Click the Cute Chicks
Are You A Chick Magnet?
Become One by Supporting Free Republic
Please Donate Monthly
Sponsors will contribute $10 for each new monthly sign-up!
FReeper RonC will donate $25 for each new Dollar-A-Day Club member!
Posted on 05/22/2012 11:30:21 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
This week, the universally stupid brainchild of US Senators Chuck Schumer and Bob Casey known as the Ex-PATRIOT Act inched a bit closer towards becoming law.
‘Ex-PATRIOT’ is an absurd acronym that stands for “Expatriation Prevention by Abolishing Tax-Related Incentives for Offshore Tenancy”. I call it the Tax Slave Act… and it proposes three key provisions:
1) Individuals who are deemed, in the sole discretion of the US government, to have renounced US citizenship in order to avoid US taxes, will be permanently barred from re-entering the United States.
2) Such individuals will also be required to pay a 30% capital gains tax to the United States government on ALL future investment gains derived from the US. Currently, non-citizens who do not reside in the US pay no US capital gains tax.
3) These proposals are RETROACTIVE, and, if passed, would apply to anyone who renounced his/her citizenship within the last 10-years.
During a Sunday interview with ABC News, House Speaker John Boehner threw his support behind the bill… certainly a big step towards its eventual passage.
Let’s pause briefly for a little history lesson–
Dart Container Corporation was founded in 1960 by William F. Dart, the man who first perfected the design of styrofoam. Dart Container is today a multi-billion dollar family-owned company with thousands of employees and operations around the world.
In the early 1990s, brothers Kenneth and Robert Dart, heirs to the family fortune, renounced their US citizenship and became citizens of Belize and Ireland, and set up residency in the Cayman Islands.
Around the same time, several other wealthy Americans renounced citizenship, including Carnival Cruise Lines founder Ted Arison (who obtained Israeli citizenship), Campbell Soup heir John Dorrance (Irish citizenship), and fund manager Mark Mobius (German citizenship).
President Clinton was furious, and in 1996, he pushed Congress to pass a series of financial penalties for people who renounce citizenship. At the time, a ‘renunciant’ had to continue filing US tax returns for 10-years after renouncing.
Effectively, though, this penalty was a tax on worldwide income, not an exit tax on assets.
Fast forward to the mid-2000s, a time when the asset bubble was at its peak; the stock market was at its all-time high and real estate prices kept going up.
The Bush regime passed a series of changes to expatriation rules, dropping the income tax filing requirements in lieu of charging a one-time exit tax on assets.
In this way, the government was able to derive a much larger payment up front based on total assets rather than chasing around a former citizen for a piece of annual income.
In the years since the exit tax on assets was established, two things have happened:
1) The number of Americans renouncing US citizenship has risen steadily, from 235 people in 2008 to 1,780 last year (according to Schumer’s office).
2) The asset bubble has burst, and assets are worth much less than just a few years ago. As such, the government isn’t collecting as much revenue from the exit tax.
My sense is that the government has been watching the number of expatriates rise over the years, and simultaneously watching the value of the exit tax fall… and they’ve been looking for an excuse to make sweeping (i.e. retroactive) changes.
Eduardo Saverin is the perfect excuse. The Facebook co-founder’s recent renunciation of US citizenship has become a rallying cry for politicians to go back in time and steal money from former citizens retroactively…plus establish a larger base for future tax revenues.
This is a truly despicable thing to do considering that these former citizens followed the appropriate rules at the time, paid the tax, and moved on with their lives. Now Uncle Sam wants to go back in time to unilaterally change the deal, and expect everyone to abide even though they’re not even citizens anymore. The arrogance is overwhelming.
More importantly, this bill is also a major deterrent for people who are thinking about renouncing US citizenship today.
The passage of this law will undoubtedly cause many people who were considering expatriation to abandon the idea altogether as the thought of being permanently barred from entry is too much to bear.
It’s truly extraordinary that the Land of the Free has deteriorated to the point that the government must now resort to threats, coercion, and intimidation in order to keep its most productive citizens inside.
Yes it is. To ask the difference between President Washington and the guy who renounced his citizenship and moved to singapore, is a joke.
RE: The guy had the right to movement,
Thank you, that’s all I want to hear from you. That is IN KEEPING with the spirit of the Declaration of Independence
RE: he is scum for renouncing his American citizenship.
Again, WHY? You keep using a word without telling us why that word describes the man.
RE: And yes, I do have a double standard when it comes to America, it is my old fashioned patriotism and nationalism, which seems dead among some
No one begrudges you your preference of how to deal with things. What we question is your denunciation of someone who OBEYS and FOLLOWS American laws to deny an increasingly coercive government the means to be coercive to other Americans.
RE: To ask the difference between President Washington and the guy who renounced his citizenship and moved to singapore, is a joke.
No it is NOT. There are similarities.
England is to Washington what Singapore is to Saverin.
