Facebook co-founder quits US

Eduardo Saverin, the billionaire Facebook co-founder, has renounced his US citizenship in a bid to avoid millions of dollars in taxes.

Facebook is set to go public this week and Brazilian-born Saverin is likely to avoid a tax bill of $600million. He has lived in Singapore since 2009.

Mr Saverin will own 4 per cent of Facebook’s $96billion stock when it goes public, putting his wealth at around $4billion.

He could have been liable for as much as $600 million in capital gains tax were he to remain a US citizen. Singapore has no capital gains tax, although US citizens are liable for the levy wherever they live.

"Eduardo recently found it more practical to become a resident of Singapore since he plans to live there for an indefinite period of time," his spokesman said.

A record number of 1780 people gave up their US passports last year compared with 235 in 2008, according to government records.