One of Facebook's founders, Eduardo Saverin, has renounced his American citizenship in a move widely viewed as a means to avoid paying taxes on the Facebook IPO this week. Saverin's Facebook shares are estimated to be worth more than $3 billion, and by renouncing his American citizenship he is expected to avoid at least $67 million in taxes. Needless to say, this has drawn quite the outrage on the Democratic side with Sen. Chuck Schumer and Sen. Bob Casey putting forth legislation to stop such shenanigans in the future.
It's entirely predictable that Forbes magazine would defend Saverin by denouncing U.S. tax policy saying it drives entrepreneurs out of the country (really? tell it to Bill Gates and Warren Buffett) or that Rush Limbaugh would declare it's not unpatriotic (um, bullshit, it most certainly is), but what's surprising is that John Boehner would go on TV today and say he would support the legislation (though he believed another law already on the books accomplished the same). I almost waited a couple of days on this post to see what kind of a backlash he drew and how quickly he'd withdraw his support--but then I remembered it was an election year and letting a multibillionaire get away without paying a pittance of his earnings in taxes wouldn't win a lot of Independent votes....
Besides, it will be fun watching republicans choke on this one for a few days because you know there isn't a goddamn one of them that wouldn't sell their American citizenship for a whole hell of a lot less than $67 million--especially when it comes to paying taxes.
Peace,
emaycee
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment