Rich guy Roger Ver renounced US citizenship to avoid taxes, now whines that US won't let him visit: http://t.co/hoxv8Rmbr4
— Some Asshole (@assholeofday) January 14, 2015
Let’s all have a good sympathy cry for Roger Ver, a squintillionaire investor scumbag who decided to put his Ayn Rand fantasies into action by renouncing his U.S. citizenship so he wouldn’t be oppressed by taxes. He took up residence in the tropical paradise (and tax haven) of St. Kitts, but when he tried to visit the U.S. of A for some tech-asshole conference, his visa application was rejected. Ver took to the Twitter machine to whine about tyrants and post Darth Vader pictures.
One the surface, this is a story in which I find little, if any, reason to feel for the poor, put-upon protagonist. Whatever the reason for Ver renouncing his citizenship- he says it was NOT about avoiding taxes- the reality is that he’s no longer due to be treated as American travelers would be. Because of his new citizenship in St. Kitts- which IS renowned as a tax haven- Ver is like any other traveler from a country from which a visa is necessary to enter the US…and I gotta admit to enjoying his predicament perhaps a little bit too much.
Ver may claim that his renunciation was not about tax avoidance, but it certainly looks as if Rich Boy is being somewhat disingenuous. Even as he’s been claiming that he wasn’t trying to avoid paying taxes, Ver began a website that attempts to persuade other libertarian-leaning rich achievers to emigrate to St. Kitts, where they can have a new passport and an almost-zero tax burden. Why would you want to live in the US, where the government confiscates seemingly ever-growing portions of your hard-earned billions in order to redistribute your wealth?
Plunk down $400,000 for real estate and you get a passport that allows visa-free travel to 120 countries. There are no taxes on personal income or capital gains and the islands’ restrictive disclosure laws offer shelter from outside scrutiny, according to the Tax Justice Network, a think tank that studies secrecy jurisdictions.
Ver’s website, in English, Russian and Chinese, offers a way to purchase a piece of that paradise with bitcoins. He says it will help people who are hemmed in by government restrictions on cash transactions.
St. Kitts has had an invest-and-become-a-citizen program since 1984, and the laws there allow the well-heeled to escape virtually any sort of outside scrutiny. In short, it’s the perfect place for an American CEO who’s tired of seeing so much of his earnings confiscated to support what they view as a corrupt, inefficient, and greedy system.
I renounced my US citizenship for many reasons. Avoiding taxes was NOT one of them. https://t.co/8Uss3d43lw @dailykos @AddInfoOrg
— Roger Ver (@rogerkver) January 14, 2015Ver (or “Bitcoin Jesus”), and others like him, are of course free to live where they choose. If they object to paying US taxes (even though the US economy is what helped enable their success), they can renounce their citizenship and live wherever they decided to call home. What they can’t do is to then demand that they be allowed the same access to the US they enjoyed prior to their renunciation. Being an American citizen of course makes it easier to enter the US, but being a foreign national- which is what Ver most certainly is- doesn’t always carry the same benefits.
Membership has its privileges, eh??
