6 ms·

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.

marshallp 15y ago
There's been talk recently of wealthy americans fleeing the country for tax reasons. If Obama gets reelected, as is expected, he's gonna go all out in his second term (I'm an Obama supporter but I dislike the idea of taxing the entrepreneurs more to fund the lazy government workers).
- ajross 15y ago
  ...Obama has a propsal to tax entrepreneurs? Rant time: I despise what political discourse in this country has become. Rather than talk about policy we've trained everyone (like marshallp here) to regurgitate sound bites about how this or that politician is "gonna go all out" to do whatever evil thing sounds fun this week. Look: tax policy is a bunch of boring laws. You can read them if you like. You can look at proposed laws and make suggestions, and argue with the specifics of what our government is doing or what it proposes to do. But slinging around loaded terms like "taxing entrepreneurs" or "lazy government workers" is hurting us all, and helping no one but the spin doctors. Stop it. Try to be smarter than that. Edit: more spin terms from the reply: "out of our wallets", "my money". Spin if you want, but if you try to argue about policy using language you got from cable news, you'll merely perpetuate the current policy situation (designed almost exclusively to cater to the attention spans of cable news viewers).
  - maratd 15y ago
    Spare me. Everyone is in it to manipulate the government to their benefit. We need a tax policy and a government policy in general, that stays out of our lives and out of our wallets. That way, policy wonks like you have less of my money to spend on your pet peeves. Spend your own money on your hobbies.
  - jarek 15y ago
    > Rant time: I despise what political discourse in this country has become. Maybe not being associated with that (or at least not as much) is another of Sivers' reasons for renouncing...
  - waterlesscloud 15y ago
    You think that "my money" is an inaccurate term in some way?
    - ajross 15y ago
      The beauty of good spin is that it can be "accurate" without being "complete" or "informative". So it can fool the weak-minded into emotional responses (in this case, that tax is "like theft" and thus evil [removed, see below]. So what if tax starts as "your" money? You still need to pay it. Don't like the current policy? Then state a new one; don't spin. Edit: removed the "zero tax" bit as apparently it sounds like spin. I don't think it changes the point. (was: ", even though no one sane thinks a zero tax policy is possible")
      - waterlesscloud 15y ago
        No one has introduced the concept of zero tax policy until you did so just now. There are many kinds of spin, that's one of them.
  - snowwrestler 15y ago
    One of the pay-fors for the PPACA is a 3.8 additional tax on investment income above a certain level. Successful entrepreneurs looking to take some money out of their business have a good chance of hitting this tax.
    - ajross 15y ago
      Exactly! So a very broad increase in tax on all (!) investments by all (!) high income individuals becomes a "tax on entrepreneurs", because the specifics don't seem so scary unless you make it sound like it hurts something important. Here's the snopes page on that very tax: http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/realestate.asp http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/realestate.asp Amusingly, the spin it's trying to fight is that it's a tax on "home buyers". Apparently the "entrepreneurs" angle is a new one. It's a tax. Is it a bad one? Dunno, I think on balance an increase in the capital gains rate (which is sort of what this is) gated on income level isn't a bad way to raise that revenue. You have a different suggestion?
      - snowwrestler 15y ago
        You're now ranting at my sober and factual comment. My suggestion is to be the change you want to see: calm down and put more substance in your communications.
        ajross 15y ago
        I said it was a rant when this subthread started. A "sober and factual" comment in support of ridiculous spin doesn't qualify, sorry; it simply means you're spinning well. And given that only one of us linked to an actual analysis of that law, let's just say I'm greatly amused at your demand for "substance".
