How to avoid high U.S., Calif. taxes: Leave

May 11, 2012

By John Seiler

The charlatans who run the U.S. and California governments assume that things are so wonderful here that nobody would dare to leave, even to avoid high taxes.

But people are leaving in droves — not just California for other states with more freedom, but America for other countries with more freedom. The latest:

“Eduardo Saverin, the billionaire co-founder of Facebook Inc. (FB), renounced his U.S. citizenship before an initial public offering that values the social network at as much as $96 billion, a move that may reduce his tax bill.”

California and U.S. tax grabbers have been salivating at the though of looting the Facebook millionaires for hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes. They’ll still get most of that. But not all of it.

It reminds me of how smart, talented people used to free the old Soviet Union, communist Eastern Europe and Maoist China for freedom in America. I’ve known a number of them over the years. One Hungarian I know says the United States rapidly is becoming like the communist Hungary he esaped 30 years ago: a highly centralized socialist state with little or no freedom.

When people used to leave the communist countries, commonly the communist regime would rob them one more time before they left. The report on Saverin says:

“Saverin won’t escape all U.S. taxes. Americans who give up their citizenship owe what is effectively an exit tax on thecapital gains from their stock holdings, even if they don’t sell the shares, said Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, director of the international tax program at the University of Michigan’s law school. For tax purposes, the IRS treats the stock as if it has been sold.”

And Saverin, sensibly, isn’t going to invest his money in socialist America and Kalifornia, but in freer, more capitalist foreign countries:

“He plans to invest in Brazilian and in other global companies that have strong interests in entering the Asian markets.”

Just last month we read reports that Mexicans also are fleeing socialist America and Kalifornia for free-market Mexico.

Soon, nobody is going to be left here except government workers — still waiting to get their spiked pensions.