Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has a status update for Facebook co-founderEduardo Saverin: Stop attempting to dodge your taxes by renouncing your U.S. citizenship or never come to back to the U.S. again.

In September 2011, Saverin relinquished his U.S. citizenship before the company announced its planned initial public offering of stock, which will debut this week. The move was likely a financial one, as he owns an estimated 4 percent of Facebook and stands to make $4 billion when the company goes public. Saverin would reap the benefit of tax savings by becoming a permanent resident of Singapore, which levies no capital gains taxes.

At a news conference this morning, Sens. Schumer and Bob Casey, D-Pa., will unveil the “Ex-PATRIOT” – “Expatriation Prevention by Abolishing Tax-Related Incentives for Offshore Tenancy” – Act to respond directly to Saverin’s move, which they dub a “scheme” that would “help him duck up to $67 million in taxes.”

The senators will call Saverin’s move an “outrage” and will outline their plan to re-impose taxes on expatriates like Saverin even after they flee the United States and take up residence in a foreign country. Their proposal would also impose a mandatory 30 percent tax on the capital gains of anybody who renounces their U.S. citizenship.

The plan would bar individuals like Saverin from ever reentering the United States again.

“Eduardo recently found it more practical to become a resident of Singapore since he plans to live there for an indefinite period of time,” Tom Goodman, Saverin’s spokesman, told Bloomberg News in an email.

Last year 1,700 people renounced their U.S. citizenship.

Source: ABC News.

Legislation allows IRS to revoke passports, mandates black boxes in vehicles.

Democrats are trying to ram through a notorious transportation bill stuffed with Big Brother measures, including empowering the IRS to revoke passports of accused tax delinquents and enforcing mandatory black boxes in all new cars from 2015 onwards, by forcing the Republican-controlled House to pass the Senate version of the legislation.

Late yesterday afternoon, “the House turned away an attempt by Democrats to speed up the conference by instructing House negotiators to accept the Senate-passed bill. That bill, S. 1813, would fund federal highway programs for two years, a plan Democrats prefer over the House-passed bill that only extends funding through September,”reports the Hill.

The Senate bill, also known as the ‘Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act’ (MAP-21), is very different from the House version in that it not only outlines funding for federal highway programs but also includes innumerable nightmarish provisions that butcher privacy rights. The bill will now go to conference and lawmakers will attempt to come to an agreement on the final version of the legislation.

A list of the conferees who will work with the bill’s chief sponsor Barbara Boxer to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill includes Jay Rockefeller, who advocated warrantless spying on American citizens back in 2008.

Should lawmakers from both sides of the aisle be unable to come to a compromise, “Congress could pass the Senate-approved bill, S. 1813, and then pass a technical corrections bill to address these differences,” according to Transportation and Infrastructure Committee ranking member Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.).

“What they want to do is cast the participation of the House of Representatives aside, and just adopt what the Senate has brought forward,” warned Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.).

The bill has attracted widespread criticism for a number of fourth amendment-busting provisions that empower the federal government to spy on American citizens.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.

Did you know that the UN has a plan for running the world and it is right out in the open?  It is called “sustainable development”, but it is far more comprehensive than it sounds.  The truth is that the UN plan for running the world would dramatically alter nearly all forms of human activity.  A 204 page report on “sustainable development” entitled “Working Towards a Balanced and Inclusive Green Economy, A United Nations System-Wide Perspective” has been published in advance of the upcoming Rio + 20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro.  You can read the full reportright here.  It envisions a vast system of global carbon taxes, massive global safety nets and the implementation of a one world green economy.  Many of those that are pushing “sustainable development” on a global level believe that they are doing it for the good of the planet.  In fact, the 204 page report mentioned above even says that the transition “to a green economy requires a fundamental shift in the way we think and act” but that it will be worth it in the end.  What people need to understand is that throughout modern history tyranny has almost always been initially introduced by people that believed that they had “good intentions”.  No matter how much friendly language the UN uses in their reports, the truth is that what they are promoting is an insidious agenda of absolute tyranny on a global scale.

