Enjoli Saverin has covered Eduardo Saverin’s expatriation, and in the process, has given the Isaac Brock Society the spotlight.
Facebook’s Eduardo Saverin Joins Americans Renouncing Citizenship
Why Facebook’s Saverin Gave Up Citizenship
Peter Dunn, a popular blogger who gave up his U.S. citizenship, said the expatriates he spoke to were mostly standard middle-class U.S. citizens who were ready to retire or who had retired abroad. He said because of these “invasive” rules, they now feared substantial penalties from not reporting their finances correctly.
Born in Chicago, he moved to Canada in 1986 as a graduate student and later married a Canadian woman. He eventually settled in the Toronto region.
A researcher and blogger for the Isaac Brock Society, a website for Americans abroad, Dunn said that although he’d rather have had dual citizenship in the U.S. and Canada, he said he felt taken advantage of by the U.S., just one of two countries that taxes its citizens even when they live and work in another country. He said he also did it to protect his wife, with whom he has bank accounts.
Our friend Phil Hodgen also makes an appearance.
Note that Saverin is a resident of Singapore. There is no indication that he has become a citizen of Singapre. Born in Brazil he moved to the US and became a US citizen, but he did not lose his Brazilian citizenship so, when renouncing his US citizenship he most likely still has a Brazilian passport with which to travel anywhere in the world.
There is no need for him to recounce his Brazilian citizenship since unlike the US, Brazil does not subject its citizens to Brazilian (home country) taxes when they are residents of another country, nor does Brazil requre its citizens living abroad to submit FBAR reports on their foreign bank accounts or for bank accounts of. companies in which they have a controlling interest or of which they are officers or directors. Likewise he does not have to submit FATCA reports to the Brazilian government or pay taxes on his foreign income as a non-resident of his country of citizenship.
But as as American in Singapore, with the reporting requirements under FATCA that the US goverment places on Singaporean banks to provide detailed reports of accounts they have with US citizens, as a US citizen he might even have difficulty opening a bank account in Singapore as more and more foreign banks are dropping US customers rather than submit to the onerous extraterritorial financial account reporting laws of the US. And worst of all, living in Singapore as a US citizen he would be subject to both Singapoean and US tax laws, and taxed by both. Why would anyone in their right mind want to be subject to double taxation on the same income by two different countries? it just goes to show you that key to survival for a US citizen living abroad is renunciation of US citizenship.
@Petros – you make a darn fine spokesman. Loved the quotations – you summed it up perfectly. And this was a pretty sympathetic article – perhaps the winds are starting blow in a different direction?
@Petros: I see you got quoted by the Toronto Star too. Let me echo Victoria’s thanks & congratulations.
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1177374–facebook-co-founder-eduardo-saverin-s-taxing-connection-to-u-s-canadian-dual-citizens
It looks like someone in the comments confused Petros with the soon-to-be billionaire. I guess that can happen when you show 2 different cases at each end of the spectrum. Maye Petros makes 1,000% a year on his investments and he’s not saying…
@ Geeez, that’s funny. Here’s my riff on it (awaiting approval, I suppose):
Hi True American: I am actually not a billionaire–or were you referring to Saverin?
The American colonists told the British to take their British citizenship and their taxes and shove it. Are you saying that they were not true Americans because they wanted to keep their money and not pay it to some foreign power? Seems like whether it is me or whether it is Saverin, we are doing the truly American thing–we are doing what we can to keep our money, though without shedding blood like the American colonists had to do.
Up here in Canada there is something like a million US persons, all who pay exorbitant taxes to Federal, Provincial and local governments–far more than the nominal taxes that US residents pay. Some of us would indeed like to hold on to what our own governments here let us keep, and we want the IRS to leave us alone and not require that we pay them a pound of flesh too. Isn’t that a what it means to be a True American, I mean in the historical sense? Just FYI.
@Petros, I stand in awe of your willingness to spend your LCUs, and your willingness to put your name out there for all to see. Thank you. You always manage to strike the right note, you come across as an intelligent, temperate person who is rightfully upset at an unfair system. You are, indeed, a fine spokesman, and perhaps selfishly, I hope you continue to get interviewed and quoted. I think it is simply fantastic that this site is gaining prominence. I think you have done, and are doing, a wonderful service both in starting this site, and in getting out in public. You are helping, right now, hundreds of people, and I have no doubt that that will grow to the thousands and perhaps beyond. Kudos, congrats and thanks@
The comments on the bloomberg story below are just scary, lots of demands for laws to be put in place to stop people like Saverin from escaping with anything at all, most don’t understand the exit tax nor care.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-11/facebook-co-founder-saverin-gives-up-u-s-citizenship-before-ipo.html
@petros, I add my heartfelt thanks as well. @outragedcanadian is right – you may never know how many people you are helping by being a visible, as well as knowledgeable and articulate spokesperson for those who are not able to take up the same role.