- maratd 15y ago
  > I'm an Obama supporter but I dislike the idea of taxing the entrepreneurs more to fund the lazy government workers So is that like a very mild dislike or something? Otherwise, that sentence makes zero sense.
  - marshallp 15y ago
    Not really. Obama's foreign policy is better than the republicans and he genuinely cares about people so healthcare and welfare policies would be better, but his support base also consists of the unions, which I disagree with.
    - gnaritas 15y ago
      > but his support base also consists of the unions, which I disagree with So it's OK for people to pool capital into companies and abuse workers, but it's not OK for workers to pool labor into unions to prevent it?
      - marshallp 15y ago
        They're not the same. Unions are equivalent to crony capitalism (ie. regulations put in place to prevent competition), but most of what companies do is just free markets at work (which helps the consumer).
        noahc 15y ago
        How is a union a regulation? A union is a contractual obligation between workers that they will only work under certain conditions.
        maratd 15y ago
        > contractual obligation In what country? In the US, most are mandated by law. All government jobs are union, regardless of the wishes of the worker. Contracts are mutually consented to. If it's a union job, you have to be a part of the union. How is forcing workers to do something they do not want beneficial? I'm all for unions where someone can join and leave freely without the threat of force or loss of work. Do we have that in the US? No.
- mikeryan 15y ago
  Thats it, Derek Sivers is renouncing his citizenship so his hard earned money doesn't go to lazy people like school teachers and firefighters.
  - adolph 15y ago
    And the F35!
- jakeonthemove 15y ago
  Obama is not your king... he doesn't make the laws (I know he can, but he'd be impeached faster than you can say "WTF"). You should broaden your view and... blame more people, I guess...
rada 15y ago
I don't know DS but my guess is, Singapore doesn't recognize dual citizenship, hence you must renounce your US citizenship to get a Singapore passport. http://sivers.org/singapore http://sivers.org/singapore
- _delirium 15y ago
  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/Danish citizenship, because once you renounce one or the other, it closes off a lot of options: being a US citizen can be quite good for a lot of career paths, while being an EU citizen can open up a lot of options in a different direction. edit: Looking into a bit, one thing making Denmark's law somewhat less draconian is that former Danes who lose their citizenship via this process at age 22 still have some kind of special lifetime Danish work/residency permission. So they could opt for the U.S. citizenship while retaining the option to return to Denmark. They would lose the right to live/work in other EU countries under the freedom-of-movement agreement, though, since they'd no longer have an EU passport.
  - tzs 15y ago
    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.
    - _delirium 15y ago
      I can't seem to find discussion of it being done, so perhaps there's some barrier I'm not aware of, but I believe Sweden should be a plausible route for that. A Dane who lives in Sweden for at least two years is eligible for Swedish citizenship under a special citizens-of-other-Nordic-countries fast track, and, since 2001, Sweden permits dual citizenship. In addition, since 2000, the Øresund Bridge makes it possible to live in Malmö, Sweden, while working in Copenhagen across the strait, so you don't even have to fully move to Sweden, just sleep there.
schouinard 15y ago
I think the problem is in the tax law. Even if you live abroad, you have to produce a tax declaration of your worldwide income. Check this site: http://www.taxmeless.com/page4.html http://www.taxmeless.com/page4.html So it seems the only way to not do this is renouncing citizenship.
woe 15y ago
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.

