Roger Ver, a high-profile member of the Bitcoin community who is commonly known as “Bitcoin Jesus,” has been denied a US visa — despite having been born in the country.
Ver is well known in the Bitcoin community as an entrepreneur and angel investor, having funded products including Blockchain, Ripple, and Blockpay. He became known as “Bitcoin Jesus” after giving thousands of coins of the virtual currency away for free. Ver was born in the US, making him a citizen there, but he renounced his citizenship in March — and now he says the government isn’t letting him back in.
As Coindesk is reporting, Ver posted on Twitter that the US government had refused his recent request for a non-immigrant visa, leaving him “effectively locked out of his native USA.”
***The fiercely libertarian entrepreneur has also appealed for others to follow his lead on citizenship, in June launching a website that helps wealthy people pay their way to citizenship on his new island home of the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis in the West Indies.
He surrendered his American citizenship a month after moving to the islands, in February 2014.
There are worse places to be stuck than St. Kitts, I suppose. They could allow you in and confine you to Alabama.
At any rate, this is the essence of libertarianism, isn’t? They want what they want when they want it, to hell with anyone else or any of those messy rules. Hopefully he can persuade a whole bunch of like-minded assholes to move to the islands with him and they can self exile so we don’t have to put up with them. We should start tweeting scenic pictures of St. Kitts to Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch.
raven
My Grandfather married one fine St. Kitts woman
Great song on a great album!
Anne Laurie
Thanks for waiting a whole ten minutes, dude.
On the other hand, it is good news whenever we manage to rid the country of one more libertarian douche canoe.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Anne Laurie: That may be a record for longest interval before bigfooting?
ruemara
Good evening, Bigfoot. That being said, maybe we should warn our Caribbean neighbors when we export our toxic waste.
KG
Eh, the reasoning seems to be mostly cover for being assholes to this guy. He’s got a permanent residence and business in Japan, that should be enough to establish sufficient ties, even if not his country of citizenship.
kc
This makes me happy.
JPL
It seems to me that he had a court date that he forgot about also. I need to google further to see if there is more to the story. brb
jl
Nevis is nice too, in case St. Kitts runs out of room.
They can wear Alexander Hamilton ties and pretend he was just as libertarian as Adam Smith was(n’t either).
I was curious about the reason for the denial. From the link:
‘ The official reasoning… is that he doesn’t have sufficient “ties” to his country of residency in the Caribbean and has not demonstrated he has “the ties that will compel [him] to return to your home country after your travel to the United States,” …’
‘… US officials are worried that Ver might choose to stay in his native country illegally.
Ver can’t appeal the decision, but he is able to apply all over again, according to Coindesk. He has an American criminal record that could count against him, however, he has previously been jailed for 10 months for selling illegal firecrackers to farmers. ‘
Doesn’t mention whether Steve King did a “cantaloupe calves” check on the guy.
JPL
All I could find was this
hahaha
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@KG:
I dunno, I don’t really have a problem with the State Department being assholes to a guy who voluntarily renounced his citizenship and now wants to come back to US to do a paid speaking tour. If he wanted to continue to be able to make money in the US, he should have thought through the ramifications of giving up his citizenship.
jl
@KG: I don’t know about that. Sounds like standard reasoning for denying visas I hear from students trying navigate immigration and visa process. Except this guy has lots of money, which changes things for obscure people. The more financial resources a student has, the fewer problems navigating visa problems. So, that is a difference.
Be curious to hear more from anyone familiar with these issues.
JPL
@jl: It is funny though. Grifters must keep on grifting. Maybe President Palin will pardon him.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@KG:
Also, too, if he didn’t want to run into visa problems, maybe he should have picked a country that doesn’t require a visa when you want to visit the US. But thinking ahead isn’t exactly a hallmark of libertarians.
Brandon
@KG: Fact is, they don’t even need to give a reason. And even if he does get a visa, the immigration officer at the port of entry can deny him entry for any reason. The U.S. has no obligation to accept any non-citizen into the country. And they could probably in certain circumstances deny entry to citizens.
As the spouse of a Green Card holder, I am reminded of this every time we leave the country. I always feel a bit nervous if this is the one time that my spouse is denied entry. Luckily it hasn’t happened to us, but it happens to others.
Fact is, first, if you are going to renounce your citizenship and be a dick about it, you should probably already hold a passport from a visa waiver country. Second, if even you have one, again, ICE is under no obligation to let you in.
