won, where his platforms biggest goals was to reduce the US tax system to a single postage card sized form for all citizens. Point is: We have know that US taxes have been a wreck for 20+ years.
Now, who do you think lobbied hardest against tax reform then? Who do you think lobbies hardest not to reform taxes now?
1. The people that benefit from the 60,000 pages of tax "law" and loop holes.
2. Tax agencies, and Lawyers that specialize in Tax law.
Most of the US would benefit if it was fixed and fair.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Anger and insults constitute a defective response to a statement of facts on how the US is hurting itself.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Nonsense. If you want the government to do something right, you shut the government down, all of it, then decide what bare minimum of the 'right' things it should do and tell it to do only those things at a very specifically calculated budget and then apportion the taxes to that budget from the States.
You can't handle the truth.
Well, out of your 70K, paying 50% would be 35K.
Clearly, to you it makes sense to pay 35K if every single thing you wanted was covered by whatever government program and all of your charges would be covered in that 35K.
I was fixing my teeth in Germany this year cost 12K (Euro), nearly all of it paid out of pocket though I carry private insurance of-course. That was just one of the things that I had to spend on this year.
However if I had to pay 50% of income in taxes for things I spend on out of pocket, I would overpay by 99% and would still get a shittier service, because I'd have to wait in line and I'd have worse results. Not only I'd be overcharged, there would have been no competition for my money from the sellers, they wouldn't be competing for my money, they'd be getting paid by gov't, so I wouldn't be a client in the first place, just another checkmark in a log book.
No, thank you, but no thank you. It absolutely doesn't make sense to pay 50% in taxes the more money you make. Income taxes are both morally and economically wrong, but progressive income taxes are even worse. At least with regressive income taxes, those who make more money would have been charged less percentage wise, and since they are already buying all of their stuff privately, they'd be robbed less, while those, who are relying on gov't to provide for them with all those programs, would have been paying for it with half of their earnings.
You want fairness? Regressive income taxes are more fair than the progressive type.
You can't handle the truth.
USA used to be the country that 'welcomed self-centered blowhards', that's how it became the wealthiest producer, creditor nation on the planet.
Others will welcome the 'self-centered blowhards' today, it's going to be USA's loss.
You can't handle the truth.
I think I'd rather die all in one go - best to get it over and done with.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."