Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Eric Schmidt has applied to become a citizen of Cyprus

vox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 401 posts

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

#241

Post by seppin »

polote wrote: post #227
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…

> they make living abroad as an honest middle-class expat a total nightmare There was a guy a few days who wrote an article about giving up on his US nationality exactly for that purpose https://larrysalibra.com/goodbye-usa/ (found on https://hnblogs.substack.com/p/hn-blogs-51120 )

How on earth did a Republican administration just pass a massive tax reform bill and not address this?

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

#242

Post by ben_w »

addicted wrote: post #184
wukerplank wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, what is this? His passion for the Mediterranian? Reconnecting with his ancestor's roots? BTW: All tax systems are draconian, at least to the middle class. Not to people who can afford creative lawyers.

If you compare countries by how well they collect taxes, I am pretty sure it will completely correlate with how well their middle classes are doing. So it’s really hard to see how taxes are draconian for the middle classes. Or draconian at all.

“Middle class” is a very vague term; I assume in this case it refers to people rich enough to have a “nice bonus” from their investments, but not rich enough to actually live off their investments.

For this group, I can believe it’s awkward and annoying, mainly because I am in it and I find investment T&Cs (and the consequences of being wrong) scary and confusing. However, I would not use the word “draconian” — I take the view that paying my taxes buys a civilization to live in, and that this is a very good deal.

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

#243

Post by mmmmmbop »

enriquto wrote: post #148
digianarchist wrote: post #121

Cyprus is under investigation by the EU, along with Malta for “selling” citizenships.

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

Note that an EU country citizenship by extension results in an EU citizenship. All EU citizens are granted special rights such as freedom of movement, right to work, social welfare, et cetera all throughout the EU.

If a country sells its citizenships, that country alone benefits financially from that transaction, but the potential obligations are borne by the entire EU community.

In my opinion, there is nothing inherently wrong about a country selling its citizenship, but in the EU framework it seems to go against the good faith principles that the EU is built on.

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

#244

Post by cblconfederate »

freehunter wrote: post #20
cblconfederate wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people think this is a "bad thing"? It's no different than buying an expensive home anywhere in the world, except it comes with a citizenship. I doubt he can use the favorable taxation - he would have to renounce his US citizenship for that.

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…

Do they expect the same things from the billionaires from Saudi Arabia, china, japan etc who have invested in american companies? I was also under the impression that the jet set is generally considered international

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

#245

Post by zajio1am »

throwawayay02 wrote: post #226
pembrook wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess, ease of movement in the EU for him and his kids. When you've got Eric Schmidt money, you probably want to have the ability to live and vacation anywhere you want, whenever you want. Otherwise you're limited to 90 days in the EU at a time as a tourist.

Many EU countries sell citizenship in exchange for very modest investments. Cyprus, however, is a very suspicious choice.

Many EU countries sell permanent resident status, not citizenship.

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

#246

Post by dharma1 »

throwawayay02 wrote: post #226
pembrook wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess, ease of movement in the EU for him and his kids. When you've got Eric Schmidt money, you probably want to have the ability to live and vacation anywhere you want, whenever you want. Otherwise you're limited to 90 days in the EU at a time as a tourist.

Many EU countries sell citizenship in exchange for very modest investments. Cyprus, however, is a very suspicious choice.

There are many EU countries that have some type of golden visa, but for a citizenship Cyprus is the fastest one - AFAIK you can get it in 6 months if you invest $2m. The other countries require years of stay for citizenship.

I doubt this has much to do with tax, or that he is about to renounce his US citizenship. It just makes it easier to stay and live in the EU (with family) for extended periods of time, nice extra passport to have if money is no object.

I think Cyprus has come under fire for this so unsure how long it will last.

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

#248

Post by mmmmmbop »

enriquto wrote: post #176
chrisjc wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't see what kind of problems could arise from this. From the point of view of the country the number of citizens remains constant. Only the name and the facial features of the passport-holder have changed. There may of course be a fee for updating the passport, besides the price of the interchange.

It's not that a citizen sells their citizenship to a non-citizen and therefore becomes a non-citizen. It's the country selling citizenships, meaning each sale results in one more citizen.

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

#249

Post by pingec »

throwawayay02 wrote: post #226
pembrook wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess, ease of movement in the EU for him and his kids. When you've got Eric Schmidt money, you probably want to have the ability to live and vacation anywhere you want, whenever you want. Otherwise you're limited to 90 days in the EU at a time as a tourist.

Many EU countries sell citizenship in exchange for very modest investments. Cyprus, however, is a very suspicious choice.

Oh really? Which ones? I'd only think of Cyprus and Malta

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

#250

Post by xyzzyz »

areoform wrote: post #177
klaudius wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 somet…

Except, they don't. Mostly because of the "incentives" that Eric Schmidt mentioned. Science has always happened at the public purse for a reason - the timeline for returns is so unclear, and the timespan for fruition is so long that most people don't want to invest in this kind of science, rightly so. Goddard's research, or heck even the Wright Brothers, to go from a smidgen to the Saturn V or Boeing 737, took decade…

> Apple has $192.8 billion in cash on hand. What exactly is it doing with this money? Is it spending it on fundamental research in optics, laser communication, optical computing, and other stuff? No, it's not.

Most of Apple’s “cash” is invested in corporate bonds, which allow other companies to access capital in order to expand their operations and grow their productivity, and most of the rest is in government bonds, which allow the government to make up for the shortfall of the “public money” you talk about. Sure, Apple might “only” spend $16B on R&D, but rest assured, they aren’t just sitting on their cash pile like Scrooge McDuck, instead it is efficiently used by many different actors.

Post reply on HN