SRW1
So there was one dude who took up Romney’s suggestion of self-deporting?
Southern Beale
Also today: John Boehner’s bartender arrested for trying to kill him. Guy is a loon.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
Here’s a list of visa waiver countries he could have chosen instead:
http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/visit/visa-waiver-program.html
Of course, I’m sure they all have higher tax rates than the US, never mind St. Kitt’s, so they were probably not even on the list for consideration. Low taxes uber alles, y’all!
Cacti
Like any good Galtian superman, when things don’t go his way he
pulls himself up by the bootstrapscries like a toddler with a skinned knee.Tree With Water
It would be a cold world to be told you’re not welcome where hamburgers sizzle on an open grill night and day.
Brandon
@jl: I have a friend from Bolivia whose mother – who owns a house and a business in Bolivia – was denied a visa to come to her graduation from Yale for this very reason. Her daughter/my friend was at Yale on a Fulbright granted by the State Department.
jl
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
” a country that doesn’t require a visa when you want to visit ”
Would be interesting to see what criteria a country has to satisfy for that. Probably not being a leading tax haven is one of them. But I don’t know for sure.
You need a visa to visit from Switzerland? Though Switzerland probably does not rate with bitcoiners, being commie in many ways, and in last few years has bended themselves to Uncle Sams will on some transparency issues. The weaklings…
Mike J
@Southern Beale: If the same guy displayed the same mental illness and threatened to shoot Nancy Pelosi, Fox would be in non-stop telethon mode to get him sprung.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Southern Beale:
Interesting that the guy turned himself in. I wonder if he thought it was the only way he could get mental health care after being fired (or, of course, if he was freaked out by his murderous thoughts, which IIRC is the far more common reaction to psychosis than acting on them).
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@jl:
I only know a little bit about visas from arranging travel at work, but I know that even with visa waiver countries, you are not allowed to work or receive payment without a work visa. So if he was going on a paid speaking tour as was reported, he wouldn’t have qualified for an automatic waiver anyway.
Mike J
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): You can do business, but not be employed. There’s a whole government publication on the difference.
magurakurin
@KG: not sure why anyone would want to go to bat for this asshole, but he is, in fact, inadmissible. section 8 USC 1182(a)(10)(E)
I’m a citizen, but I live abroad and my wife has no status besides her 3 month visa waiver. They are pretty nice at the counter when we come in every summer, but on a very real level, they are assholes to everyone. As far as US immigration is concerned my marriage means nothing unless my wife wishes to reside in the US permanently. And try having a mutual fund account these days if you are an ex-pat living abroad….ya can’t do it anymore. Anti-money laundering legislation has made requirements so strict that foreign banks are refusing US citizen accounts and US mutual fund companies are closing accounts to protect themselves from retaliation from foreign banks and regulators. So, Bitcoin Jesus can just suck it up. He’s not a US citizen anymore.
Goblue72
Awwww, did da widdle bitty Libertwarian get bullied by the big mean State Depawtment?
jl
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): Thanks for info.
@Mike J: Thanks, also.
Too confusing for me. But then I don’t plan on renouncing my citizenship for purely greedy reasons, so I can just soak it all in for the funs.
@magurakurin: But, then why didn’t the US just say that? Does some official determination need to be made that was the reason for renouncing citzenship? Did the guy just admit it? I remember reading about this guy when he booked for St. Kitts, but forget the details.
BruinKid
Hehe, my libertarian friends on Facebook are strangely silent on this story so far.
Goblue72
@magurakurin: exactly. Renouncing fealty to one’s birth country just to be a skinflint has consequences.
Morzer
When I said “I renounce my citizenship”, what I meant to say was ” I renounce the payment of my share of taxes”.
Gamergate continues to demonstrate its interest in ethics in game journalism:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/13/gamergate-hits-new-low-with-attempts-to-send-swat-teams-to-critics
JoyfulA
@Brandon: A relative married a man from Chile. Getting his family here for the wedding took much effort and many strings.
jl
@JoyfulA: And Chile is on Mnemosyne’s link of visa waiver program countries.
KG
This particular case doesn’t engender much sympathy from me. My default position is open borders, obviously there needs to be some safeguards and rules, but this seems dumb more than anything
Southern Beale
@JPL:
Hear that ALL the time from people trying to get visas.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Morzer:
I remember seeing the article on Raw Story about the previous SWATting attempt on another GamerGate critic:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/busted-gamergaters-attempt-to-swat-transgender-game-artist-backfires/
It was especially interesting to me because she is a transgender woman who says she was a misogynist even after she started to live her life as a woman, so she really thought at the time that women who complained about harassment were just being whiny and men were oppressed. Her participation in the GamerGate thing eventually opened her eyes to the fact that a lot of her “allies” hated her because of her gender.
