An interesting article was posted today in Chinese: http://big5.soundofhope.org/node/320710.
Here is the Google translation:
The richest man in China to avoid heavy taxes acute rejection of U.S. citizenship
2013-03-17 02:28:58
The green card has always been a symbol of the “American Dream”, but in early 2013, the United States resorted to FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) locking overseas income tax inspection, commonly known as “fat cats Act set off a celebrity and rich to abandon green card and U.S. citizenship The wave of the mainland’s richest man, Wahaha Group Chairman Zong recently renounced U.S. citizenship.
These high-income “tax refugee” nationality have moved back to the country, or transferred to countries with lower tax rates; renounce U.S. citizenship, however, still liquidate the property to pay the exit tax, and many of the National People’s Congress of the American dream from the “dream” change ” nightmare. “
The disposable green card predominantly Chinese
French composer in the movie “Green Card”, which, in order to live and work in the United States, at great pains sham marriages in an attempt to fool the immigration officer, only to get a green card. However, with the United States FATCA bill on the road, there are many rich must deliberately with a green card, “said Bai Bai”, which is a continent rich.
“World News” reported that, in the case of “taxing” the wealthy Americans to give up the green card or citizenship case continued to increase, which Chinese majority. IRS statistics show that, to give up the American’s more than 1,500 people annually from 2008 to 2011, according to the quarterly published abandon nationals who found, a very high proportion of Chinese surnames.
Under U.S. law, U.S. citizens and permanent resident green card holder, whether living in the world where to be for overseas income tax. In March 2010, the United States to strengthen tax collection, enacted FATCA aims to crack down on overseas tax evasion, and the rules officially launched in early 2013.
Overseas fat cats to escape detection
According to FATCA rules, as long as living in the United States, the overseas assets of more than 5 million (U.S. $, the same below), or living overseas assets of more than 20 million of the “rich”, If you do not honestly reporting overseas income will be fined 10,000 reporting is not yet in full if they are the IRS identified, fines can be appended to 50,000 yuan fine;, in serious cases will go to jail.
The best, the U.S. government also stipulates that starting from the New Year’s Day in 2013, the territory of all foreign banks must provide the IRS with deposits of more than 5 million citizens account information, or they will be regarded as “non-cooperation” with the government in order to check tax. Almost all financial institutions have branches in the United States, the “fat cat” proceeds of overseas long as financial, regardless of deposits, bonds, stocks, and even ham pension, etc., all to escape detection.
This tax pressures so many foreigners choose to give up the green card, In the past, the “American Dream” is the most ardent Chinese tycoons, such as Wahaha chairman Zong also reported one after another “to do back to the Chinese people”.
But is not easy to give up the green card must pay the exit tax; the taxpayer abandoned cadastral day shall liquidate the total global assets, deemed “the price of sale to pay income tax. So you want to say goodbye without a large loss of blood, advance must also be careful financial plan for the job with the United States.
Once again, the Falun Gong guys distorting the news beyond all recognition and hurling epithets to trying to drum up outrage at anyone who chooses China over the US. (I notice that unlike every other Chinese newspaper in the world, they translate “FATCA” literally as “Fat Cat Law” rather than giving it a literal translation the way HK & mainland newspapers do, or calling it “Fat Coffee” the way the Taiwan newspapers do.)
Anyway, what Zong Qinghou actually said in the World Journal interview (what the automated translator called “World News”) a couple of weeks ago was that he hadn’t gone to the US in years, so his green card was deemed to have been abandoned. This is only an issue recently because he was appointed to the Zhejiang People’s Political Consultative Conference, so all the opposition media are trying to dig up dirt on him.
http://www.worldjournal.com/view/aChinanews/21863284/article-%E5%AE%97%E6%85%B6%E5%BE%8C%EF%BC%9A%E5%B7%B2%E7%84%A1%E7%B6%A0%E5%8D%A1-%E4%B8%8D%E6%9C%83%E7%A7%BB%E6%B0%91%E6%B5%B7%E5%A4%96
The real interesting story here is that his daughter Kelly Zong went to university in the US, naturalised, and then very quickly seems to have got buyer’s remorse; she started the procedure to renounce in 2007.. Took her three years to finally show up in the Federal Register:
http://finance.sina.com.cn/review/20070720/10533805164.shtml
https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2010/11/10/2010-28316/quarterly-publication-of-individuals-who-have-chosen-to-expatriate-as-required-by-section-6039g
Lol, more falun gong articles. Seriously, these are the guys who “broke into” their own offices and conveniently smashed up all their old equipment (while leaving new stuff untouched) a few years back so they could cry that the evil communist party was attacking them… and of course claim a huge insurance payout to fund new operations. Anyone else would have been sent to jail for the stupidly obvious fraud. They also take in funding from the USG to continue their attacks. If you want to see how insane it gets, set your skype location to China, and don’t block all-unknowns. You get 3~4 of them harassing you each and every day with phone calls and messages. They also control a decent sized chunk of wikipedia and have an established base of power on it. Any attempt at editing something they decided to have an interest in will result in them attacking every single article you have shown interest in, filling it with ridiculous FLG links and nuking anything they don’t like. A handful of admins on their side as well, so when you complain too much you just get banned and they go on doing what they do. If you catch them making their edits without signing in, a good amount of the IPs track back to North-East Virginia. Good luck trying to fight that!
Best to ignore them entirely, as they absolutely thrive on any perceived slight as well as any perceived endorsement.
The FG are indeed certifiable… to the extent that I’ve recently noticed a huge backlash against them (probably the same “Love HK” groups that have pledged allegiance to China). They seem to have been kicked out of their usual haunting grounds of the Star Ferry pier and the Wan Chai flyover… I was at Immigration Tower today (in fact to try and check my exposure to FATCA indicia) and was happily Falun-free for the entire walk. The one open question I still have is when that mother and kid supposedly lit themselves ablaze in Tiananmen Square in protest. Both sides say the other is guilty of faking the entire thing for press, and sadly I think they each have an equal chance of being correct.
Back on topic though. I can see a good deal of the Chinese super-rich and government/party members renouncing going forward, for the simple reasons of the visibility inside China and the growing difficulty in parking assets with family members. My bet is that average people will hold onto their green cards and/or passports (assuming they don’t lose out too badly on the social benefits to which Fred alluded in another comment) if only for the added mobility it gives them if they want to roam outside of China. However, I agree the allure of a US nationality has definitely been forever tarnished.