A gripping eight-page feature story appeared in the 29 Feb-6 Mar 2016 issue of Bloomberg Businessweek (50-57). The main theme is the wranglings to save the near-extinct South China tiger. The account includes an interesting sidelight paragraph on how protagonist Stuart Bray has abandoned his U.S. citizenship.
Born and raised in America, he lives in London and maintains Belgian citizenship. A former executive at Deutsche Bank, his natural habitat is Wall Street or the Square Mile of London, where he spent a career in structured finance.
From the following passage, it appears that Bray has put his tax motivation on public record — and himself square in the crosshairs of the Reed amendment?
Just when the project needed it most, there was an unexpected windfall. While Bray was fighting with Deutsche Bank over his options, the bank put out a news release. Bray claimed that it implied his old division was caught up in a U.S. tax probe, which wasn’t the case, and he sued for libel. The suit, along with the stock dispute, was settled out of court. In 2009 he arranged for Deutsche Bank to pay £20 million to a Save China’s Tigers charitable trust as a tax-free donation. The same year, Bray gave up his American citizenship and became a Belgian national, saying he didn’t want the organization to face onerous U.S. taxes.
Maybe he just doesn’t care anymore. Good on him for just telling it like it is. Maybe people will get it if more do the same……..
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Our first known citizen inversion – or at least that’s what the headlines will read.
Thanks for posting this, usxcanada. An ex-American we can look up to for his convictions.
Would be helpful and eye-opening for some if this could be used as an example of how others, including this charity, could be robbed by the US because of a generous American citizen donor.
http://www.npr.org/2016/03/30/472279572/do-americans-actually-follow-through-on-election-threats-to-move-to-canada
Story on NPR’s website yesterday.
“The same year, Bray gave up his American citizenship and became a Belgian national, saying he didn’t want THE ORGANIZATION to face onerous U.S. taxes.”
That doesn’t say if Bray gave a flying fig about whether he personally faced onerous US taxes. Maybe he faced some, maybe not, maybe he cared, maybe he didn’t, but that has nothing to do with his concern for the organization.
Now, since Bloomberg ran a sidelight paragraph on a rich renouncer, will Bloomberg run 99 paragraphs on the other 99% of us?
@Don
Haven’t until now seen a major media outlet connect a post election flight of people from the US to Canada with CBT – and NPR no less!
Quick check: no one by that name seems to have shown up in the published expatriates list
https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/search?conditions%5Bterm%5D=bray+expatriate&commit=Go