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Eric Schmidt has applied to become a citizen of Cyprus

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Re: Eric Schmidt has applied to become a citizen of Cyprus

#111

Post by colejohnson66 »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #105
areoform wrote: post #67

If this is indeed for a tax dodge, what's funny is that the US Government helped fund Google. Or, more accurately, they funded the research into the seemingly esoteric problem that became Google; > In 1995, one of the first and most promising MDDS grants went to a computer-science research team at Stanford University with a decade-long history of working with NSF and DARPA grants. The primary objective of this grant…

The question, then, is why we bothered effectively handing Page and Brin free startup funds without claiming any IP or equity stake in the resulting products, then act surprised when they don't want to pay taxes on the money they made.

Isn’t the US government not allowed to own any IP? I’m pretty sure the Constitution says so. That’s why JPL is a thing; so NASA can pay JPL to do research (giving JPL, a company, the IP).

Re: Eric Schmidt has applied to become a citizen of Cyprus

#112

Post by [deleted] »

Teknoman117 wrote: post #96

Can he even get a second citizenship? As far as I was aware (as a US citizen myself), the US doesn't allow you become a citizen of another country without renouncing your US citizenship except in the very specific dual-citizenship scenarios regarding birth or familial ties. I know under the Obama administration the federal government had turned a blind eye to people not renouncing a prior citizenship when becoming a…

[deleted]

Re: Eric Schmidt has applied to become a citizen of Cyprus

#113

Post by pembrook »

areoform wrote: post #67

If this is indeed for a tax dodge, what's funny is that the US Government helped fund Google. Or, more accurately, they funded the research into the seemingly esoteric problem that became Google; > In 1995, one of the first and most promising MDDS grants went to a computer-science research team at Stanford University with a decade-long history of working with NSF and DARPA grants. The primary objective of this grant…

This is not a tax dodge. There is no way to dodge taxes as a US citizen by moving abroad, the US is the only country in the world with a real global taxation system.

EDIT further information I posted below:

The US has the unique position of being able to actually enforce this due to the fact the USD is the reserve currency of the world and every country needs to stay on the good side of the US Treasury to transact in the global economy. FATCA requires all foreign financial institutions to report on any US citizen assets.

In fact, the laws are so strict, they make living abroad as an honest middle-class expat a total nightmare. I have friends who cannot find a single bank in their country that will work with them because of the reporting requirements of working with US citizens. They cannot save in foreign banks and they cannot invest either due to the US penalizing foreign Mutual fund/ETF purchases by private citizens.

Re: Eric Schmidt has applied to become a citizen of Cyprus

#114

Post by JumpCrisscross »

bduerst wrote: post #52
DSingularity wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think Eric has problems traveling?

Americans are currently blocked from travel to many countries, European included, due to the bungling of their Covid 19 response.

> Americans are currently blocked from travel to many countries, European included, due to the bungling of their Covid 19 response

These rules are littered with loopholes. If you work media, you (and your staff and family and apparently girlfriend) get a free pass in Portugal and Italy.

I just got back from a wedding in Germany—just had to quarantine in London for two weeks first.

Re: Eric Schmidt has applied to become a citizen of Cyprus

#116

Post by vram22 »

I thought I read, not too long ago, that he was kind of hell-bent on getting either the military or US govt. or NY state or some such, to be guided by him on adopting high tech for "their" benefit? Was I right, and if so, what happened about that? Fizzled out? Almost sure I read something to that effect, either in a TechCrunch kind of site or some online newspaper like NY Times. Likely not more than some months ago. Then why the sudden Cyprus thing?

Edit: Did the obvious, googled - for "eric schmidt advise us military on tech". First 3 hits indicate I was right. Hit 1:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/technology/eric-schmidt-p...

Other 2 hits are Business Insider and The Verge.

Re: Eric Schmidt has applied to become a citizen of Cyprus

#117

Post by chmod600 »

Teknoman117 wrote: post #96

Can he even get a second citizenship? As far as I was aware (as a US citizen myself), the US doesn't allow you become a citizen of another country without renouncing your US citizenship except in the very specific dual-citizenship scenarios regarding birth or familial ties. I know under the Obama administration the federal government had turned a blind eye to people not renouncing a prior citizenship when becoming a…

The Fourteenth Amendment:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States..."

It's hard for federal law to get around that. I guess common law would allow someone to opt out...

Re: Eric Schmidt has applied to become a citizen of Cyprus

#118

Post by [deleted] »

esarbe wrote: post #19
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #6

I don't blame him for taking advantage of the system. What I blame him for is all of his supposed altruistic bloviating. No different than a Russian oligarch.

Huh, why not? If not for people taking advantage of "the system", "the system" would not exist. I mean; here we have a guy that has taken all the advantage of all the benefits a developed industrial country has to offer and then in turn does everything in his power to give back as little as possible. Hell yeah I'm going to blame him. It's not moral behavior. I don't care whether it is legal or not, he's behaving like…

[deleted]

Re: Eric Schmidt has applied to become a citizen of Cyprus

#119

Post by ericd »

eins1234 wrote: post #78
eatmyshorts wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American citizens living and working abroad still must pay taxes to the US Government. As far as I am aware, the US is the only country in the world with this requirement. There is a reason the FBAR requirement is often called the "fubar" requirement.

I'm working in the US under a TN Visa at the moment as a Canadian citizen, and until this changes I'm never going to apply for a green card, and have been advising all my friends in similar situations to do the same. We choose to live & work here because SV is the Mecca of software development, but that could very easily change within our lifetimes, so tying ourselves down with this ridiculous obligation for life doe…

You're free to renounce the citizenship, it's not a lifetime obligation to pay taxes to the US.

Re: Eric Schmidt has applied to become a citizen of Cyprus

#120

Post by klaudius »

roughly wrote: post #77
areoform wrote: post #67

If this is indeed for a tax dodge, what's funny is that the US Government helped fund Google. Or, more accurately, they funded the research into the seemingly esoteric problem that became Google; > In 1995, one of the first and most promising MDDS grants went to a computer-science research team at Stanford University with a decade-long history of working with NSF and DARPA grants. The primary objective of this grant…

Mariana Mazzucato's book "The Entrepreneurial State" is a good read on the matter of public funding for innovation: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781610396134

This is very misleading. US government heavily taxes people and organizations and spends on certain projects. But if people had more resources left to themselves, they could spend some of it on the same projects US gov spends it on.

On top of that, US gov has all kinds of laws and regulations that make it difficult to do certain valuable things. For example, if companies in the same industry come together to do something valuable, they might break antitrust laws. Government might also make it prohibitively expensive to do something and then they step in to do it themselves - you see it with pharma research.

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