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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

#191

Post by jfk13 »

throwaways885 wrote: post #99
esarbe wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean, you consider the creation of abusive monopolist as something positive? Interesting point of view!

Absolutely, Google has added to this world, not taken away from it. Being a potentially abusive company is a completely different matter, but it doesn't automatically invalidate the good things and I still consider it better off existing than not. In any case, with Trump gone nobody will be around to fight Google if that's your desire.

> Google has added to this world, not taken away from it

There was a time when I would have agreed with this claim, but I'm not so sure these days.

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

#192

Post by Kranar »

emiliobumachar wrote: post #127
eins1234 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Did you mean you're not going to apply for citizenship? Does the global tax extend to green card holders who are not citizens?

For the vast majority of scenarios, the U.S. taxes citizens the same way as it taxes non-citizens. It doesn't matter whether you have a green card or are even working in the U.S. illegally, the tax laws apply to you just as well as they apply to a citizen.

Yes there are exceptions for some class of residents but they are quite fringe.

Further reading: https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/...

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

#193

Post by sonotathrowaway »

chmod600 wrote: post #104
esarbe wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

He should be forced to abide by the laws while he lives or does business here. But if he wants to live in a new place by a new set of laws in the future, I'm not sure what's wrong with that. It seems more like you regret the laws in the US during the decades he was here, and you are hoping future changes in the law will retroactively address your concerns. But I see no moral basis for that stance. If we want to chang…

> “I am very proud of the structure that we set up. We did it based on the incentives that the governments offered us to operate,” Schmidt told one interviewer in 2012. “It’s called capitalism.”

As much as I enjoy watching people dissemble while describing their true actions, there’s not really anyone naive enough to believe Schmidt didn’t actively create the rules google currently operates under, is there?

Maybe he really was just a bystander in his company as it poured millions of dollars into lobbying the American government and he was powerless to stop them.

Or maybe he though the lobbying did nothing and he thought wasting money was a good thing.

Or he’s just lying and hopes people don’t acknowledge that there were maybe half a dozen people who had more power to shape the laws and regulations he operated under. But trying to just pass himself off as an uninvolved observer just rings thoroughly disingenuous.

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

#194

Post by coliveira »

ryanlol wrote: post #147
coliveira wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For someone like Eric S., it must be very easy to get a new citizenship, and this will help him to setup some of the schemes that, while legal, will allow him to evade billions of dollars in taxes over his lifetime. I believe this is just a way to simplify his tax dodging schemes.

Can you give an example of a scheme that this might help him set up? I believe that there are none, unless he pays a significant exit tax to give up his US citizenship.

There are all kinds of schemes, but the main vehicle used is to put all assets in something called a trust. Do your research. With a trust you can move your assets around without other people knowing where they are invested. While the US laws applies to all citizens, a trust is not a citizen of the US so according to international laws there is nothing the US can do about it. If Eric has another citizenship, this becomes even easier.

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

#196

Post by Nasrudith »

chrisjc wrote: post #168
enriquto wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not understand why selling citizenships is wrong. If both the seller and the buyer agree to a price, what's the problem?

Whether right or wrong, if the community that you are apart of is affected, then there are implications... some of which can become problems.

Anything done to the community affects it in some way - that criticism could be applied to sending a fruit basket to every Cypriot. Someone could get sick by eating fruit from it after it went bad.

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

#197

Post by pembrook »

petr_tik wrote: post #131
pembrook wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 only country" that you know of. According to this, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_taxation#Taxatio... , Hungary, Myanmar have the same as the US. Spain and Turkey and several others have it for some citizens.

None of those countries are able to actually enforce that however, in the same way the US can.

Myanmar, Turkey, etc. do not have the power to force foreign banks to report on all of their expat citizens.

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

#198

Post by part1of2 »

pembrook wrote: post #113
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…

It becomes a tax dodge only when you renounce your US citizenship, which some millionaires have done already, such as Eduardo Saverin

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

#199

Post by AGSYS »

BurningFrog wrote: post #171
freehunter wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a billionaire makes a move like this (getting citizenship in another country) it’s often criticized as an “escape plan”, or somewhere to run if any number of bad things happen to or in the USA. It’s viewed a little differently from most other ex-pats because these are the people who have the money and power to dramatically influence the government, so if they’re running from something here in the US, it’s either…

This is a QAnon level conspiracy madness.

How is this a "conspiracy", that post is pointing out how wealthy and powerful people don't have to worry about the long term effects of their actions like their employees do.

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

#200

Post by DoingIsLearning »

ryanlol wrote: post #130
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI not just any citizenship. On top of the obvious tax benefits in Cyprus, the country is also member state of the EU since 2004. That means 'Citizenship of the European Union', that includes the ability to travel to anywhere in the EU (visa free), the Ability to reside anywhere in the EU, hell Schmidt could even run for public office in any EU local governments municipal elections if he so wishes.

> On top of the obvious tax benefits in Cyprus There are no tax benefits for US citizens in Cyprus. Giving up your US citizenship involves a significant exit tax.

> There are no tax benefits for US citizens in Cyprus

- Dividend gains exemption

- Capital gains exemption

- Pension income capped at 5%

- Abolished inheritance tax

- All of the above plus bonus EU freedom of movement/residence

The guys fortune is parked on GOOG stock how can you say he has nothing to gain? There is a reason russian oligarchs are parking their money in that tiny island.

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