You can now add “renounce my U.S. citizenship” to the list of ways to avoid paying taxes but maybe not for long.

Reuters is reporting that Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin has two US senators accusing him of dodging taxes on Facebook stock-market profits. With the plans that Facebook has to raise billions of dollars in an initial public offering on Friday, Saverin would have to pay a hefty sum estimated to be $67 million.

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Saverin relocated to Singapore for “business reasons” (Singapore has no capital gains tax)

We’re sure once we hear Saverin’s side, through his spokesman of course, we will still find that he is avoiding taxes, plain and simple. Even if he is being truthful about all of this, everything points to Saverin wanting to avoid cutting a multi-million dollar check to the US government.

One could say that since he was given a college education here and that he would have never meet Mark Zuckerburg if it wasn’t for the government letting him become a citizen here, thus having the good life with his millions billions. One could also say that the government is too hard on its citizens and taxes are too high. Either way, Senator Bob Casey (D-Penn.) said Thursday, “We simply cannot allow the ultra-wealthy to write their own rules.”

Not to be outdone, Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) 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.”

Of course that says nothing about the banks that took taxpayer bailouts so they could lay off workers and levy new fees against account holders. We’ll leave that one alone, right senator?

About The Author

Andy Breeding is a Blast correspondent

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