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Comment by rprasad | Hacker News Reader

It's not a matter of spite--it's the fact that Eduardo's primary claim to life and wealth is due to America: coming to America saved Eduardo's life as a youth after he became the target of Brazilian kidnappers, getting an American education led to the opportunity to be Facebook's angel investor, and the American justice system is the sole reason that Eduardo has any claim to Facebook stock today.

Note: I am not opining in this comment whether Eduardo should be taxed more than he already has been or already will be, I am merely stating the prevailing justification expressed for why people think he's a freeloader.

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It is exactly a matter of spite. tl;dr: he is playing by the rules. people are spiteful because they think he is abusing a loophole in those rules (I disagree).

Saverin played by the rules: he legally became a US citizen. He got the related perks (access to education, quality of life, ...) and the related liabilities (The US tax code is onerous, and while it IS competitive with e.g. Europe on a percentage basis, you get much, much less for your taxes).

He is still playing by the rules: he is invoking the "I quit" card. Note that contrary to the media hype right now, he is making a bet: if Facebook loses value between his de-citizenship and the time he can sell (possibly 6 months after IPO, depending on how his stock was allocated and how the IPO is structured), he is going to LOSE money by denouncing his citizenship.

If he is not planning to live in the US, that's perfectly understandable - read about FBAR and FATCA. the tl;dr of those is: you have ridiculously onerous reporting requirements, FOREVER, with penalty 50% of your holding, PER YEAR (that is, if you're decided to be willingly noncompliant for two years, you have to pay your liquid worth; if you are for 4 years -- well, you owe twice as much; and by default you are assumed willingly noncompliant).

Now, whether or not his decision to move out of the US was driven by the US tax code or not, is (or at least, in my opinion, should be) immaterial. Furthermore, since he wants to live in Singapore, he is required to give up his US citizenship to receive a Singapore one.

I find support to this being a matter of spite, is that all proponents of this law that I have heard talk about punishing him and his ilk (in slightly different words).

Ted Arison and Michael Dingman did this in the early '90s and avoided billions in taxes (The wikipedia article claims Arison did pay taxes[citation needed], but I remember the headlines at the time said he didn't, and http://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/12/us/some-of-rich-find-a-pas... indicates that he probably didn't).

Saverin is actually taking a financial risk here, playing by the rules that were enacted, which are not letting him out easily.

It is exactly a matter of spite.

edit: minor rewording one minute after writing.

People disagree on whether he is/was playing by the rules, and this is the very heart of the debate.

It's not an issue of objective technical compliance, since he has objectively complied with the rules. However, like all anti-abuse provisions of the tax code, there is a subjective element: Did Eduardo renounce his citizenship to avoid paying U.S. federal income taxes on the sale of his Facebook stock? If the answer is yes, there is a good probability that the IRS will pursue him for taxes arising from the IPO. (Note: in most situations, the primary intent must be to avoid taxes, but in some situations, any intent to avoid taxes is enough.)

Furthermore, he could be barred from this country ("excludable") under U.S. immigration laws.

The Senator has indicated that he believes the answer is yes. It's not a matter of spite; it's a mater of timing. Eduardo has been eligible for Singaporean citizenship for some time now, yet it was only when the Facebook IPO became likely (last fall) that he actually took steps to renounce his U.S. citizenship. (If you read other news sources, you will see the Senator refer to the timing issue.)

In the end, the only people who know what Eduardo's subjective purpose was in renouncing his citizenship are Eduardo and the advisors he consulted with in reaching this decision.

I might have found this argument (for "not being spiteful" or "it's fairness, not just political gain") compelling, if Schumer and the media was having the same feat over the double-irish sandwich practiced for years by the like of Apple, Google and Microsoft (with some "nevada sauce") -- where the cumulative effect on the bottom tax line over the last few years is about a hundred to a thousand times larger than the saverin case (we're talking 60M right now vs. 20-60B).

Furthermore, saverin is actually giving something up, whereas those corporates are paying 2-3% and giving up nothing.

As rprasad mentions, the laws are already on the books to deal with Saverin-like cases; the IRS has the tools to go after him, with no new laws needed. They were better equipped before 2008 (10 years after denouncing citizenship, capital gains still applied), but congress changed that to just an exit tax.

I see nothing wrong in what saverin is doing. I see everything wrong with what Schumer is doing.

The media did have the same feat over the double-irish structure. It's possible that you did not notice this at the time, but there was definitely an uproar over what many considered to be tax evasion by U.S. companies. In fact, there was another uproar about this earlier this year when Apple was approaching its recordsetting valuation--many newspapers were pointing out Apple maintained an extremely large overseas cash hoard utilizing the double-irish to avoid paying U.S. taxes on that money. Several legislators have brought that up, on both sides, as justification for either doing away with corporate tax breaks, or for doing away with worldwide taxation. Note that the corporations are effectively giving up something -- so long as they want to avoid U.S. taxes on their foreign cash, they cannot use that cash on any aspect of the U.S. business. It's not the same thing as citizenship, but cash is the lifeforce of business.