In fact, it can be argues that what Washington did was even more drastic that Saverin’s.
Hard to believe that the little scum has you guys digging through American history like a bunch of leftist freaks from DU tearing down our founders and ancestors, because some little twirp renounced America, and tossed our citizenship back at us.
George Washington, and Eduardo? jeesh.
That was a very weird post, even stranger than the others.
RE: George Washington, and Eduardo? jeesh.
Outrage is not reasoning. That only tells us about your way of approaching arguments.
You still have not answered the question — WHY IS SAVERIN SCUM?
RE: That was a very weird post, even stranger than the others.
Your singular talent is using adjectives like “scum” and “weird” without so much as showing how they apply. The above is just one exhibit.
You have your hero, and I will keep George Washington and no, I will not explain why he and the young guy who merely paid his lawyer to get rid of his citizenship, are different.
USA was the original “ Galt’s Gulch” where refugees from European Monarchical stupidity went to hang out and be left alone. Now we’re stuck with Marxist European stupidity... “
? Singapore?
In fact, it can be argues that what Washington did was even more drastic that Saverin’s."
Exactly. We all love GW now because he won and his side got to write the history and the laws we live under. Ask a brit how they feel about George he is not some mythical superhero to them, he is and always will be a traitor to the English people. Saverin is just some guy who happens to be rich leaving get over it, we need to work on making our nation one that brings people IN not makes it so erroneous that they are fleeing us.
Washington is a hero to us because he stood up to the crown and had to kill to do it which is the most extreme form of rebellion but in all rebellion those who fight for it are by definition traitorous to the standing government. I personally prefer Franklin as a guide to individual liberty and freedom he knew all to well the dangers of not limiting government. Arguably our government has left us and is now actively at war with the American people.
RE: You have your hero, and I will keep George Washington and no,
The fallacy in your argument is to assume that just because I question your use of the word “scum” to describe Saverin therefore:
1) I am equating his greatness to Washington.
2) I am therefore saying that Washington is not my hero.
Those are bogus conclusions.
I am simply showing SIMILARITIES regarding what they did, and arguing that Washington was NOT SCUM for abandoning his country England. And neither was Saverin.
All arguments of this form “Washington is my hero and Saverin is yours” are BOGUS.
Don’t post someone else’s quotes as mine and then respond to them.
My mistake is this :
England is to Washington what Singapore is to Saverin.
The correct analogy is England in 1776 is to Washington what America today is to Saverin.
But thanks for your post.
I’ll fill you both in on something, you can discuss tax policy and tax law without making a hero out of some little piece of trash who renounced America, and you do not have to attack the American founding and heroes to do it.
If you want to discuss tax issues, just do it without all the left wing anti-Americanism, don’t confuse renouncing American citizenship with heroism, and showing up to fight a bloody revolution as a patriot and as a defender of your home.
I’ll fill you in on something else — DON’T CREATE AN ARGUMENT THAT PEOPLE NEVER MADE AND THEN ATTACK IT.
That’s a strawman argument.
We did not say that Saverin is a hero. We never said he was as great as George Washington. You created those out of thin air and then force fit it to be our arguments when you know full well they aren’t.
We are questioning your use of the word “scum” to describe what Saverin did when you know full well that it was his right, and what he did was LEGAL.
RE: don’t confuse renouncing American citizenship with heroism,
Again, at what point did we call Saverin a hero?
Questioning your calling him a scum bag is not calling im a hero.
And don’t confuse a LEGAL and MORAL right to do something with being a scumbag.
There you are, you are the one fighting tooth and nail because some veteran dare insult some piece of trash that renounced his American citizenship.
My how the right has changed, it used to be only the lefties who were so anti-American.
RE: don’t confuse renouncing American citizenship with heroism,
Hey, logic is logic. You can insult him anytime you wish, it is your right as well.
But the question still stands ( which you have not answered ) — why does exercising a right as provided for by law make one a scumbag?
Just like your calling Santorum a poster boy for the pro-choice movement in a previous thread ( ignoring all he did for the pro-life cause ), you are at it again here.
I thank you for your service to the country, but that does not give you the right to use illogic in this thread.
And no, the right hasn’t changed, your arguments are the ones that are questionable.
Really dragging in other threads?
No wonder that you do not understand that the act of his renouncing his American citizenship makes him scum, it is an old patriotic thing, you evidently can’t understand it.
Just another one of the pieces of America that has been bred out of the young.
Even as we speak many American ex-pats are starting to find it difficult opening bank accounts in many places.
Yes, I realize this is going on. However, it is not impossible to find bank accounts outside the United States. Besides, it was my impression this law is targeted towards people who have given up their US citizenship. If you're not a US citizen, then there shouldn't be a problem getting a bank account. My point was, once a person gives up citizenship and gets their money out of the US, how do those in Congress propose to get it back? Do they think these folks are going to voluntarily send in a check? You'd have to make damn sure you never wanted to re-enter the country though.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.