Southern Beale
Maybe if he demonstrated his willingness to come here and pick tomatoes they’d grant him an H-1B visa ….
catclub
@magurakurin:
1. Thanks for the info on people who have renounced citizenship as not admissible. None of the articles seemed to mention that. They did whine that US ICE were being assholes, and it was SO UNFAIR.
2. It seems to me that the ex-pats ( not ex citizens) kept a mailing address in the US – a texas border town, and did not seem to have this problem.
3. I can understand foreign banks refusing US citizen accounts – well kind of. But I do not see how a US mutual fund would have to worry about retaliation from foreign banks or regulators. How would said banks know that Joe p. Ex-pat has an account at a US mutual fund AND is an ex-pat?
Occasional Reader
Not defending this guy, but you don’t need to be a rich asshole to want to renounce U.S. citizenship these days. The U.S. government is squeezing expats hard. It’s increasingly difficult for Americans abroad to get a bank account in their country of residence because the IRS/Treasury keeps tightening the rules around foreign account disclosures. They’ve become so onerous now that many banks are just starting to say, no, we don’t want your business, thanks. And the rules are written such that they catch average office drones whose work just happens to take them abroad in addition to the paltry number of truly wealthy tax dodgers. The foreign account bullshit is on top of having to report worldwide income and any existing bank accounts back to the IRS and Treasury every damn year on penalty of $10,000 or the entire value of the account, even if you just forgot and are not doing anything malicious. Moreover, even if you don’t make enough to get taxed again by Uncle Sam after already paying tax in your country of residence, you still have to pay a goddamn accountant a couple grand every year to fill out a 100-page return to the IRS every year in order to inform them that you don’t owe them any money. So that’s why more and more Americans are renouncing.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Occasional Reader:
I get what you and magirakurin are saying and it sounds like a serious pain in the ass, but this guy renounced his citizenship one month after moving to St. Kitts. He never had to deal with the issues you’re talking about, because he went there with the purpose of avoiding taxes.
Jamey
Sorry Bitcoin Jesus, your citizenship will not be resurrected.
MCA1
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): Like Hawaii.
beltane
One of my cousins renounced his US citizenship for tax reasons and has been able to come and go freely ever since. Granted, he was also already a UK citizen from birth and never lived in the US since the time he was a small child, but still.
beltane
@catclub: My uncle has lived outside the US for over 40 years. He still maintains a US mailing address and does not seem to have experienced all these problems.
Chris
Fuck him. Leave him and his island paradise to be happy together.
My sympathy for rich people who renounce their citizenship for tax reasons is an absolute zero. “Oh yes, I wanted all the goodies and protections of a working society back when I wasn’t on top of the world, but goodness, you can’t expect me to pay back into the system that was looking out for me at the time.”
J. K. Rowling once made an excellent and rather pointed declaration about why she wasn’t seeking refuge in some overseas tax haven, despite her current wealth.
xenos
@magurakurin: try Schwab if you want to open an account… as a of a couple years ago they would still open expat accounts. Saved me a lot of trouble when i needed to do an IRA rollover.
Pogonip
Why doesn’t the libertarian hire a coyote to sneak him across the Rio Grande? Granted the coyote might just abandon him in the desert, but, well, that’s free enterprise!
Doug r
Are we at Peak Bitcoin yet?
Chris
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
This.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Chris:
One of my favorites (from IMDb) is 1930s movie star Carole Lombard:
magurakurin
@catclub:
From what I have managed to find out, it has essentially always been a gray area in which US mutual funds have allowed US citizens living abroad to invest. Since the product isn’t offered in the foreign country where a customer lives, in many countries it is not legal for the product to be sold to anyone living there. For many years the mutual fund companies have taken a don’t ask don’t tell approach, but recent regulation changes have made them afraid of possible backlash and most have stopped accepting any new investments into existing accounts and won’t open new ones. ETF’s are still no problem, though.
