{"id":153,"date":"2012-07-10T03:55:03","date_gmt":"2012-07-10T03:55:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.apisbull.com\/blog\/?p=153"},"modified":"2012-07-10T03:55:03","modified_gmt":"2012-07-10T03:55:03","slug":"the-facebook-money-makers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.apisbull.com\/blog\/?p=153","title":{"rendered":"The FaceBook Money Makers"},"content":{"rendered":"
Facebook\u2019s recent IPO made instant billionaires out of all four of the original Facebook founders.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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You\u2019ve likely heard of Mark Zuckerberg. He\u2019s the main founder and current CEO of Facebook.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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At the tender age of 28, his net worth soared to $19 billion after Facebook\u2019s IPO in May.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Eduardo Saverin is one of the lesser-known founders or Facebook with less than a 5% stake … but he\u2019s still worth an estimated $3 billion dollars after Facebook\u2019s IPO.<\/span><\/div>\n

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In case you missed the news … last September Eduardo did what many feel is the unforgivable sin.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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He renounced his United States citizenship.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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The IRS revealed Eduardo\u2019s decision in April 2012. The public outcry was immediate.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Angry citizens flooded blogs and message boards calling Eduardo a traitor. They accused him of being unpatriotic.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Maybe you\u2019re angry at him too.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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After all, a young kid makes billions of dollars, benefits from the American way of life, and then renounces his citizenship?<\/span><\/div>\n

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Sounds pretty selfish. Greedy. Un-American.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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\u201cRunning away to avoid paying taxes?\u201d they complain. \u201cShame on him!\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n

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But once you hear Eduardo\u2019s backstory and understand his family history, you may change your mind about his actions.<\/span><\/div>\n

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…and how it could mean the difference between the Poorhouse and Easy Street for you and your own family in the coming financial crisis.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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The First Flight Was to\u00a0Protect the Family\u2019s Life<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n

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To understand Eduardo Saverin\u2019s decision, you have to go back two generations.<\/span><\/div>\n

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His grandfather, Eug\u00eanio Saverin, was a hard working and industrious entrepreneur. But being a Jew living in Germany during the 1940\u2019s didn\u2019t mix well.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Rather than face concentration camps, Eug\u00eanio snuck his family out of Hitler\u2019s reach and resettled in S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Eug\u00eanio brought nothing with him except his entrepreneurial spirit.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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But that was enough.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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By 1952, he founded the kidswear brand \u201cTip Top,\u201d which went on to become the most popular brand of children\u2019s clothing in Brazil.<\/span><\/div>\n

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The how Flight Was to Protect the Family\u2019s Fortune<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n

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Eug\u00eanio had a son, Roberto, who grew into the family business.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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Using the entrepreneurial spirit he inherited from his father, Roberto grew Tip Top into a successful franchise of retail chain stores in Brazil.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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He increased the family\u2019s wealth by investing in real estate and in some of Brazil\u2019s vast natural resources.<\/span><\/div>\n

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But in 1993, Roberto packed up his bags, took his wife and child (Eduardo) and fled the country.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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He did it because of the economic chaos brewing in Brazil at that time. Then President Fernando Collor had just frozen all savings accounts.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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Roberto knew more capital controls were coming.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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Rather than hand his family\u2019s fortune over to people who hadn\u2019t worked for it, Roberto migrated to the United States. He and his family started a new life in Miami, Florida.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Eduardo Saverin was 11 years old at the time. A few years later he and his family went through the legal process of becoming U.S. citizens.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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Up until September, 2011, Eduardo maintained a dual U.S. citizenship along with his native Brazilian citizenship.<\/span><\/div>\n

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(Here\u2019s an interesting side note. Many internet sites claim that Eduardo\u2019s family fled to the U.S. because young Eduardo\u2019s name was found on a list of possible kidnapping targets due to his family\u2019s wealth.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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The story spread like wildfire after the book “Billionaires by Chance” presented it as fact.<\/span><\/div>\n

