By SHIBANI MAHTANI

Bloomberg News

Some 100 Americans opted out of U.S. citizenship in Singapore, above, last year.

SINGAPORE—Facebook

co-founder Eduardo Saverin’s recent decision to give up his U.S. citizenship in favor of long-term residence in Singapore has drawn fresh attention to the appeal of residing and investing in the wealthy city-state and other parts of Asia, where tax burdens are significantly lighter than in many Western countries.

Although the number of Americans throwing away their passports remains small, the trend has accelerated over the past two years—especially in Asian financial centers. Some 100 Americans opted out of U.S. citizenship in Singapore last year, almost double the 58 that did so in 2009, according to data from the U.S. Embassy in Singapore. Globally, 1,780 Americans renounced their citizenship last year, compared with 742 in 2009, according to U.S. government records.

The increase of Americans choosing to renounce their citizenship comes amid heated tax debates in the U.S. Many businesses and high-income individuals are worried that the urgency to reduce the country’s federal deficit will translate into tax increases in future years. Without a bipartisan deal to reduce the country’s deficit, Bush-era tax cuts and a payroll-tax cut for this year will expire by early next year.

For Americans living overseas, it may not be as easy to give up U.S. citizenship without being hit by a hefty exit tax. The WSJ’s Deborah Kan speaks to immigration lawyer Eugene Chow about the process

Even if U.S. tax rates increase slightly, they would remain historically low.

The superwealthy are also worried about possible future passage of the so-called “Buffett Rule” that would ensure high earners pay at least 30% in federal tax.

The Asian financial hubs of Singapore and Hong Kong, on the other hand, have kept personal and corporate taxes among the lowest in the world to attract more foreign investment. Top individual income-tax rates are 20% in Singapore and 17% in Hong Kong, compared with 35% at the federal level in the U.S., according to an Ernst & Young report.

FilmMagic / Getty Images

Eduardo Saverin has given up his U.S. citizenship. He could see at least $39 million in savings on his Facebook stake, according to Wealth-X.

The two Asian financial centers have also been praised by experts for having simpler taxation systems than the U.S. and other countries. Businesses must make an average of three tax payments per year in Hong Kong and five in Singapore, compared with 11 in the U.S. and a global average of 28.5 per year, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers UK and the World Bank Group. The tax codes are also more transparent so that many people don’t require a consultant or adviser.

“The U.S. used to be a moderate tax jurisdiction compared with other countries and it used to be at the forefront of development,” said Lora Wilkinson, senior tax consultant at U.S. Tax Advisory International, a Singapore-based tax services firm that specializes in U.S. taxation laws. Now “it seems to be lagging behind countries like Singapore in creating policies to attract business.”

She said she gets at least one query per week from Americans who are interested in renouncing their citizenship in favor of becoming Singaporeans.

Not all Asian countries have a reputation for lighter tax burdens. In China, the top tax rate for high-income earners is 45%, though corporate taxes there are relatively low. Japan is also known as a relatively high-tax country.

Associated Press

Singapore’s Supertrees near the financial district.

There are also other reasons why wealthy Americans choose to renounce citizenship. Stronger economic growth in Asia has attracted many Americans who now have no intention of returning to the U.S., which unlike many other countries requires expatriate citizens with high salaries to keep paying taxes back home.

Some private wealth managers say they no longer take on American clients because it involves too much work and risk complying with strict U.S. banking rules. The number of people renouncing in Singapore is believed to be especially high in part because the country doesn’t allow its citizens to hold dual citizenship so people with partners and children in the city-state may simply choose to keep citizenship there.

“It is not just about fat cats evading their fair share of tax,” said Eugene Chow, a principal at Chow King & Associates, a Hong Kong-based law firm that specializes in U.S. and international immigration. In addition, Asian countries offer a business climate and lifestyle that many find attractive: “America is no longer the Holy Grail.”

Because of his high profile, Mr. Saverin’s case could help popularize the practice by making more wealthy Americans aware of the potential benefits of renunciation.