As to the US address, I don’t want to go that route, since I don’t live there. My tax address is here and I don’t really want to play games with them at all. I also recently lost my Oregon driver’s license since they refused to renew it unless I physically was present in the DMV. Some new “stop the Mexicans” law I suspect. I’ve had the license for 15 years while living abroad and always had no problem renewing, but the law changed last year. Somehow the states have decided that their driver permission slips trump US Passports as ID. Whatever. Still not sure how to resolve that one. I will try to get a International License here where I live, but not 100% I can, but if I do, I’ll be driving in my birthplace with an International License….pretty goddamn silly. So, I reiterate, Bitcoin Jesus can bite me. Fuck him. It’s dirtbags like him that have partly brought about the new restrictions that make my life difficult. FUCK HIM.
fuckwit
Was assigned to read this classic in high school, enjoyed it, and it seems applicable here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1863/12/the-man-without-a-country/308751/?single_page=true
Brandon
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): Or underfund all those great things in order to obliterate Pashtun wedding parties in drone strikes.
beltane
@Doug r: The Bitcoin genius doesn’t seem to have given much thought to his actions. This is what separates the libertarian dipshits from the actual plutocrats they think they are emulating. The real players pay people to ensure things are taken care of and that they will have everything while giving up nothing. This clown will probably be stuck on a small island for a very long time.
xenos
@catclub: the problem is US anti money-laundering regulations that apply to the opening of an account. You have to prove that you live at your address as part of the account opening process, but how does the US mutual fund really know that you live in one location or another?
The penalties for allowing dubious accounts to open can be really big (appropriately), so it is a sensible business policy to refuse to open them.
kc
@Occasional Reader:
Hm, didn’t know that. Thanks for the info.
Mike in NC
He should get his passport back after agreeing to undergo six hours of waterboarding. Maggot.
Mandalay
@JPL:
Semi O/T, but many illegal immigrants entered the US legally, but never left, yet the government claims that they can’t track how many people have done this.
Well for those entering the country who fall into the “you have not demonstrated…” category, why not offer them the opportunity to hand over their passport to immigration on entry to the US, and it will be returned to them as they leave? That would make people less likely to overstay here illegally (a good thing), make our government more predisposed to allow visitors (a good thing), and allow the government to precisely identify who is staying here illegally (a good thing).
That seems like a triple win, but I am sure there is some flaw in my cunning plan.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Brandon:
Lombard died while on a tour to sell war bonds during World War II, so she probably had a different attitude towards military spending at the time.
xenos
@magurakurin: when I visit the states I have to get an international license from the auto club, as my little piece of pink paper to which my photo is stapled is just not going to be believable at the car rental counter.
FATCA is getting to be less of a problem in my fiscal paradise now that the bilateral treaty has kicked in. FBAR is a yearly lost weekend. The regular tax return is a disaster. I am a lawyer and my wife is a tax accountant with 15 years of big-4 experience in tax, and we can’t do our taxes.
magurakurin
@xenos: My taxes are pretty easy. I don’t really make much money so I never clear the initial deduction, I think it’s like $92,000 now? My taxes here are pretty easy too, since I just file as self employed, don’t really take much in the way of deductions, get the bill, pay it the next day and move on. So far so good, fingers crossed.
the things we do for love….
Ruckus
@Brandon:
Had a recent house mate who is married to a green card holder and they traveled out of the country for too long a time. Even though married to a citizen the spouse had to apply and wait for another green card to return to the US.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): But not war bonds to fund drones. /snark
Mandalay
@Occasional Reader:
Words fail me.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
That statement was with regard to tax year 1937. Her income was $465K; she paid $398K in taxes after having already paid $43K in other business expenses; leaving roughly $24K for her personal needs. And what was her conclusion? (This follows after the language you quoted above.)
Rara avis and all that.
Arthur
@Anne Laurie: Is this a joke? Please tell me you are joking.
Morzer
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I imagine we shall see Liberty University Bonds to fund Stand With Rand/Sit With Mitt Freedom Drones soon enough.
Geeno
So you tell a government to go fuck itself, and then say “May I legally and publicly enter territory controlled by you?”.
Pretty much every government in the history of mankind would say “hmmmmmmmm, well, let me see ……. mmmmmm’ No – you want to know why? ‘cuz ‘go fuck yourself’. That’s why”.
Even if the president were to intervene, the clerk level would go out of its way to make this an ordeal.
That’s just human nature. Of course Libertarians seem not to have any clues when it comes to human nature.
Mike in NC
@Occasional Reader: Let me dig out my tiny violin.
Mike J
@Arthur: Post scheduling has always been a touchy subject around here. And libertarians are without fail douche canoes. What part confused you?
