Free Talk Live

"'Truth, justice, and the American way' - it's not enough anymore," the comic book superhero said, after both the Iranian and American governments criticized him for joining a peaceful anti-government protest in Tehran. Last year, almost 1,800 people followed Superman's lead, renouncing their U.S. citizenship or handing in their Green Cards.

High taxes force more Americans to renounce their citizenship

Angry about the latest tax hikes? Each year, thousands of Americans pack their suitcases, rip up their US passports and move permanently overseas to prevent Uncle Sam from taking their money.

Eduardo Saverin will be doing a lot of long-distance poking from now on — and probably won't be giving the thumbs-up “like” to Uncle Sam. The billionaire co-founder of Facebook, Inc. has renounced his US citizenship.

Saverin, 30, forfeited his US citizenship back in August, Bloomberg News has learned. The maneuver isn’t all that magnificently out of the ordinary, though. According to a recent report from the US Internal Revenue Service that RT reported on earlier this year, Americans have been renouncing their citizenship in record numbers.

After recently undertaking a journey to walk -- not fly -- across the United States in the "Grounded" storyline and reconnect with the country and everyday Americans, Superman appears to be taking another step that could have major implications for his national identity: in Action Comics #900... Superman announces that he is going to give up his U.S. citizenship.

Superman has decided to renounce his US citizenship and become a world citizen, but does this mean he'll do anything productive for the common man?

Federal workers owed more than $3 billion in income taxes in 2008, according to the Internal Revenue Service, a figure down slightly from the year before.

The agency reported that 276,300 current and retired federal employees owed $3,042,200,000 in 2008, down from $3,586,784,725 in unpaid taxes in 2007. The list includes White House and Congressional staffers and current and former active-duty and reserve members of the military.

Amid mounting frustration over taxation and banking problems, small but growing numbers of overseas Americans are taking the weighty step of renouncing their citizenship.

Mr. Saverin, a Brazilian-born immigrant to the United States, now lives in Singapore, which has no capital gains tax. He renounced his United States citizenship in September. With that act of antipatriotism, Mr. Saverin stands to avoid at least $67 million in United States taxes.

“Mr. Saverin has decided to ‘defriend’ the United States of America just to avoid paying his taxes. We aren’t going to let him get away with it so easily,” Mr. Schumer said. “It’s infuriating to see someone sell out the country that welcomed him and kept him safe, educated him and helped him become a billionaire.”

No citizenship for people who were born here? That is a slippery slope indeed. What exactly does China or Mexico (or Ireland or Germany, for that matter) have to do with someone born in the states? Are they free citizens? That would be great, but somehow I don't think that's what he means. I really hope this guy doesn't start calling himself a liberterian...