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While it\u2019s a compelling story, we did a little more digging to find out if it was true. What we found was a recent interview (June 2012), given in Portuguese for the Brazilian news magazine, Veja.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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In that interview, Eduardo explains that the names of his father and grandfather had been found on a kidnapping list, but the family only found out about it years after moving to the U.S.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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Just thought you\u2019d like to know the real story.)<\/span><\/div>\n

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How America Made Eduardo Rich<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n

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Eduardo spent his teenage years growing up in the Miami area. He was a top student and a chess prodigy (The International Chess Magazine featured him after he beat a chess grandmaster at the age of 13).<\/span><\/div>\n

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He enrolled at Harvard University in 2003 to study economics. That\u2019s where he met Zuckerberg and became the first investor in Facebook.<\/span><\/div>\n

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The rest is history. Facebook has gone on to become the most popular website on the planet. During its rise in popularity, Eduardo watched his own net worth skyrocket into the multi-billion dollar stratosphere.<\/span><\/div>\n

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He\u2019s now one of the top 100 richest people in the world.<\/span><\/div>\n

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So it\u2019s easy to see why people are mad. It seems obvious that Eduardo gave up his U.S. citizenship to avoid paying taxes on his newly acquired Facebook fortune.<\/span><\/div>\n

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That\u2019s not entirely true, though.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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He\u2019s been living in Singapore since 2009 and loves it there. It\u2019s the place he\u2019d like to make into his new home.<\/span><\/div>\n

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The Third Flight Was to Protect the Family\u2019s Legacy<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n

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And that\u2019s why many tax experts think Eduardo\u2019s strategy has nothing to do with avoiding taxes … at least not right now.<\/span><\/div>\n

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You see, he\u2019s NOT getting off scot-free. The U.S. requires everyone who renounces his or her citizenship to pay a 15% exit tax. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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That means Eduardo will be paying hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes to the U.S. \u2013 even if he doesn\u2019t cash in his Facebook stock.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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Here\u2019s how Eduardo describes it in his Brazilian interview (translated from the Portuguese):<\/span><\/div>\n

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\u201cThe decision [to denounce his U.S. citizenship] was strictly based on my interest in living and working in Singapore. I am obligated and I will pay hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes to the American government. I already paid and I will keep paying whatever taxes I owe based on my time as a U.S. citizen.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n

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Paying the exit tax now will likely trigger a bigger financial hit on Saverin than if he had kept his U.S. citizenship.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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You see, according to United States law, you don\u2019t pay taxes on capital gains until you cash out. Many wealthy people simply borrow against their unrealized capital gains and live tax-free until after their death.<\/span><\/div>\n

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But, once you die, your estate can get hit with a 35% inheritance tax.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Tax experts are guessing that Eduardo would like to pay his exit tax now rather than give away a third of his fortune after his death.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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They feel Saverin is using his family history of global mobility to put himself in the best situation to carry on the family legacy.<\/span><\/div>\n

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It\u2019s hard to say, but that seems to be Eduardo\u2019s sentiment. In the\u00a0Veja<\/em>\u00a0interview he said: \u201cI was born in Brazil, I was an American citizen for about 10 years. Now I live in Singapore. I\u2019ve always thought of myself as a global citizen.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n

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Like him or hate him, you have to admit he\u2019s got a fascinating family history.<\/span><\/div>\n

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And as a mobile, sovereign, global citizen, Eduardo Saverin is simply carrying on a family tradition: he\u2019s taking care of himself, his fortune and his family legacy. All at once.<\/span>
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How This Relates to You<\/span><\/strong>
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Listen, you don\u2019t have to renounce your citizenship to protect your wealth. And you don\u2019t need to be a billionaire either. \u00a0Almost anyone can diversify his or her assets overseas.<\/span><\/div>\n

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This is NOT about evading taxes.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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1. Diversification\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
2. Privacy \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
3. Asset protection\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
4. Tax efficiency<\/span><\/div>\n

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You can start small now by protecting just a portion of your assets overseas.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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This book can tell you how to live like them ….tax free income.<\/div>\n


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