Mandalay
@Anne Laurie:
Yes, Cole is clearly abusing the privilege you granted him to post on your web site.
NotMax
I Want What I Want When I Want It
Perhaps he can now dedicate his energy full time to creating a Bitnation.
sm*t cl*de
What part of “giving away” confuses you, BusinessInsider journamalist?
Morzer
@Geeno:
A libertarian is a man who starts a fight with himself in a bar, loses, storms out shrieking abuse and vowing never to return – and then proclaims his unique, unjustified and world-historical victimhood when the people who own the bar ban him.
Ruckus
@Arthur:
To which are you referring, the blogfooting or the one less douchcanoe?
Cause I’m betting joke on the blogfooting and no joke on the one less douchcanoe.
Nick
On the one hand, this guy is an idiot and should be held up for a few good rounds of scorn and chuckles.
On the other, though, the U.S. has a reputation for being vindictive with people who give up their US citizenship — this happens a lot in Canada, where I’m an expat, and a lot of these people are hassled at the border. It’s completely possible for someone to surrender their US citizenship, and still want to enter the country as a Canadian, but the US isn’t really that big-hearted a place. Remember, when a bully punches a douchebag in the nose, they’re still a bully and not your friend.
Ruckus
@Morzer:
LOL.
The truth is sometimes funny isn’t it?
Nick
@Mandalay:
Why do words fail you? US tax law is contemptible, and it puts an unjust burden on US expats.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Cervantes:
According to calculators on the intertubes, $24,000 in 1937 money would be around $400,000 in today’s dollars. Imagine a modern movie star saying they were content to live on “only” $400K a year.
Trivia: she was raised in the Baha’i faith, which was quite popular in the Midwest around the turn of the century (her mother was a convert). The only Baha’i temple in the United States is located outside of Chicago.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahá%27%C3%AD_House_of_Worship_(Wilmette,_Illinois)
Morzer
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
Isn’t that George Clooney’s monthly budget for his Dapper Dan needs?
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Clarity quibble in that she died in a plane crash (commercial, not military, flight) on the trip home after the successful war bond rally in Indiana had concluded.
Arthur
@Mike J: Probably the post scheduling.
I just don’t get it…I scroll down and read every post. Maybe it’s just a “I’m not going to get very many comments” thing.
Too bad, I like Annie’s posts…regardless of time and position.
mai naem mobile
The guy is.an idiot. I can’t believe there weren’t people( i.e.immigrants) around him in Silicon Valley who told he him he was out of his fucking mind to give up his US citizenship. About the only time a US citizenship is not an awesome asset to have is an Islamic nutcase hostage situation. Idiot had a ton of money and could afford to pay taxes and chose not to. Go fuck yourself, fool.
NotMax
@NotMax
Should also mention that at the time of her death she was living on significantly more than $24k per annum, what with being married to Clark Gable and all.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
jl
@NotMax:
” Not that there’s anything wrong with that. ”
It was very very wrong. She was not married to me. Of course, I wouldn’t be around for another several decades. I haven’t worked the time travel angle yet, but I know in my guts it was just wrong.
Mandalay
@Nick: It was the poster’s assertion that there is only a “paltry number of truly wealthy tax dodgers” that left me speechless.
Goblue72
@Nick: You renounce your membership in the polis, I got exactly zero shits to give about your feelings.
Disloyalty has consequences.
Chris T.
@Cervantes: Well, yes, but also, 1937. At that time, $20k was a very good living. A nickel would get you a fancy coffee that now costs $4. If everything else scales (it doesn’t, but this gets one into the ballpark), $20k then is like $1.6M now. (And $465k then is like $37.2M now.)
[Edit: superseded by earlier Intertube-based calculation, it’s a mere $400k she had left to live on. Paltry! :-) ]
Cervantes
@NotMax:
Being married to him is what killed her. It was he who was supposed to go to Indianapolis for that war-bond event but he was not going to, so she volunteered and went in his place — and he never saw her alive again.
Morzer
@jl:
Well, every time I talk to her “through the veil” she tells me that in our next lives we shall be together. Of course, at that point, Madame Morzer tells her to fuck right off and stay dead in a fire.
Chris T.
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): Ah, I’ll defer to your Intertube calculators.
Mike J
@Mandalay: Very few actually give up citizenship. And then there is tax avoidance v tax evasion. Everybody who can afford an accountant is a tax avoider. Even if you don’t mind paying your fair share, nobody wants to pay more than that.
