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A 'Trump Card Visa' Is Already Showing Up in Immigration Forms
- vsskanth 1y agoNo law required ? Is Executive order sufficient to create new visa categories ?
- redeux 1y agoThe question isn’t “is this legal,” it’s “will anyone stop him.” Though in the end the answer to both is likely the same.
- ty6853 1y agoIf it can be created by fiat, it can be destroyed by fiat. This is the danger of most residency and citizenship by investment programs.
- unsnap_biceps 1y agoit's beyond just new a visa, it's also changing tax code. > Lutnick told the hosts of the All In show, was to allow people to purchase the right to live in the United States and pay taxes only on their income earned in the country. That's a huge tax policy change. Currently, my understanding is that as a citizen, you pay taxes on all income, regardless of where it comes from. You get credits for taxes paid to other governments, but if they charge less then the US would, you pay the difference.
- Terr_ 1y agoSo it's not just immigration fraud, but also tax evasion...
- actionfromafar 1y agoAh, but you see, these are VIP citizens. They are more equal than the other animals.
- b112 1y agoA VISA doesn't mean you are a citizen.
- actionfromafar 1y agoBeing a Trump Card Holder may in the future become even better than being a citizen! How about even more, positive rights such as Judicial Express Review and deport override (at an extra fee, of course). The Platinum category gets permanent access to lawmakers offices.
- ty6853 1y agoOne of my main complaints about the US is that basically corruption is less democratized, unlike a lot of places where it can be bought for a pittance. Trump bringing the bribery and corruption to the level of the common millionaire would be an invigorating breath of life into more equal opportunities usually reserved for billionares.
- financetechbro 1y agoThis is the trickle down economics we’ve been waiting for. Reagan was right all along!
- fallingknife 1y agoPaying $5 million to get a visa and then paying taxes on whatever assets and income they bring with them seems like a great deal for the US because the foreign income never would have been taxed by the US anyway if they hadn't got the visa. Why get greedy and demand taxation on all their income when this could lose us a the opportunity for a very profitable deal?
- greatgib 1y agoBut is it fair that a foreigner can buy the state and profit of rules different than the country own citizens? Let's push the concept further, if I'm a rich american citizen, that I leave the country and give up my nationality and then comes back with the trump gold card that I bought to profit of more interesting taxes conditions. Would it be fair?
- mandmandam 1y agoGiving up US citizenship incurs a large exit tax, so that doesn't quite work. Then again, give Trump a million for his 2028 campaign (am I kidding?) and who knows what could happen.
- fallingknife 1y agoRich expats who hold visas and reside in a foreign country but don't pay taxes to that foreign country on their assets held back home is actually a very common thing around the world. This is encouraged because having rich people show up in your country and spend a lot of money is actually quite beneficial. The outlier here is actually the US law that citizens pay taxes on income from outside the country. We are virtually the only country that does this. So in that sense I will agree with you that the unequal treatment is unfair, but it is the treatment of US citizens that is out of the ordinary, not the treatment of the Trump visa holders.
- thaumasiotes 1y agoHaving those visa rules in place would smooth a path to reforming the taxation of citizens.
- fallingknife 1y agoLike it or not this is basically how the US is run these days. Congress has ceded its power to the executive branch. Almost everything now is done by bureaucratic degree and executive order.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y ago"America is so unfair, in America only the rich are allowed to bribe public officials" -- Source unknown
- bigyabai 1y ago[flagged]
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- orionblastar 1y agoMirror around Wired Paywall: https://archive.is/jlTgv https://archive.is/jlTgv
- biggc 1y agoWhy would anyone buy this over participating in an EB-5 investor visa project?
- unsnap_biceps 1y agoYou are more likely to get preferential treatment by the president.
- ty6853 1y agoIf you're deferring to the favors of a figurehead rather than the law, you would be much better off in Dubai. Everyone knows the game there, it is pure dictatorship, but the taxes are extraordinarily low, banking and KYC/AML is laissez faire, and if you're going to depend on personal connections to a leader rather than immigration law then you may as well go all in and get the better end of the deal.
- bananapub 1y agoyes but then you have to live in dubai
- b112 1y agoEffort? EB-5 has ongoing reporting requirements. And for some, $5M is not a significant sum.
- tim333 1y agoIn theory there are tax advantages.
- fallingknife 1y ago[flagged]
- crazygringo 1y agoI don't think there is hatred towards the concept, and please don't use the perjorative term "TDS". The fact is we already have it as the EB-5 visa, and people are generally fine with it. There certainly is, however, hatred towards: - Calling it the "Trump Gold Card" - Doing it by executive order rather than Congressional law
- fallingknife 1y ago[flagged]
- FireBeyond 1y ago> This is a mirror image of the people who support the ACA in polls but oppose "Obamacare." No it’s not. There is no legislation or concept of Obamacare in our government. This will literally be called the Trump Card Visa.
- LeafItAlone 1y ago.
- ty6853 1y agoWhy not? Why is $5M a less valuable contribution to society than someone's mom doing a tourism birth in the US? My main objection here is it should be an auction system. Make a lot of X number of citizenships, then auction them off to the highest bidder, and give the proceeds to all the poor kids who's parents snuck in to birth them here without any plan as to how they can actually fund them.
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- ern 1y agoAustralia effectively scrapped this sort of visa in 2024 because it wasn't bringing the expected benefits. The UK did a similar thing because of it being exploited by oligarchs. (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-68052626 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-68052626)
- actionfromafar 1y agoI think we are possibly looking for different benefits here. This time, it's just temporary cover for economic hardships. "The Trump cards will bring in so much money, later." Also, the point this time is to actually get the oligarchs into the hen house.
- jochem9 1y agoThe European court of justice just concluded that Malta's golden visa program is illegal and needs to be stopped as well.
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- rsynnott 1y agoAs far as I know, pretty much everyone who's tried this has ended up scrapping it; it _never_ works.
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- LeafItAlone 1y agoHonest question: let’s say that Congress suddenly realizes what their job entails and what powers belong to them. The article mentions that 1,000 of these visas have been sold and up to 1,000,000 may be. If Congress says “no, this isn’t authorized” and the Supreme Court finally cracks open the Constitution and agrees with them: what does a rollback plan look like?
- mingus88 1y agoAFAIK a visa can be revoked for any reason. I’m also willing to wager that any costs would not be refunded because let’s be serious this is Trump we are talking about
- ty6853 1y agoThat's normal. Pretty much no residency or citizenship by investment programs will refund the 'investment' unless it is denied during the initial application process. People buying that stuff usually don't care and it doesn't seem to have much effect on the other programs, even ones that have cancelled even citizenships in the past (like Saint Lucia) without returning the 'investment.'
- cosmicgadget 1y agoProbably the same as those students getting rolled up by ICE. Except it's a valet taking them to the executive terminal.
- jzellis 1y agoProbably a lot like putting down a $2K deposit on a Cybertruck range extender. If there's one thing Elon should be competent at by now, it's processing refunds.
- tim333 1y agoThe 1000 sold is very iffy. I'm not sure they have beyond a vague intention. I think it's just based on a comment Lutnick made on a podcast.
- Terr_ 1y agoSounds like the people who take advantage of this illegal "Presidential offer" will become guilty of (A) immigration fraud and (B) tax evasion. The current administration--as a principal criminal--may refuse to prosecute... but the statute of limitations will extend past Trump's term, and tax fraud has no statute of limitations.
- outcoldman 1y agoYou know who has 5M dollars? Cartel.
- michianamcr 1y ago[flagged]