For Mr. Saverin—a 30-year-old investor listed by Forbes as one of the 20 youngest billionaires in the world—giving up his U.S. citizenship could mean millions in tax savings, a decision he took months before Facebook announced its plans to hold an initial public offering. In addition to lower corporate and personal income taxes, Singapore also has no capital-gains tax, no tax on bank interest and no dividends tax.

According to Wealth-X, a Singapore-based firm that tracks information on high-net-worth individuals, Mr. Saverin could see at least US$39 million in savings on his Facebook stake alone, or roughly 1% of his approximately US$3 billion net worth. The results are contingent upon how well Facebook performs in its IPO.

Mr. Saverin will still have to pay a hefty exit tax in giving up his U.S. citizenship, calculated as a one-time payment for any American with assets with over US$2 million. U.S. tax experts note that while this exit tax sometimes dissuades older American millionaires from giving up their citizenship—with few years left to make huge capital gains, tax-free—the move often makes more financial sense for younger people like Mr. Saverin.

Mr. Saverin now holds Brazilian citizenship, where he was born, and permanent residence in Singapore, a status that allows foreigners to stay in the city-state without visa restrictions and opens the door to full citizenship later on. It is unclear whether Mr. Saverin is seeking to obtain Singapore citizenship. Mr. Saverin, who rarely speaks to the press, declined to comment and forwarded press queries to a New York-based spokesman.

The spokesman said Mr. Saverin’s decision to renounce his citizenship was primarily rooted in “business reasons” rather than being tax-related. “U.S. citizens are severely restricted as to what they can invest in and where they can maintain accounts,” said Tom Goodman, the spokesman, in a statement to The Wall Street Journal. “Many foreign funds and banks won’t accept Americans.”

On Monday, Mr. Goodman added that Mr. Saverin has been living in Singapore since late 2009, and felt the city-state was “an attractive place to live and a convenient travel hub for doing business in Asia.”

Write to Shibani Mahtani at shibani.mahtani@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared May 17, 2012, on page C3 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Asia’s Lighter Taxes Provide a Lure.

By MICHAEL HSU

Harry Campbell for The Wall Street Journal

I HAVE TWO ROBOTS that clean the floors in my apartment: the Evolution Robotics Mint and the iRobot Roomba 530. The Mint sweeps and mops. The Roomba vacuums. Total retail cost for my live-in cleaning staff: $500.

The point of deploying these devices is to save time. In practice, though, I don’t end up with as much free time as you would think, mainly because I find it impossible not to watch the robots work. It’s like hiring someone to mow your lawn, then sitting down and watching him mow your lawn. True, the novelty wears off after a few months, but I still find myself curious. Will the robot pick up that huge dust bunny that would take me five seconds to pick up and throw away? Let me wait 10 minutes and find out.

As domestic help, robots have flaws. I bought my Roomba about three years ago; the Mint joined it a year later. But my dream of an immaculate, machine-cleaned home has yet to materialize—they can be slow and you have to space out your furniture to give them room to maneuver. But they earn their keep in other ways: They’re entertaining—a cross between the Three Stooges and a geeky Discovery Channel reality show. I’ve read that owners often grow attached to their machines. Some give their vacuums names; there’s even a website that sells clothing for Roombas.

My bots and I don’t have that type of relationship. And yet when a friend asks if I’ve ever deployed both at the same time just to see what would happen, I bristle. That would be immoral—like running a cockfighting ring. Besides, it’d be boring. When they bump into something, they just turn around and head the other way.

The Mint is the newer kid on the block. It was released about two years ago; a more powerful model geared for larger spaces—the MintPlus ($300)—was released last fall. The creative team behind Mint includes designer Yves Behar and usability guru Don Norman, who coined the term “user experience” in the early ’90s when he worked at Apple. They’re a sort of dream team as far as consumer products go. The Mint is small, quiet, and inconspicuous—a sleek white box that looks like a character from “WALL-E.” It cleans only hard-surface floors (no carpets). I deploy it compulsively—sometimes more than once a day—because it’s so easy to maintain: Just swap out the reusable microfiber or disposable Swiffer cloth that is clamped to the bottom. The Mint has shown me how perpetually dirty my floors are.