Tax evasion is a different standard. Most rich people don’t cross the line to criminal tax evasion because they don’t have to. The tax laws are already tiled their way.
Cervantes
@Chris T.:
Look at it this way: in that year she gave up 85% of her income to pay state and federal taxes, and she did it gladly.
NotMax
@Cervantes
That’s a bit of a stretch.
Cashing in her party’s previously arranged train tickets for plane tickets is what led to her taking that fatal flight.
jl
@Morzer: She doesn’t tell you? You are with an understanding woman.
Morzer
@jl:
So she assures me on a regular basis.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: In the context of the commenter’s statement, the phrase “paltry number of truly wealthy tax dodgers” was clearly intended to be a comparison to the number of US citizens living overseas who are inconvenienced by the US tax rules. Context really does matter.
Mandalay
@Mike J:
Now you’re leaving me speechless.
Cervantes
@NotMax:
More than one way to look at things — keeps life interesting.
sm*t cl*de
Ver’s choices of associates and charities probably don’t win him support within the US gubblement:
shortstop
@Arthur: She may answer you later. Right now she’s complaining about the food at the house of friends who invited her to dinner.
NotMax
@Arthur
It’s more or less a running gag here, although its frequency has diminished since Mr. Cole became +0. . . ;)
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: Jesus, mate, most rich people don’t have to cross the line into criminal tax evasion because the US Tax Code allows them to avoid taxes without violating the law.
jl
OT, but maybe a little humor is needed for this post.
Give ’em Huck, Huck!
Huckabee slams Obama for letting daughters listen to Beyoncé
http://news.yahoo.com/huckabee-slams-obama-letting-daughters-listen-beyonce-185535240.html
I was going to make some smartass BJ commenter style comment, but can’t think of anything.
Except obvious question “and how would the parents prevent that from happening anyway?”
Or, is Huck putting a purdah plank in his policy platform?
shortstop
St. Kitts has a large prison farm in case things go wrong for Mr. Ver in his adopted homeland. I rode a bike past it once and was amazed by its size. The vegetables looked quite nice, too, so he’d be doing something useful.
xenos
@Mandalay: how? You are not aware of this? Or does it just sound too cynical to say aloud?
shortstop
@jl: I believe the full translation of that is “BLACK!!!!!!” This from a man whose white son tortures and murders dogs.
Goblue72
@Omnes Omnibus: compared to the paltry number of businesses that dump toxic waste into rivers, why do we have to have all these pesky toxic waste manifest reporting rules?
Occasional Reader
@Mandalay: Words fail you how? You realize that the vast majority of expats (7 million Americans) are neither super rich nor dodging taxes, right? The way it works is, if you’re a U.S. citizen living abroad and your local tax bill is lower than back home (eg you work in Switzerland), you have to pay the difference to the IRS. And, if you earn above a certain threshold, you get double taxed.
jl
@NotMax: Even with a sober Cole, it is very uncivil, very uncivil indeed to instigate civil behavior, even among best frenemies forever like the front posters. Uncivil, and may I say… dangerous…
NotMax
@jl
Gee whiz, what does Huckabee expect an anti-Christ to do?
(Remember the ad he put on YouTube before election ’12 stating in no uncertain terms that anyone voting for Obama was buying an irrevocable one-way entry ticket to Hell?)
jl
@shortstop: thank you. That makes sense. I just could not quite put my finger on it.
I think parents should definitely prevent children’s exposure to Justin Bieber, but how would you pull that off unless you locked them away in cave? Same with Beyonce, though she is a far more wholesome influence.
Edit: I fear this weak sauce is a sign that ol’ Huck is geting, well, pretty damn old. Exhausted. He’d have better luck drumming up $ for his fake campaign with a new diet book Is his hard core racist audience that large? I expect most Huckabee-ites are wondering whether the old fart is going senile long before he can decide to take the money and not run.
Cervantes
@shortstop:
The prison farm is on Nevis. The prison proper is on St. Kitts.
shortstop
@Cervantes: Nope, there’s a farm there, too. Might be a larger one on Nevis, though.
shortstop
@jl: I’m serious about Huckabee’s son. I cannot believe the father of a guy who murders dogs has the gall to critique someone else’s parenting.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goblue72: I was simply noting Mandalay’s lack of ability to discern context. It has been seen before. And since.
Burnspbesq
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
He can still make money in the US, but most of it will be subject to 30 percent withholding. He’s a non-resident alien now.
