After Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin avoided some $67 million in taxes by renouncing his American citizenship shortly before the company made its initial public offering, Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Bob Casey (D-PA) introduced the “Ex-Patriot” Act. The bill would make former citizens subject to the capital gains tax on U.S. investments and bar those who renounce citizenship for tax purposes from reentering the country.
To American for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, Schumer and Casey’s effort is akin to Nazism or South African apartheid....
Think Progress
Ponder this for a moment. Grover Norquist evidently believes that avoiding taxes is a higher moral duty than loyalty to America. He also equates avoiding taxes by renouncing citizenship with the taxes imposed by Nazi Germany on Jews fleeing the country to avoid being murdered.
So paying capital gains taxes is exactly like the Holocaust, right? That makes so much sense, Grover. Your lucidity and moral passion have persuaded me that a Jewish guy like Schumer has every intention of acting exactly like Adolph Hitler.
Or maybe Grover just has a sad that commonmass didn't give him the Golden Douchenozzle Award this week, and he's going for a lifetime achievement award in Douchenozzlehood.
Not to be outdone, the Wall Street Journal likened the tax to the exit taxes imposed by the Soviet Union. So to the Murdoch rag, avoiding capital gains taxes is equivalent to fleeing an oppressive communistic regime.
Therefore, paying capital gains taxes is exactly like communism.
And of course Rush Limbaugh blatted something about "politics of envy". Because you have to be motivated by envy to think that a person who did all the work leading to their fortune in the United States should pay some taxes here.
And just think - these are the 15% capital gains tax rates. If Eduardo Saverin had been taxed at 35% like people earning their money via wages, he'd probably have had to kill a few American citizens on his way out of the country - and Norquist, WSJ/Murdoch, and Limbaugh would have supported that, too.
Because not paying taxes is your highest moral calling.
What a sad commentary on the American right, when even patriotism takes a back seat to avoiding taxes.