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June 2012

Facebook co-founder says bye to US — Absurd American tax laws prompt Ed Saverin to move to Singapore ahead of landmark IPO

By Tarunkumar Singhal, Raman Jokhakar, Chartered Accountants
Reading Time 1 mins
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Eduardo Saverin, the billionaire cofounder of Facebook, renounced his US citizenship before an initial public offering (IPO) that values the social network at as much as INR5,938 billion, a move that may reduce his tax bill.

“It’s plainly lawful and at the same time profoundly ungrateful to the country that provided these opportunities for him,” said Edward Kleinbard, a tax law professor at the University of Southern California. “He benefited from his US education, the contacts he made at Harvard, and most important the extraordinary openness and flexibility of our economy that encourages start-up ventures to flourish.”

Saverin’s name is on a list of people who chose to renounce citizenship as of April 30, published by the Internal Revenue Service.

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