301–310 of 401 posts
I don't understand why he does this. The IRS will tax him regardless of whether he has assets in the US or outside of it, and he's rich enough to get a working visa to anywhere. Does anyone know of any other possible tax advantage a rich American might get from Cypriot citizenship?
I know at least a dozen people who were actively working on getting a second passport to flee the US pending results of the election.
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Yes, Apple runs the largest hedge fund in the world, but the question isn't whether they're getting some return on their investment (I'm assured that their hedge fund is). But rather, where's the long-term research that's necessary for future growth and human prosperity? If the logic of the comment I was replying to held, then Apple would be investing a commiserate amount into fundamental research. They're not. They'…
These bonds do fund growth and research, though. Why do you think the companies issue bonds in the first place? Same with governments: if you think buying government bonds is such a waste of money, why don’t you blame more the government for wasting it instead?
For example, Apple invests in metallurgy, it has the world’s largest private metallurgical lab, but Apple isn’t seeking to create metamaterials but rather to gain marginal improvements in glass manufacturing.
These improvements matter, but they aren’t the ones that drive our technology forward. Iterating on better compound bows wouldn’t have led to gun powder.
The places where Apple buys corporate bonds and assets from use those assets not to research breakthrough, but rather fund their growth. This money goes into advertising and other more mundane activities. This does not diminish the value of these activities, but it is a simple statement that humans can’t progress if we keep our gaze focused on such narrow gains.
AFAICT, no private or publicly traded corporation has created and ran a particle accelerator to investigate new principles of physics and improve our models of reality.
Why not? Because the ROI for that wouldn’t accrue to the discoverer, but rather some future generation. The aristocracy i.e. the feudal form of government + tax collection, the Duke of Devonshire, funded the creation of the Cavendish Laboratory, which funded J.J. Thompson’s discovery of the electron.
The Cavendish Lab revolutionized our understanding of matter before the start of the 20th century, and laid the theoretical foundations for the electronics revolution to come.
Where is today’s corporate equivalent?
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No, it won't. It will incentivize governments to help rich people from all over the world avoid taxes.
why? what s the use of having them as citizens if they won't pay taxes
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I'm sure Erich Schmidt has access to resources not available to your friends. There is absolutely the potential for a tax angle to this application, perhaps involving creating business entities in Cyprus to avoid the IRS's reach. That is of course just my suspicion and I could be wrong, but I think my suspicions are reasonable enough to dispute the strength of your claims ("There is no tax dodge. There is no way to d…
Wouldn't he be able to form business ventures in Cyprus in which he could own a stake, but which would pay him very little taxable income? Furthermore, wouldn't he be able to grow those ventures and later take a distribution when his pals in US Congress abolish the "global taxation" nonsense? Or alternatively, by renouncing US citizenship? What other reasons are there to seek citizenship in a country like Cyprus?
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I’m sorry, have you lived in Europe recently? Paid any attention to the news this year? Every country in that agreement reserves the right to restrict travel in times of emergency. Pandemics apply. For instance: Estonia forbids travel from any country with an infection rate higher than x/100k (x keeps changing...) During the first pandemic lockdown the Baltics were open at first, then Finland shut their borders, then…
Hum yes, I'm French and have lived here for about 30 years or so. Travel across the EU is much much easier if you're a EU citizen, ceteris paribus. It's actually pretty funny that you would refer to that convoluted situation where one would have to fly first to Helsinki then to Estonia, considering both Finland and Estonia are in Schengen so no document would be required of an EU citizen to adapt their travel plans a…
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…
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I'm sure Erich Schmidt has access to resources not available to your friends. There is absolutely the potential for a tax angle to this application, perhaps involving creating business entities in Cyprus to avoid the IRS's reach. That is of course just my suspicion and I could be wrong, but I think my suspicions are reasonable enough to dispute the strength of your claims ("There is no tax dodge. There is no way to d…
It's amazing to me how strongly people want to believe there's some magical way that rich Americans are avoiding taxes by hiding money in exotic locales. This was possible in the past for Americans, but it doesn't make sense anymore. That's the truth. The secretive Swiss banks and numbered accounts you read about in adventure novels as a kid are all reporting on US citizens now. It doesn't matter how much resources E…
There is no "the US government has more resources" – like it's a big blob. It comes down to something like the IRS enforcement division, which is consistently getting kneecapped with budget cuts. So no, actually it really is between your 15 high priced lawyers and whatever team of 5 people the IRS has working your case with limited time because they're stretched thin.
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What did Brexit change for St. Kitts nationals? I hold a St. Kitts passport (via marriage) and completely missed this. Only reason my wives family got St. Kitts passports was because it was easier and quicker than Cyprus at the time, but they did eventually get their Cyprus passports too.
Are they intentionally collecting passports? If so, why?
Not for tax purposes, they're tax resident in Dubai.
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Also... if the renunciation is motivated by avoiding taxes, the person is banned from re-entering the USA. excerpt[1]: If the Department of Homeland Security determines that the renunciation is motivated by tax avoidance purposes, the individual will be found inadmissible to the United States under Section 212(a)(10)(E) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(10)(E)), as amended. EDIT REPLY to : "Wou…
Then COVID is the perfect cover for shifting citizenship. It gives a plausible non-tax reason for making the change. Someone who is worth $15B would be very well-advised, and if he's been thinking about doing this in the past, his advisors may have decided that now is the right time to pull the trigger. Also helps to have plenty in the news these days, to avoid becoming 'the story' on a slow news day/week.