Founder visa bill proposed
readwriteweb.com
readwriteweb.com
I could start the "Visa Arbitrage Angel Fund" that only makes $100K investments into startups with $20K+ in the bank, then require the startup buy me out one week after closing for $120K (or make monthly payments of $10K for a year, or some other wacky clause that makes my investment an awful loan instead of a real investment). Now we've invented a way for foreigners with $20K to buy a visa.
The proposed program would make more visas available to
entrepreneurs who have at least $250,000 in funding from a
U.S.-based venture capital firm, or $100,000 in angel funding.how is that different from:
The current system grants 10,000 visas each year primarily to investors that have financed over $1 million with plans to create at least 10 full-time positions.
except it would allow for more relaxed terms?
However, the visa status is contingent on the company following through with its business plan to create X job and/or take in $1M of revenue. If the company isn't doing that (or if "the investment in the commercial enterprise was intended solely as a means of evading the immigration laws of the United States" - which seems like it would cover what you're describing), the visa gets pulled and the deportation process begins.
One can also imagine that INS would keep a very tight leash on the program in its first few years to make sure this isn't happening.
> One can also imagine that INS would keep a very tight leash on the program in its first few years to make sure this isn't happening.
Experience with student and vacation visas suggests otherwise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EB-5_visa
The startup visa seeks to change the EB-5 visa to include people who aren't wealthy, but would also create jobs in the US by starting viable companies.
The price is high, but not astoundingly high, if I'm reading this right. You need $500k in capital that you're willing to invest in "certain qualified investments or regional centers with high unemployment rates". You don't even necessarily have to lose the $500k, or even lose anything. You just need the capital.
After living here for a year they were supposed to get the deposit back, but they didn't.
Even worse is the majority of the people who benefited were the same politicians who set up the program.
Now it's a huge scandal and the police are involved, large amounts of money plus politicians and there's a scandal, imagine that!
Unfortunately...that's not true. It might cost no money, but it could cost the congressmen and senators their job at the next mid-term elections. Immigration reform is a hot-button topic, so as much as it would be a great thing to do, it might be politically untenable right now.
Note: I am a foreigner, that would definitely want to take advantage of this program if the bill is passed and it is implemented. Just commenting on the quote :)
The USA is a nice country but there are many parameters that go in to the decision of choosing a place to live and it scores low on plenty of those.
The US is the destination country of choice for people without money. Those with money are just as likely to go elsewhere.
But anecdotes are nice, numbers are better. For every wealthy person that would like to get 'in' to the US there must be 50,000 poor ones.
The difference is that for them nobody is going out of their way to create special visa to allow them entrance.
For this reason, you can get some remarkable statements like the year that Warren Buffett said something to the effect that there is something wrong with a system when his secretary gets taxed as a percent more than he does. Of course, we later learned this was somewhat disingenuous given most of his income wasn't personal income at all but dividends (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/tax/article1996735.ec...).
This being said, how is your comment relevant to the startup visa? The idea as I understand it would be to attract those without money but who need it from VC's - and as you say, the US is often the destination of choice for those like that. The point being to attract great entrepreneurs from countries that don't welcome them - at least a number of countries being a case in point: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4095&... - "In one 2005 poll, just 36 percent of French citizens said they supported the free-enterprise system, the only one of 22 countries polled that showed minority support for this cornerstone of global commerce. In Germany, meanwhile, support for socialist ideals is running at all-time highs—47 percent in 2007 versus 36 percent in 1991."
Ideally they would make the tax incentives permanent - ie reduce payroll taxes if the goal is to increase employment, but I think the startup visa is a much more interesting alternative as it seeks to attract talent that traditionally is difficult to define but is so important to how vibrant an economy is. In theory, just the fact these people bring viable ideas that people want to fund should be sufficient irrespective of jobs they create.
That said, I think tax-breaks for increasing number of employees is a good idea.
Also, an investor can qualify for an EB-5 visa & green card by investing a $500k to $1m in "saving" 10 jobs.
re: tax breaks for increasing the number of employees, here's a fairly balanced posting on the subject: http://business.theatlantic.com/2009/10/would_a_payroll_tax_... - of course on a more fundamental level, payroll taxes always has struck me as odd considering essentially it's a tax on companies for hiring folks.
For me, a permanent reduction would be a far greater incentive to hire people because at least for me, I hope that I am hiring someone for more than a year or two which is when presumably the tax breaks would expire.