The upcoming Rio + 20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro comes 20 years after the original 1992 UN Earth Summit that adopted “Agenda 21“.  This new summit will be about renewing that commitment to “sustainable development” and moving that agenda forward.

A lot of people out there will not be alarmed by any of this because they know that the UN does not have the power to impose any of their goals on them right now.  But that is not the game that the UN is playing.

The UN is not playing a short-term political game.  The UN is ready to play their game for decades if necessary.  They will just keep coming back with conference after conference and treaty after treaty until they get what they want.

At the moment, the United Nations is operating as something of a “soft global government”.  The UN does not have the power to coerce nations to do their bidding yet, so they rely mostly on cooperation.  The UN will “take what they can get” right now, and they know that someday they will eventually have the power to turn their recommendations into mandates.

One of the things that the UN would love to implement is a global carbon tax scheme.  The power to tax is the power to control, and if the UN is ever given the power to tax the entire globe they will at that point become much more than a “soft global government”.

Right now, the UN is proposing a global carbon tax scheme that would come to as much as 0.6 percent of GDP for participating nations.  The following comes directly from the report….

CONTINUED at the American Dream.

Legislation would empower IRS to revoke passports of accused tax delinquents.

A Big Brother transport bill that will empower the IRS to revoke passports of alleged tax delinquents, mandate the installation of black boxes in all cars, as well as a myriad of other privacy-busting measures, is set to take a huge leap forward this week.

House Republicans are taking heat from Democrats over their passage of a bill that merely extends funding for already existing federal highway programs. Dems such as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) have been vocal in pushing the House to pass their version of Senate Bill 1813, otherwise known as the ‘Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act’ (MAP-21).

However, MAP-21 represents a complete federal power grab over transportation and includes a number of chilling provisions that threaten to trample constitutional rights across the board.

The one that’s garnered most attention in the press is a provision that empowers the IRS to revoke passports of tax delinquents merely accused of owing over $50,000 in back taxes.

Labeled by prominent newspapers such as the Investor’s Business Daily as a “Stalinist” assault on mobility rights reminiscent of the Soviet Union, the provision is clearly unconstitutional, violating Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3 , which forbids “Bills of Attainder,” and has also been shot down in several Supreme Court cases.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.

CarbonSat: Enforcing green fascism’s CO2 tax from space.

The European Space Agency is set to green light a new surveillance satellite that will measure man-made carbon emissions from space in order to “hunt down” violators of international climate agreements, allowing Big Brother to enforce a future tax on CO2 emissions.

Labeled CarbonSat, the satellite system will have the ability to differentiate between natural carbon emissions and man-made CO2 releases. Earlier this month, the ESA announced that it had contracted space company Astrium to develop the satellite, which will be ready for deployment by 2017.

The Astrium press releaseannouncing the project makes no mention of the fact that the satellite will be used to perform surveillance on individuals and businesses to keep tabs on their carbon footprint, instead presenting its role as merely measuring carbon emissions.

However, an interview with Astrium President Evert Dudok carried by a German climate alarmist website makes it clear that the technology will be used to spy on human activity from space and impose penalties for non-compliance with United Nations environmental treaties and regulations.

According to a translation by the prominent climate skeptic website No Tricks Zone, Dudok reveals that the primary function of the satellite will be to perform highly intrusive surveillance.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.

An Exclusive interview, Alex Jones speaks with Sen. Rand Paul on NDAA, TSA undercover on Houston busses, Obama’s overall neglect of the Constitution, his possible impeachment and much more. This is a must see video.

A year ago, in Action Comics, Superman declared plans to renounce his U.S. citizenship.