There is nothing legally wrong with what Saverin is doing...depending on why he did it. As I have noted in other comments, there is a subjective element to the abuse provisions of the law. If that subjective element is deemed satisfied, then legally, he will be deemed to have donse something wrong. That determination is for a judge to make.

> The media did have the same feat over the double-irish structure. It's possible that you did not notice this at the time, but there was definitely an uproar over what many considered to be tax evasion by U.S. companies.

There was a small uproar. I was following (and still am). And yet, the tone was along the lines of "well, if we took away their ability to do that, they'd take their business somewhere else, so we shouldn't".

Did any senator or member of the house propose a "minimal 30% tax" on Apple or Microsoft or Google? did I miss that one too?

> Note that the corporations are effectively giving up something -- so long as they want to avoid U.S. taxes on their foreign cash, they cannot use that cash on any aspect of the U.S. business. It's not the same thing as citizenship, but cash is the lifeforce of business.

I stand corrected, they are giving up something. But it's something as small as "by paying 2% taxes instead of 30%, you give up the right to cut your own hair - you have to go to a barbershop".

e.g. Apple bought several companies in the last couple of years in Sweden (Polar Rose), Israel (Anobit), and the US. They paid for the first two with outside money, and for the last one with US money.

If all their money was repatriated....., it wouldn't have mattered to them at all.

Furthermore, they're all banking on a "tax free" or "low tax" repatriation day, for which they've been lobbying for a while; they got one 15 years ago. Corporates taking the long view can bank on that. People can't.

> That determination is for a judge to make.

Exactly. The relevant laws are already on the books. Schumer is just looking for votes.

He became a citizen and he got the benefits of being a US citizen.

Now he's choosing to become a citizen of another country and forfeiting those US citizenship benefits.

Just because you're a citizen, doesn't mean that country owns you – you still can choose to move, leave if you want to.

Saying he's a freeloader discounts basically everything Eduardo has done. I would say the net gain of Eduardo being in the US for the time he was, is significantly bigger than the net loss we'll feel from him leaving – making him the exact opposite of a freeloader.

I'm not sure that it follows that the point of the US is to extract taxes indefinitely from those who benefit from a well constructed country. If the structure of the country becomes hostile to a person, they should be able to vote with their feet. It is substantially easier for the rich to do this, but the solution is to make it easier for everyone, both coming and going. Responsiveness should be the goal on every level, local, state, federal.

Exactly, if you're not free to leave of your own choosing - a country begins to sound a lot more like jail.

I agree, but the key problem is that the U.S. tax system is structured to collect taxes after the period to which they relate. This is done to minimize the compliance burden on taxpayers and to minimize the IRS' burden in ensuring compliance. The alternative is to collect all taxes as they accrue (like sales taxes are now), which would significantly increase compliance costs for taxpayers and the IRS's workload.

The primary argument is that Eduardo owes these taxes because the underlying income was earned while he was an American citizen/resident. It's not a matter of what he is doing right now--it's a matter of what he was doing back then.

> The primary argument is that Eduardo owes these taxes because the underlying income was earned while he was an American citizen/resident. It's not a matter of what he is doing right now--it's a matter of what he was doing back then.

Assuming technical compliance with the law, this argument is moot. The law requires payment of capital gains based on fair market value at the day of renouncing citizenship.

It sounds like what you really want to do is change the tax law.

So, you're saying; Saverin owes us. Is that correct?

I'm saying he owed us in both the legal and moral sense. I do not know whether (or if so, when) Eduardo has paid taxes on his Facebook shares, so I cannot opine on whether he still owes us under the laws currently in effect.

Morally...I think he's a freeloading bastard, and I look forward to the day he goes to jail in Singapore for violating one of their numerous and extremely punitive criminal laws. But I do not think he has a moral obligation to pay additional taxes if he has satisfied his legal obligations.

As far as I understand the stories, under the current law he's legally in the clear.

Morally, the United States is full of free loading bastards who know every single loophole in the tax laws. Why single out this one guy? Because it's much easier to focus on a single individual and crucify him? He's hasn't done anything different then what other "free loading bastards" have been doing for years.

This is guy is not a born US citizen in the first place and he's been living in Singapore since 2009.

Why are you so intent on something bad happening to him? In the large scale of things - he got screwed when it came to Facebook.

Sure you might not like the guy, but when you're hoping bad things happen to him just because he's about to make a lot of money makes it look like you're awfully jealous of the guy.

Why would he be going to prison in Singapore? Is he known for breaking laws?

It's also amusing that you denigrate Singapore for their "numerous and extremely punitive criminal laws" when the incarceration rate in Singapore is roughly a third of that in the US.

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