lawyer physics (was taxing satellites)

Trei, Peter ptrei at rsasecurity.com
Tue Jul 10 12:05:37 PDT 2001




> ----------
> From: 	Ray Dillinger[SMTP:bear at sonic.net]
> Sent: 	Tuesday, July 10, 2001 2:36 PM
> Cc: 	cypherpunks at cyberpass.net
> Subject: 	Re: lawyer physics (was taxing satellites)
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, 10 Jul 2001, Dynamite Bob wrote:
>   <quoting someone who is not participating in this discussion>
> >"The property in question here is geostationary,"
> >said Larry Hoenig, a San Francisco attorney
> >representing Hughes Electronics. "Geostationary
> >satellites sit above the equator in a fixed
> >position; they do not rotate around the Earth. So
> >the satellites we're talking about here are not
> >movable property."
> 
Actually, there's a curious legal precedent which might
help the satellite holders. One of the NASA probes (perhaps
the atmospheric probe to Jupiter? Did we have a Venus probe?)
had an instrument window made of diamond. The fairly large 
diamond used drew considerable import duty when it was 
brought into the US, but that duty was returned after the 
launch, since the diamond had been 're-exported'. This 
seems to my IANAL logic to set a precedent that an
asset in space is not in the US.

> Since the equator does not pass through California, it 
> follows that any property hanging above a point on the 
> equator is NOT within the borders of California -- no 
> matter how far up you extend them.  So I doubt the 
> claim of jurisdiction. Hmmm.  Maybe their theory is that 
> because it's not within another nation's border, property 
> owned by US citizens is subject to American Taxes.  That 
> would be bad.
> 
> Or maybe they're attempting to establish a doctrine that 
> Americans can be charged property tax on property they 
> hold outside the borders of the US regardless of whether 
> it's in the borders of another country.  That would be 
> worse.  At the very least it would provide substantial 
> disincentive to retaining American citizenship.
	[...]
> 				Bear
> 
Actually, the USG doesn't give a damn whether it's in the
US, in another country , or neither. If they want to, they'll
tax it. Expatriate US citizens have to pay income tax on 
foreign earned income to the US (I think only the US, Egypt,
and the Phillipines do this). Even if you give up your US
citizenship, the IRS expects to tax you for a further 10 years
if your net worth is over $350k when you vacate your
US citizenship.

If you don't pay up, they might not be able to extradite 
you if you're now a foreigner, but they'll go after your 
assets in the US, or arrest you if you set foot on US soil.

(13 years as an expatriate leads to some specialized 
knowledge :-)

Peter Trei






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