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Comment by fallingknife | Hacker News Reader

Paying $5 million to get a visa and then paying taxes on whatever assets and income they bring with them seems like a great deal for the US because the foreign income never would have been taxed by the US anyway if they hadn't got the visa. Why get greedy and demand taxation on all their income when this could lose us a the opportunity for a very profitable deal?

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But is it fair that a foreigner can buy the state and profit of rules different than the country own citizens?

Let's push the concept further, if I'm a rich american citizen, that I leave the country and give up my nationality and then comes back with the trump gold card that I bought to profit of more interesting taxes conditions. Would it be fair?

Rich expats who hold visas and reside in a foreign country but don't pay taxes to that foreign country on their assets held back home is actually a very common thing around the world. This is encouraged because having rich people show up in your country and spend a lot of money is actually quite beneficial.

The outlier here is actually the US law that citizens pay taxes on income from outside the country. We are virtually the only country that does this. So in that sense I will agree with you that the unequal treatment is unfair, but it is the treatment of US citizens that is out of the ordinary, not the treatment of the Trump visa holders.

Having those visa rules in place would smooth a path to reforming the taxation of citizens.

Giving up US citizenship incurs a large exit tax, so that doesn't quite work.

Then again, give Trump a million for his 2028 campaign (am I kidding?) and who knows what could happen.

Why do they get something that ordinary US citizens don’t get?

Trump has already said that Gold Card holders will be exempt from taxes on foreign income[0].

Which shouldn't be surprising - no one wealthy enough to purchase this would do so if it came with any significant tax burden.

[0]https://kpmg.com/xx/en/our-insights/gms-flash-alert/flash-al...

It's a mixed blessing. The deal is very similar to remittance basis taxation which we had in the UK until recently. It probably benefited the country in the way you say but was also kind of unfair in that foreign billionaires living here got a much better deal than British ones. It was just scrapped and a lot of millionaires are leaving for better or worse.

I'm skeptical that Trump will manage to get the tax changes through the house and senate and that they would remain through the next government which might put people off dropping $5m on the thing.

Also would Musk who has three citizenships be able to drop the US one and get a gold visa?

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