Obviously, no one in this world is infallible, but I'll go with the odds that a person who's jumped through all of the hoops necessary to be in a position to be advising this guy is probably someone who's right more often than he's wrong. Something tells me that whoever is advising him probably would get paid whether they said to renounce citizenship or to not renounce and since the easy answer would be to not renounce and maintain the status quo (since most people are lazy and renouncing requires effort), the fact that they advised him to renounce makes it more likely that renouncing is actually the correct answer.
<img src='http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/11/article-2143066-12E9E488000005DC-872_306x445.jpg'> Questions: Eduardo Saverin, who was born in Brazil and lives in Singapore, has renounced his U.S. citizenship in a move that could save him a fortune when Facebook shares go public <img src='http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/04/article-2139307-12E9DE83000005DC-362_634x442.jpg'> Playboy lifestyle: Eduardo Saverin (far right) enjoys a rooftop party with friends and models in his new home of Singapore Party time: Saverin drinking champagne in Singapore where he has become renowned for his lavish lifestyle of fast cars and nightclubs <img src='http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/04/article-2139307-12EA2610000005DC-283_306x585.jpg'> Investment: Saverin has invested in a start-up cosmetics company run by Rachel Kum, former Miss Singapore 2009, to whom he also offers his business expertise Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...acebook-IPO---save-fortune.html#ixzz1um99DM9J
Good for him. It is funny to see some in this thread attacking him for attempting to protect his money from excessive taxation, when all the Wall Street masters of the universe and banksters live by a completely different set of rules and rape and pillage the taxpayer over and over and over again with a free government pass or complicity. Yet Saverin is somehow cheating U.S. taxpayers by taking his gains and going elsewhere? LOL. And renouncing U.S. citizenship didn't seem to hamper billionaire Sir John Templeton's lifestyle, who first gained British citizenship and then gained dual citizenship in the Bahamas. Just because Saverin is starting out with a Singapore citizenship doesn't mean he can't gain a second citizenship somewhere else as well like Templeton did. And there are a lot of lovely places in the world to live. Imagining the U.S. is the only place to live well in the world is the folly of those who haven't travelled very much, particularly if you have money. It should also be pointed out that the U.S. is the only country besides North Korea which still taxes its own citizens who live outside the country. Maybe if we didn't share such a dubious distinction with the land of Mr. Jong Un, folks like Saverin wouldn't feel compelled to renounce their citizenship altogether.
Then make it fair and tax every legal entity that registers or does business in the US or in US Dollars on their world wide income. Tax BP, Tax GE, Tax Google etc.. all at 39.6% and only allow $3000 capital gains losses per year... Good Luck. The real issue is the taxation scheme is flawed and needs to be replaced with a flat monetary transaction tax. Take 1% electronically every time dollars trade hands and eliminate all tax filings, the IRS etc. Remove all loop holes and political influence. Require Balanced Budgets... Eliminate all cash currency and just have the treasury issue a debit card to every entity and person that wants to trade in dollars and clear all transactions.
If you don't like it, take it up with the IRS. What he's doing is perfectly legal. And if you're going to talk about what's "good for America", you really need to start by pointing your righteous indignation at the actual corruption, law breaking and malfeasance by Wall Street that is raping and pillaging this country, yet goes completely unpunished by the government, or even worse rewards them with our tax dollars for their crimes. So let's see--one guy doing something completely legal, or an entire industry of guys doing a bunch of illegal stuff and not only getting away with it, but getting rewarded for it. Hmm, who is hurting America here?
Saverin has that money only because he successfully sued Zuckerberg. He quite literally owes his fortune to the US judicial system. So yeah those Wall Street guys may be getting away with all kinds of crap. That doesn't take away from the fact Saverin wouldn't even have what he has were it not for his use of our legal system. Paid for by....tax dollars.
It still doesn't mean he is bound to stay in the United States or remain a U.S. citizen simply by virtue of what the legal system afforded him in the past. If that were the case, then we should have a system where when someone wins a legal financial judgment, a part of it goes directly to the court right then and there. And as others have pointed out, it's not as if he isn't giving something up in return, namely the right to reside here and take any further advantage of the amenities the U.S. provides its citizens. Some here have even said that in and of itself is a pretty steep price to pay. Again, nothing he has done is illegal in the slightest. You are free to find it personally distasteful, but I find those who have committed and gotten away with actual illegal financial acts far more distasteful than this. This is a tempest in a teapot.
Paid for by tax dollars IN THE PAST, including his own. By giving up his citizenship, he is denying the government any FUTURE tax revenues from his capital gains. Are you people so blinded by your desire to get a cut of his income that you can't even see that extremely simple distinction? If he's gone, he isn't costing the government anything, so why should he have to pay anything? He's already paid for what he's used while he's been here. You want to start means-testing the use of each and every government service? That would be fine by me, because I'm pretty certain that if you did so, support for those services would crater and we could finally get rid of the many BS activities the Feds undertake for our alleged benefit. I'd never shop at a store run by you people. You'd call me up to pay you more for an item I bought from you in the past if you heard I got a raise or something. It's a truly deranged mentality.