marshallp 15y ago

There's been talk recently of wealthy americans fleeing the country for tax reasons. If Obama gets reelected, as is expected, he's gonna go all out in his second term (I'm an Obama supporter but I dislike the idea of taxing the entrepreneurs more to fund the lazy government workers).

ajross 15y ago
...Obama has a propsal to tax entrepreneurs? Rant time: I despise what political discourse in this country has become. Rather than talk about policy we've trained everyone (like marshallp here) to regurgitate sound bites about how this or that politician is "gonna go all out" to do whatever evil thing sounds fun this week. Look: tax policy is a bunch of boring laws. You can read them if you like. You can look at proposed laws and make suggestions, and argue with the specifics of what our government is doing or what it proposes to do. But slinging around loaded terms like "taxing entrepreneurs" or "lazy government workers" is hurting us all, and helping no one but the spin doctors. Stop it. Try to be smarter than that. Edit: more spin terms from the reply: "out of our wallets", "my money". Spin if you want, but if you try to argue about policy using language you got from cable news, you'll merely perpetuate the current policy situation (designed almost exclusively to cater to the attention spans of cable news viewers).
- maratd 15y ago
  Spare me. Everyone is in it to manipulate the government to their benefit. We need a tax policy and a government policy in general, that stays out of our lives and out of our wallets. That way, policy wonks like you have less of my money to spend on your pet peeves. Spend your own money on your hobbies.
- jarek 15y ago
  > Rant time: I despise what political discourse in this country has become. Maybe not being associated with that (or at least not as much) is another of Sivers' reasons for renouncing...
- waterlesscloud 15y ago
  You think that "my money" is an inaccurate term in some way?
  - ajross 15y ago
    The beauty of good spin is that it can be "accurate" without being "complete" or "informative". So it can fool the weak-minded into emotional responses (in this case, that tax is "like theft" and thus evil [removed, see below]. So what if tax starts as "your" money? You still need to pay it. Don't like the current policy? Then state a new one; don't spin. Edit: removed the "zero tax" bit as apparently it sounds like spin. I don't think it changes the point. (was: ", even though no one sane thinks a zero tax policy is possible")
    - waterlesscloud 15y ago
      No one has introduced the concept of zero tax policy until you did so just now. There are many kinds of spin, that's one of them.
- snowwrestler 15y ago
  One of the pay-fors for the PPACA is a 3.8 additional tax on investment income above a certain level. Successful entrepreneurs looking to take some money out of their business have a good chance of hitting this tax.
  - ajross 15y ago
    Exactly! So a very broad increase in tax on all (!) investments by all (!) high income individuals becomes a "tax on entrepreneurs", because the specifics don't seem so scary unless you make it sound like it hurts something important. Here's the snopes page on that very tax: http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/realestate.asp http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/realestate.asp Amusingly, the spin it's trying to fight is that it's a tax on "home buyers". Apparently the "entrepreneurs" angle is a new one. It's a tax. Is it a bad one? Dunno, I think on balance an increase in the capital gains rate (which is sort of what this is) gated on income level isn't a bad way to raise that revenue. You have a different suggestion?
    - snowwrestler 15y ago
      You're now ranting at my sober and factual comment. My suggestion is to be the change you want to see: calm down and put more substance in your communications.
      - ajross 15y ago
        I said it was a rant when this subthread started. A "sober and factual" comment in support of ridiculous spin doesn't qualify, sorry; it simply means you're spinning well. And given that only one of us linked to an actual analysis of that law, let's just say I'm greatly amused at your demand for "substance".
maratd 15y ago
> I'm an Obama supporter but I dislike the idea of taxing the entrepreneurs more to fund the lazy government workers So is that like a very mild dislike or something? Otherwise, that sentence makes zero sense.
- marshallp 15y ago
  Not really. Obama's foreign policy is better than the republicans and he genuinely cares about people so healthcare and welfare policies would be better, but his support base also consists of the unions, which I disagree with.
  - gnaritas 15y ago
    > but his support base also consists of the unions, which I disagree with So it's OK for people to pool capital into companies and abuse workers, but it's not OK for workers to pool labor into unions to prevent it?
    - marshallp 15y ago
      They're not the same. Unions are equivalent to crony capitalism (ie. regulations put in place to prevent competition), but most of what companies do is just free markets at work (which helps the consumer).
      - noahc 15y ago
        How is a union a regulation? A union is a contractual obligation between workers that they will only work under certain conditions.
        maratd 15y ago
        > contractual obligation In what country? In the US, most are mandated by law. All government jobs are union, regardless of the wishes of the worker. Contracts are mutually consented to. If it's a union job, you have to be a part of the union. How is forcing workers to do something they do not want beneficial? I'm all for unions where someone can join and leave freely without the threat of force or loss of work. Do we have that in the US? No.
mikeryan 15y ago
Thats it, Derek Sivers is renouncing his citizenship so his hard earned money doesn't go to lazy people like school teachers and firefighters.
- adolph 15y ago
  And the F35!
jakeonthemove 15y ago
Obama is not your king... he doesn't make the laws (I know he can, but he'd be impeached faster than you can say "WTF"). You should broaden your view and... blame more people, I guess...

rada 15y ago

I don't know DS but my guess is, Singapore doesn't recognize dual citizenship, hence you must renounce your US citizenship to get a Singapore passport. http://sivers.org/singapore http://sivers.org/singapore

_delirium 15y ago
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/Danish citizenship, because once you renounce one or the other, it closes off a lot of options: being a US citizen can be quite good for a lot of career paths, while being an EU citizen can open up a lot of options in a different direction. edit: Looking into a bit, one thing making Denmark's law somewhat less draconian is that former Danes who lose their citizenship via this process at age 22 still have some kind of special lifetime Danish work/residency permission. So they could opt for the U.S. citizenship while retaining the option to return to Denmark. They would lose the right to live/work in other EU countries under the freedom-of-movement agreement, though, since they'd no longer have an EU passport.
- tzs 15y ago
  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.
  - _delirium 15y ago
    I can't seem to find discussion of it being done, so perhaps there's some barrier I'm not aware of, but I believe Sweden should be a plausible route for that. A Dane who lives in Sweden for at least two years is eligible for Swedish citizenship under a special citizens-of-other-Nordic-countries fast track, and, since 2001, Sweden permits dual citizenship. In addition, since 2000, the Øresund Bridge makes it possible to live in Malmö, Sweden, while working in Copenhagen across the strait, so you don't even have to fully move to Sweden, just sleep there.

schouinard 15y ago

I think the problem is in the tax law. Even if you live abroad, you have to produce a tax declaration of your worldwide income. Check this site: http://www.taxmeless.com/page4.html http://www.taxmeless.com/page4.html So it seems the only way to not do this is renouncing citizenship.

woe 15y ago

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.