Derek Sivers Renounces his US Citizenship • Hacker News Board

Re: Derek Sivers Renounces his US Citizenship

#151

Post by run4yourlives » Wed, May 09, 2012, 4:10 AM UTC

morestuff wrote: post #143

run4yourlives wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for one, it fails to address the inherent need of people to achieve for personal/selfish reasons, thus removing life purpose for many of your best and brightest - it kills ambition. Ambition is what drives humanity forward, for better or worse. Unless you can channel the needs of the state as a replacement for personal ambition, your society under communism is unsustainable. This is very difficult to do without…

I'm not so sure that it's clearcut that personal/selfish ambition is exactly identical to financial ambition. Further, there's probably a few different configurations of societies that distribute wealth evenly that are compatible with financial ambition. As for corruption, you probably need to convince someone that capitalist corruption is better :)

I'm not so sure that it's clearcut that personal/selfish ambition is exactly identical to financial ambition.

It really doesn't matter if they are or not. In order for communism to truly work, you'd need to abolish all rewards. That is, the very act of having hockey players and cosmonauts and musical talent recognized by the state at large - regardless of financial reward - creates the very imbalance that communism is supposed to address. As I said: self defeating.

People may seek different rewards based on their character, but the very nature of man is that we work best when challenged and respond will to the rewards earned when overcoming those challenges, financial or not.

If your economic system essentially requires a man with a gun to ensure and enforce its existence, there is something wrong.

Re: Derek Sivers Renounces his US Citizenship

#152

Post by patrocles » Wed, May 09, 2012, 4:37 AM UTC

noahc wrote: post #128

For those wondering about the Tax issue, I doubt that is the case because of: http://sivers.org/trust He put the company into a charitable trust, which isn't ever taxed except for on what he receives from the trust, which is set to the lowest amount possible.

~20M dollar exit; in the US, trusts have to pay out 5% per year; he has a ~1M income provided the trust invests well.

Re: Derek Sivers Renounces his US Citizenship

#153

Post by jarek » Wed, May 09, 2012, 5:44 AM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #133

jarek wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the life of me I can't comprehend why someone would do this. Loss of citizenship is permanent. Your kids lose it as well. Why would derek would do this to his kids. Maybe he doesn't want his kids to have to deal with the U.S. I.R.S. every year of their life, regardless of whether or not they live in the U.S.? Just one of the possible reasons.

His kids will now be forced to do two years of mandatory military service in the Singapore army, though, and in addition, must remain in the army reserves and attend annual refresher training until the age of 40. I'd consider that considerably worse than dealing with the IRS once a year.

Valid point, but the Singaporean citizenship or residence being more onerous does not invaluate U.S. tax laws as a reason to drop U.S. citizenship.

Re: Derek Sivers Renounces his US Citizenship

#154

Post by mariuolo » Wed, May 09, 2012, 7:04 AM UTC

Who?

Re: Derek Sivers Renounces his US Citizenship

#155

Post by woe » Wed, May 09, 2012, 10:27 AM UTC

jarek wrote: post #58

achille2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind listing out the countries, and how one goes about becoming a citizenship collector? My parents sacrificed an incredible deal to come to the US. For the life of me I can't comprehend why someone would do this. Loss of citizenship is permanent. Your kids lose it as well. Why would derek would do this to his kids.

> For the life of me I can't comprehend why someone would do this. Loss of citizenship is permanent. Your kids lose it as well. Why would derek would do this to his kids. Maybe he doesn't want his kids to have to deal with the U.S. I.R.S. every year of their life, regardless of whether or not they live in the U.S.? Just one of the possible reasons.

> Your kids lose it as well.

No. Parents cannot, under any circumstance, renounce US citizenship on their childrens' behalf. If they gained citizenship at birth, they can only lose it by their own actions.

Re: Derek Sivers Renounces his US Citizenship

#156

Post by woe » Wed, May 09, 2012, 10:29 AM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #133

jarek wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the life of me I can't comprehend why someone would do this. Loss of citizenship is permanent. Your kids lose it as well. Why would derek would do this to his kids. Maybe he doesn't want his kids to have to deal with the U.S. I.R.S. every year of their life, regardless of whether or not they live in the U.S.? Just one of the possible reasons.

His kids will now be forced to do two years of mandatory military service in the Singapore army, though, and in addition, must remain in the army reserves and attend annual refresher training until the age of 40. I'd consider that considerably worse than dealing with the IRS once a year.

You seem to be assuming that his children have acquired Singaporean nationality. We don't know that this is the case.

Re: Derek Sivers Renounces his US Citizenship

#157

Post by woe » Wed, May 09, 2012, 10:44 AM UTC

tzs wrote: post #93

_delirium wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's correct. In fact Singapore is so against dual citizenship that even people who have dual citizenship by birth must choose one or the other once they become adults: by age 22 they must renounce all other citizenships, or lose their Singapore citizenship. Denmark is another country with a similar law, which causes a reasonable amount of angst among Danes reaching that age. Particularly true of those with US/Dani…

Are there any other EU countries that (1) a young Dane could reasonably obtain citizenship from, and that (2) do not require renouncing other citizenships? The idea is that a dual US/Danish citizen approaching the age where Denmark requires renouncing one or the other could obtain some other EU citizenship first, and let the Danish citizenship go. He'd still be able to live/work in Denmark as an EU citizen.

Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, Portugal, Sweden and the United Kingdom all permit naturalisation without requiring renunciation of previous nationality. This list is not exhaustive.

Re: Derek Sivers Renounces his US Citizenship

#158

Post by woe » Wed, May 09, 2012, 10:52 AM UTC

theorique wrote: post #7

Does anyone know why? Tax purposes, political protest, or what? Also: it's funny that the government misspells the acronym of their own law, HIPAA.

We can only speculate about Sivers but generally speaking, for a US national residing overseas who will never go to the US, holding US citizenship is more trouble than it's worth.

Look at my daughter. She was born in Europe with three nationalities, including American. Say, for the sake of argument, she spends her entire life in Europe. She will nevertheless be expected to file a tax return with the IRS every year, to possibly pay US taxes, and to file an FBAR every year should she have more than US$10,000 in the bank.

(At the moment the requirement to pay US taxes generally only kicks in if your income exceeds certain thresholds, but given the lack of esteem Congress has for overseas US nationals I would not be surprised if the rules governing this became more onerous.)

These requirements are simply unconscionable for somebody who has never received and will never receive any services from the US government. And yet they will be imposed on her, unless she takes concrete action when she turns 18 to renounce her American citizenship - because she has US nationality, whether she likes it or not, along with the insane obligations that come with it.

Re: Derek Sivers Renounces his US Citizenship

#159

Post by woe » Wed, May 09, 2012, 10:55 AM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #71

mbesto wrote: post #35

Not sure if he reason is tax related, but I will say this...I'm not starting a company abroad without renouncing my US citizenship. I've been living in and out of the US for the last 4 years now and the fact that we get taxed when we are outside of the country is ludicrous to say the least. Are we really that arrogant?

I wonder it if it stems from entities like corporations and individuals being treated in a similar fashion by some law. So they don't want to all of the sudden to have every single US company to end up headquartered in the Cayman Islands. Also if they don't do this. It pretty much guarantees that any wealthy individual will leave the country for a tax haven. Say you reach a $10M/year income if your tax rate is 30% in…

Even if we accept that this is undesirable, surely it is within the ken of mankind to devise a system that hits these wealthy tax evaders without placing unreasonable burdens on every single overseas national, regardless of their circumstances.

Re: Derek Sivers Renounces his US Citizenship

#160

Post by drucken » Wed, May 09, 2012, 10:59 AM UTC

jakeonthemove wrote: post #110

cletus wrote: post #90

EDIT: 48 upvotes in an hour and this submission just jumped from top 10 to second page? WTF? Honestly, the US is the most invasive government in the "free" world I've had the misfortune to encounter. I can't think of another developed nation that is quite so overbearing when it comes to foreign income. US citizens who haven't been in the US for 40 years and work in other countries STILL need to report their income to…

The law in this case is unjust. Those who don't like it (practically the majority of people) can open a separate company in Hong Kong and keep their foreign money untaxed. Or they can just not disclose the money they make. Yes, it's illegal - selling drinks was also illegal during Prohibition - that didn't mean it was right. The US actually reminds me of the relationship between the British Empire and the East India…

The US actually reminds me of the relationship between the British Empire and the East India Company

This is the key! It is the all-pervasive, highest priority plutocracy aspect that is causing the most damage to the US and its image.

When your prime concern is to treat your citizens as a tax fund and then on-top of that misappropriate those precious resources in mainly multi-decade long and continuous militaristic campaigns and development instead of socially cohesive and constructive policies that protect the long-term interests of your citizen base, then it is hardly surprisingly the amount of dissatisfaction caused, especially how citizenry itself is becoming globalised by communication and technology.

Of particular concern is:

* why banks are allowed free reign to cause so much damage without penalty or preventative regulation (e.g. now, subprime is starting all over again except in structured finance commmodity markets),

* why large corporates and high wealth individuals are so permitted to abuse accounting principles to avoid taxation even compared to the rest of the West (where do you think this tax revenue will now be sourced from?) and bypass social or environmental responsibilities,

* why political campaign funding is allowed to be so corruptingly privatised particularly at the non-federal level,

* why (highly funded) private lobbies, even of foreign governments, are permitted to be so powerful against the political system,

* why politicians are so protected in office even when they behave in ways that would be illegal in any other situation (e.g. trading based on inside information),

* the extreme lengths the "multicultural experiment" has been allowed to segregate and ghettoize their citizenry,

* the extreme punishment and lack of tolerance for even the most minor of crimes in the legal system, etc. etc.

Given the above, it is hardly surprising that US citizens are both turning to and incidentally discovering the many benefits of living elsewhere and dissociating themselves from their parent country's government.