Pogonip
@Southern Beale: Boehner’s BARTENDER? The poor guy probably went mad from overwork.
Goblue72
@Occasional Reader: so if your local taxes are low, you are no worse off than if you lived in the U.S. And if you make a lot of money, you pay more.
The worlds smallest symphony is now warming up….
xenos
@Occasional Reader: in my case we have high VAT to pay resulting in a high cist of living. To offset the high VAT the government pays a generous child allotment, which is outside the exclusion as it is unearned income. So we get taxed on income meant to offset the high taxation here.
But if you are paying taxes it is because you are making money, and in this day and age if you are being churlish about making money you are being a grade-A asshat. I just wish the taxes I pay all went to something useful like health care, food stamps, and education.
jl
@shortstop: Actually I am not familiar with that story, or maybe I very vaguely remember the bald statement that his son did something bad to a dog. If someone posts a link, I will read it later.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goblue72: I think it is really the giant-pain-in-the-ass-ness of filing if one lives overseas that people are pissed about.
Anne Laurie
@Arthur:
Not just a joke, but an in-joke, the worst & lowest form of humor other than punning!
(I did want people reading to know I had a new post below Cole’s — and besides, if I didn’t complain, he’d start to worry I didn’t care any more… )
Burnspbesq
If you are a “covered expatriate,” i.e., you either paid an average of aaproximately $165K in tax over the five years preceding the date of expatriation or your net worth > $2 million, you get hammered on the way out. You are treated as though you sold everything you own for its fair market value the day before you expatriated.
Cervantes
@shortstop:
No reason you should trust my memory — but see here.
Occasional Reader
@xenos: I’m with you. Indeed, your circumstances show why the U.S. system is so dumb, since worldwide taxation doesn’t allow for local circumstances. When I was abroad I realized that was part of the deal and filed what I needed to file, but it’s still a sh*t system.
Occasional Reader
@Goblue72: No, you can be materially worse off than you would be in the US, because of cost of living differences, VAT and the fact that other benefits may be calibrated to reflect a population on some low tax rate when yours is much higher. There is a reason only Eritrea and the Phillipines tax expats the way the U.S. does, and it’s not because it’s a good system. That doesn’t even get into other stupid bullsh*t like not being able to participate in foreign equivalents of an IRA because you’d take a US tax hit, the paperwork burden and so on.
xenos
@Occasional Reader: the reason I am a fan of FATCA is that, along with EU directives and OECD rules we are headed for a decent system of international rules. But it will take 20 years or more to get there.
FATCA, particularly, was the basis for Luxembourg to finally shit-can the remnants of a black-market banking system. That was diplomatically locked in even before Cyprus got crucified on a cross of Euros.
Nick
@Occasional Reader:
It’s funny, but when you point out that expatriates are treated really unfairly by the US tax code — up here, for example, it costs me thousands of dollars a year in extra expenses and foregone opportunities — people in America who generally aren’t authoritarian assholes become authoritarian assholes. (See plenty of examples above). I particularly like the guy who feels that dual Canadian-American citizens, of whom there are a huge amount who have never lived in the States at all, who give up there American citizenship because it is a relic of birth, deserve to be barred from entering the US.
I don’t know why people take this line, is it just an assumption that expats are all rich? Or that because we don’t have to live in an authoritarian shithole we should expect to pay for the privilege of escape?
shortstop
@Cervantes: It’s not that I mistrust your memory, but I do trust my own. I get that Nevis has a prison farm. I’m explaining that farming is also done on the prison grounds on St. Kitts. It’s actually possible for things to be grown in both places.
Occasional Reader
@xenos: The problem is, it’s a blunt instrument targeting a few thousand assholes that catches 7 million other law abiding people on the chin.
Cervantes
@shortstop:
Ah, I thought you had said something else, sorry.
xenos
@Occasional Reader: it may cause a lot of people trouble, but it will keepa lot of people honest, too. It is part of a global trend that is inxorably cleaning up a very serious problem.
Nick
@xenos:
How does making it prohibitively difficult to open a normal Canadian educational savings account for my child ‘keep me honest’?
xenos
@Nick: that is an implementation problem, not the goal of the policy. It is not a permanent problem. And the inexcusable party there is the Canadian bank that had years to prepare for this and is not ready.
Goblue72
@Occasional Reader: you could be materially worse off by living in NYC (higher cost of living, high sales tax and its own city income tax) than if you lived in Boise. Your cost of living is irrelevant.
