You gotta give Eduardo Saverin some credit. Yes, he may have been the luckiest bastard on Planet Earth when he met Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard and loaned him the $19,000 (and little else) that seeded Facebook into what may soon be a $96 Billion behemoth. But, he knows when to sue people - and he knows when to skip out of the country to avoid giving all his money away in taxes...
With Facebook's impending IPO (initial public offering of stock for those of you in Allendale) rising Saverin's 5% stake in the company to about $3.84 Billion, Saverin has decided to do another hopscotch in his lifetime habit of continent hopping... This time, it's Singapore. You have any obvious reason why? Uhhhh, yeah. It's taxes....
Do the Math... Next year, the top end tax rate goes to 39.6% - the highest in the industrialized world - along with increases in Capital Gains taxes as well... Singapore's Capital Gains tax is - you guessed it - is zero. Nada. Zip. Nunca... Quite the nice place to live if all your net worth is in the stock market. Aside from the occasional caning of drunken, graffittiing college students, it sounds like a pretty cool place to hang. Oh yeah - we forgot Tsumanis and Earthquakes.
Saverin, who was born in Brazil, move to the US in 1992, and became a US citizen in 1998, won't be escaping all taxes here. There is an 'exit tax' citizens pay when leaving, and Singapore does have an 'entry tax' as well, but compared to paying $1 billion in Cap Gains, it's small potatoes. And the sad part is, it's becoming a common occurance.. And we don't want to blame it on Barack Obama, but....
Numbers don't lie, and the Super Rich are scared to death of Obama - not only for their companies, but for their personal wealth as well. In 2008, 235 Americans renounced their citizenship for financial reasons. In 2011, that number jumped to 1780 - a jump of 750% percent.. These aren't just factory workers or engineers. These are some of the smartest people in the world, and now their money and brainpower will be going to other countries.
It's getting pretty bad how corporations and now even people are running for the hills. All the profits are being pushed overseas, and without catching up on that and giving them a clear idea of exactly WHAT our tax policy is, it'll only get worse... If not, the Eduardo Saverins will continue the expatriation... Meanwhile, we make Michelle Bachmann give up her Swiss citizenship? It just doesn't make any sense to us.
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1 comment:
I worked in Singapore. Nice place.
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