Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin has renounced his U.S. citizenship ahead of the company’s IPO — a move likely calculated to help him dodge capital-gains taxes.
Saverin gave up his U.S. citizenship in September 2011. Saverin was born in Brazil in 1982, then moved to the U.S. in 1992 and became a citizen in 1998.
Saverin, one of a handful of people who helped Mark Zuckerberg start Facebook at Harvard in 2004, hasn’t been active at the company for many years. He still holds an estimated 4 percent of Facebook, however, a stake worth as much as $7.2 billion.
Facebook co-founder renounces U.S. citizenship ahead of IPO
Eduardo Saverin “recently found it more practical to become a resident of Singapore,” his representative tells Bloomberg, presumably to argue that the billionaire isn’t just dodging capital-gains taxes.
by David Hamilton
(May 11, 2012)
http://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-co-founder-renounces-u-s-citizenship-ahead-of-ipo/
Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin has renounced his U.S. citizenship ahead of the company’s IPO, Bloomberg reported — a move likely calculated to help him dodge capital-gains taxes.
Saverin, one of a handful of people who helped Mark Zuckerberg start Facebook at Harvard in 2004, hasn’t been active at the company for many years. He still holds an estimated 4 percent of Facebook, however, a stake worth as much as $3.8 billion, Bloomberg calculated.
“Eduardo recently found it more practical to become a resident of Singapore, since he plans to live there for an indefinite period of time,” Saverin spokesman Tom Goodman told Bloomberg by e-mail.
Renouncing his U.S. citizenship could shield Saverin from much, though not all, of his U.S. tax liability related to his Facebook holdings. Singapore doesn’t have a capital gains tax, though it does tax income earned in the city-state as well as some foreign-source income.
According to Reuven Avi-Yonah, head of the international tax program at the University of Michigan, Americans who give up their citizenship still owe a sort of exit tax on the capital gains from their stock portfolios, whether they’ve sold shares or not. But estimating the value of shares in a private company such as Facebook is, shall we say, an exercise with lots of room for interpretation.
Avi-Yonah told Bloomberg that renouncing citizenship ahead of an IPO is “a very smart idea” from a tax standpoint, since once a company is public, “you can’t fool around with the value.”
Saverin gave up his U.S. citizenship “around September,” his spokesman told Bloomberg. Facebook formally filed for its initial offering in February. Saverin was born in Brazil, then moved to the U.S. in 1992 and became a citizen in 1998.
By contrast, Zuckerberg himself could owe as much as $2 billion in taxes when Facebook goes public, much of that from the exercise of stock options worth about $5 billion. (The same transaction, however, may yield Facebook itself a tax deduction that could eliminate its 2011 liability and reduce both past and future taxes.)
Saverin tussled with Zuckerberg several years ago over his ownership stake in Facebook, eventually settling the case for an undisclosed amount.
Facebook共同創設者E・サベリン氏、IPO前に米国籍を放棄
by David Hamilton, CNET News
translated and edited by 佐藤卓, 福岡洋一
http://japan.cnet.com/news/business/35016988/
Bloombergの報道によれば、Facebookの共同創設者Eduardo Saverin氏が、同社の新規株式公開（IPO）に先立って米国籍を放棄したという。これにより、同氏はキャピタルゲイン課税を免れる可能性が高い。
Saverin氏は、Mark Zuckerberg氏が2004年にハーバード大学でFacebookを立ち上げるのを支援した数少ない人物の1人で、もう何年も同社には関与していない。だが、Saverin氏は今でもFacebookの株式の4％を保有していると見られ、その時価総額は38億ドル程度だとBloombergは見積もっている。
「Eduardoはシンガポールに住み続ける計画を立てていることから、シンガポールの住民になるほうが現実的だと最近になって判断した」と、Saverin氏の広報担当者Tom Goodman氏はBloombergの取材に対して電子メールで回答している。
米国籍の放棄により、Saverin氏はFacebook株の所有に関して米国への納税義務を大方回避できる可能性があるが、全面的に課税を免れるわけではない。シンガポールにはキャピタルゲイン課税がないが、シンガポール国内で得た収入と国外から得た一部の収入に対しては税金が課される。
ミシガン大学で国際税制研究の責任者を務めるReuven Avi-Yonah教授によれば、米国籍を放棄した人にも、所有する株式を売ったかどうかにかかわらず、その株式からのキャピタルゲインに対して一種の出口税が課されるという。ただし、Facebookのような非公開企業の株式時価総額の算出は、言うなれば、解釈の余地を大いに含めることができる作業だ。
Avi-Yonah教授はBloombergに対し、いったん公開企業になると「その価値についてあれこれ言うことができなくなる」ため、税金対策という観点からすると、IPO前の国籍放棄は「非常に優れたアイデア」だと述べている。
格差解消のために富裕層に増税すると金持ちは逃げる
きりんの自由研究
http://giraffyk1.hatenablog.com/entry/super-rich-avoid-paying-taxes