“‘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. That’s a record number since the Internal Revenue Service began publishing a list of those who renounced in 1998. It’s also almost eight times more than the number of citizens who renounced in 2008, and more than the total for 2007, 2008 and 2009 combined.

But not everyone’s motivations are as lofty as Superman’s. Many say they parted ways with America for tax reasons.

The United States is one of the only countries to tax its citizens on income earned while they’re living abroad. And just as Americans stateside must file tax returns each April – this year, the deadline is Tuesday – an estimated 6.3 million U.S. citizens living abroad brace for what they describe as an even tougher process of reporting their income and foreign accounts to the IRS. For them, the deadline is June.

The National Taxpayer Advocate’s Office, part of the IRS, released a report in December that details the difficulties of filing taxes from overseas. It cites heavy paperwork, a lack of online filing options and a dearth of local and foreign-language resources.

For those wishing to legally escape the filing requirements, the only way is to formally renounce their U.S. citizenship. Last year, IRS records show that at least 1,788 people did, and that’s likely an underestimate. The IRS publishes in the Federal Register the names of those who give up their citizenship, and some who renounced say they haven’t seen their name on the list yet.

The State Department said records it keeps differ from those published by the IRS. They indicate that renunciations have remained steady, at about 1,100 each year, said an official.

CONTINUED at Reuters.

When LeighAnn Montieth, the manager of New York Yoga on the Upper East Side, learned last summer that she was being audited on a sales-tax issue, she wasn’t concerned. Yoga studios, she believed, weren’t subject to the city’s 4.5% sales tax.

The yogi now says her relaxed attitude was misplaced.

The New York Department of Taxation and Finance has decided that yoga studios fall into a category of businesses—specifically weight control or health salons—that must pay the city’s levy, officials said.

The decision was revealed last April in a bulletin from the department and is now sinking in as yoga studios across the city prepare their taxes. The state—which collects the city’s sales tax—has already begun auditing yoga studios, presenting them in some cases with bills for back sales taxes for the past three years.

“We do see this as a fairness issue,” said Edward Walsh, a spokesman for the Department of Taxation and Finance, noting that Pilates studios have to pay sales tax. “Businesses that provide similar services should be subject to the same taxes in the city.”

The new tax policy has been met with cries of protest from the yoga business community. For years, studios had budgeted without the expectation of a sales-tax hit.

“Yoga classes have been around forever and not taxed,” said Alison West, executive director of Yoga for New York, a lobbying group.

CONTINUED at the Wall Street Journal.

House Republicans, searching for an election-year message amid a muddled political and economic landscape, will introduce a 2013 budget Tuesday that cuts tax rates and provides for just two individual brackets of 10% and 25%.

The budget would end the Alternative Minimum Tax, which originally was aimed at the wealthy but ensnares a growing number of middle-class taxpayers each year. The plan would nearly eliminate U.S. taxes on American corporations’ earnings from overseas operations.

The proposal, to be offered by Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), who has become the Republicans’ leading figure on budget issues, has little chance of becoming …

CONTINUED at the Wall Street Journal.

Just one month from today, Japan will lower their corporate income tax rate from 39.5 to 35 percent.  When they do so, the United States will officially have the dubious distinction of possessing the highest corporate income tax rate in the developed world, a federal/state integrated rate of 39.2 percent.

To put that in perspective, the average in the developed world (OECD) is only 25 percent.  Our six major trading partners–Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, and France–will all have a lower rate than we will have.  As a result, capital and jobs will continue to flow overseas, rather than staying here to create jobs, increase wages, fund pensions, invest in new business, or grow nest eggs.

President Obama last month proposed a plan to raise net taxes, but in the process lower the U.S. corporate rate to about 32 percent.  That simply isn’t worth it.  In exchange for a jobs-killing net tax hike, the Obama plan would still leave us with a tax rate higher than the OECD average, and higher than all our major trading partners except Japan and France.  No thanks, Mr. President.

Source: Americans for Tax Reform.