Washington D.C. – Speaker of the House, John Boehner, was on “This Week” with George Stephanopolous today and he commented that Eduardo Saverin’s decision to renounce his United States citizenship in order to avoid paying taxes on his Facebook stock was “absolutely outrageous.
Boehner commented that was Saverin was doing was already against the law in the United States. He was talking about legislation that was passed int he 1990’s by Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, which sanctions Americans who renounce their citizenship in order to not pay their taxes.
Saverin is one of the founders of Facebook. He owns 4% of the company which is currently valued at about $4 billion dollars. Saverin renounced his US citizenship a few weeks ago and became a permanent resident of Singapore. Saverin stands to save hundreds of millions of dollars by renouncing his U.S. citizenship.
Saverin issued a statement saying that it was unfortunate that a decision he considered personal has led to a “public debate”. Saverin did manage to accomplish one thing by his actions. He has managed to unite Republicans and Democrats in their desire to see him punished for trying to avoid paying his taxes.
Last week, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer and Democratic Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) introduced legislation that would ensure that Saverin pays taxes on all his future earnings and that would ensure that he never again is able to visit the United States. They are calling the bill the Ex-patriot Ac t.
Given that he said that what Saverin did was already against the law but if passing a new bill became necessary they could count on his support.
Boehner said,
“If it’s necessary, I’d surely support it,”
