Is it in the law that someone who expatriates somehow is barred from making money somewhere else as a non-US citizen? It is not, as far as I am aware.
The law does not take into account eventualities, it only takes into account actualities. If I were to renounce my US citizenship this week, and next week win £5 million in the National Lottery, would I be liable for tax? Obviously not. In Saverin's case it was foreseeable, but the law only takes into account the actual sum of money that he possessed at the moment of renunciation. And that would be true of anyone, whether it be me (who is unemployed and a kept man) or whether it be Saverin. I was under the impression that all people are equal before the law, and that no one, however powerful or powerless, should be able to escape the law's requirements or should be submitted to requirements that someone else of the same standing and citizenship are not subject to.
I wonder whether some of this is just envy that someone else has lots of money and other people don't. I say again: He is not "getting away with" anything. He followed the law to the letter and he should not be held to a higher standing than Joe Blow who hasn't a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of is.
Would Americans be upset if Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world, emigrated from Mexico to America and took American citizenship? Would Mexicans be justified in saying that he was evading Mexican taxes? The logical extension of that would be to prohibit emigration, naturalisation, and renunciation of citizenship for everyone, worldwide.
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Date: 2012-05-21 01:45 pm (UTC)The law does not take into account eventualities, it only takes into account actualities. If I were to renounce my US citizenship this week, and next week win £5 million in the National Lottery, would I be liable for tax? Obviously not. In Saverin's case it was foreseeable, but the law only takes into account the actual sum of money that he possessed at the moment of renunciation. And that would be true of anyone, whether it be me (who is unemployed and a kept man) or whether it be Saverin. I was under the impression that all people are equal before the law, and that no one, however powerful or powerless, should be able to escape the law's requirements or should be submitted to requirements that someone else of the same standing and citizenship are not subject to.
I wonder whether some of this is just envy that someone else has lots of money and other people don't. I say again: He is not "getting away with" anything. He followed the law to the letter and he should not be held to a higher standing than Joe Blow who hasn't a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of is.
Would Americans be upset if Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world, emigrated from Mexico to America and took American citizenship? Would Mexicans be justified in saying that he was evading Mexican taxes? The logical extension of that would be to prohibit emigration, naturalisation, and renunciation of citizenship for everyone, worldwide.
American exceptionalism is dead. Let's bury it.