Goblue72
@Burnspbesq: Nobody cares that you specialize in an obscure niche tax law practice.
pseudonymous in nc
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
If you renounce US citizenship, I’m 99% certain you need to apply for a visa to visit the US no matter which country’s citizenship you take. That’s one of the rules. No visa waivers, no nicey-nicey: you queue for six hours at the embassy, you pay full whack for a visa, you eat some shit.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@NotMax:
Technically, you’re both right — she traded her train tickets for plane tickets because Gable wanted her home sooner (by most accounts, in a good “I miss you” way, not a creepy controlling way like in one of the threads below).
So it is arguably true that, if she had not been married to Gable, she might not have traded in her tickets and would not have been on that plane.
burnspbesq
@Goblue72:
If you want to continue to be ignorant, jackass, feel free. Some folks like to know how this shit works.
NZ Expat
Expat in NZ chiming in here. We’ve never made over the amount slated for double taxation. We live modestly here (came for a job). But, if we are in the States for more than 30 days per calendar year, no exemption for amounts – automatic double taxation. The year my FIL died got a little interesting. And, for purposes of taxation, they want to count all flight time, even when not flying to the US. In the air from NZ to Japan and back? They want it counted. I don’t know how they deal with dancing back and forth across the dateline.
I do wonder how many tax evaders they catch. Seems like there are a lot of ordinary people caught up in the paperwork, but the biggest tax evaders do their banking in the Caymans or such and the tax laws are written to protect them, even when they run for the presidency.
Another Holocene Human
@Mandalay: Good luck buying alcohol or cigarettes without your passport and if you get arrested? Just go ahead and shit your pants now, save you time later.
Another Holocene Human
@Ruckus: The bullshit of Immigration and Naturalization or whatever the fuck they’re calling themselves is voluminous, tangled, and seeming unending.
It just boggles why they have to suck so fucking much. Thanks, Congress.
Another Holocene Human
@Mike J: How about the avoid taxes by not making very much plan?
It’s 1 weird, old trick accountants hate!
Chris
@Occasional Reader:
This.
File this in the same category as the death penalty, non-universal health care, and for-profit education. If you’re the only or one of the only countries in the developed world to do it that way, and you find yourself having more in common with third world nations that aren’t exactly topping the list of Best Functioning Societies on earth, you’re probably doing it wrong. At the very least, you could be doing it better.
I know, American Exceptionalists will reach for the fainting couches as soon as you say this, but given how shitty their politics otherwise tend to be, I tend to take that as vindication rather than anything else.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I wasn’t really being serious, but thanks for adding information.
Cervantes
@Goblue72:
What an odd thing to say.
Cervantes
@Nick:
Saw that.
Maybe there’s a fine line between malice and ignorance propped up by generalization — a mighty fine line.
Snarki, child of Loki
“So, you want to come back for a visit to the US, Mr. Libertarian Douche Canoe? Welcome to Gitmo“
Elizabelle
@fuckwit: Thank you. Bookmarked it.
ETA: No sympathy for Mr. Ver.
Patricia Kayden
@raven: Never heard of Taj Mahal before — cool!
Brooklyn Michael
This will just lead to the creation of a community of actual Super Villains. Like Legion of Doom, Key West.
shortstop
@Patricia Kayden: what?! You’ve been missing out, girl. Saw him in November at Mavis Staples’ 75th birthday show. Still going strong.
Nick
@xenos:
It has NOTHING to do with the Canadian bank — it has to do with the IRS filing requirements for the educational savings account, which require around 30 hours by a professional accountant, because they classify it in a category that includes extremely wealthy funds. Since the benefit of the the account is an annual $500 dollar grant from the Canadian government, this is essentially closed to Americans. Failure to file the paperwork is a 10,000 dollar fine.
Also, they had a chance to fix it, this past year, when the renegotiated the treaty — they didn’t. Destroying the IRS is the one single part of the Republican policy platform that I wholeheartedly support.
Rafer Janders
@xenos:
For one thing, they track your IP addresses when you log on to your accounts, and the physical location of the phones you’re calling from. Some of them also check your publicly available online presence, such as your LinkedIn profile, to determine where your job is.
schrodinger's cat
@Ruckus: You cannot leave the country for more than six months if you have a green card. If your stay is more than six months, you have to follow certain procedures, I am not sure exactly what they are but you can’t just waltz back in.
Lawrence
Let’s let the pinata/Nation State of St. Kitts get fuller before we declare war. Like Grenada, but without all the casualties.