The Roomba, first released in 2002, is the pioneer of cleaning robots. The latest model, the Roomba 780 ($600) is the sixth generation in the line (it does everything mine can, but more effectively and efficiently). Roombas have military roots. To figure out how to cover a room most thoroughly, it uses software derived from a minesweeping robot commissioned by the Navy’s Naval Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technology Division.

But the way it bounces around the room is hard to make sense of. Why do I feel deflated when it misses a scrap of paper just out of its path, even though I know it’ll make good on a subsequent pass?

I’m told there’s a method to its madness. All those bonks let it estimate the size of the room so it can adjust its running time accordingly. It can even tell when it’s hit a particularly dirty spot: A microphone listens for that clickety sound that’s so satisfying to hear when you vacuum.

Still, despite all the brain power behind the Roomba and the Mint, watching them work you can’t help feeling that you’ve just unleashed the dumbest things in the world in your living room. Cute, but stupid.

Granted, “stupid” is the state of robotics. We’re a long way off from C-3PO with a feather duster. According to Evolution Robotics’ chief executive, Paolo Pirjanian, who oversaw the development of Mint’s software algorithms, tasks that come easiest to humans tend to be the most difficult for robots. Take traveling from point A to point B, so a robot can deliver a glass from the kitchen to the dining table: Once it sets out, the robot can try to figure out its position by counting the number of times its wheels have rotated. But if the wheels slip, the robot gets hopelessly lost. Mint’s solution is a cube that projects infrared spots onto the ceiling, which the robot uses to pinpoint its location.

And these robots work more slowly than you or I would. A human wielding a broom and dustpan can be shockingly efficient. I’ve clocked it: In my modestly sized rooms, the time it takes to prepare, deploy and clean the robots isn’t much less than what it takes to vacuum or sweep.

Despite this, the Roomba and Mint grow on you—as they were designed to. With the Mint, Mr. Norman suggested giving the device cues (chipper sounds, flashing lights) to make it seem like a pet that loves doing chores. Both devices play a short tune when they set out to work. The Mint’s is an ascending minor scale—a choice I don’t understand, as it sounds slightly ominous. The Roomba’s tune is heroic, John Phillips Sousa, a battle charge, which seems appropriate.

Efficiency, I’ve come to realize, is beside the point. There’s a joy from watching something undertake a task that’s challenging for it but easy for you. It’s the opposite of watching pro sports. The best analogy I can think of is watching your toddler struggle to crawl up stairs or climb onto the couch. You root for your kid. You take pride in her simple accomplishments. Her foibles are endearing.

And that’s why when your robot finally finds its way to a dust bunny and swallows it whole, you stand up and cheer.

A version of this article appeared April 21, 2012, on page D12 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Robo-Help.

By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN

When it comes to social media, franchisers are making sure their franchisees speak with one voice.

Lots of businesses are putting together social strategies. But franchisers face unique problems, since they’re made up of multiple units. Without an overall company policy, franchisees may adopt different online approaches, potentially causing confusion for consumers.

So, franchisers are implementing systemwide strategies and policies on what to post and how to react to company-related chatter. In some cases, they monitor social-media traffic and jump in to resolve disputes or answer complaints about outlets.

Policing social messages is critical for protecting a brand, say franchisers and industry experts, especially now that more customers use networks to contact, and grumble about, companies. “This is a serious marketing channel,” says Lorne Fisher, chief executive of Fish Consulting LLC, a Hollywood, Fla., marketing firm for franchisers that advises clients on social media. “Once you put something out there, it can never come back.”

David Plunkert

Letting individual owners send their own messages also raises legal concerns. Mark A. Kirsch, a franchise attorney and partner with Plave Koch PLC in Reston, Va., says franchisers are required under trademark law to ensure that their brands aren’t publicly misrepresented.

These concerns are coming to the fore as franchisers become bigger users of social networks. According to a survey from the International Franchise Association, 27% of 549 franchisers polled said they use Facebook multiple times a day, followed by 22% who use it daily and 20% who use it weekly. The group doesn’t have hard numbers on how many franchisers have set up policies, but many chains say that they’ve taken the step.

For instance, Naked Pizza, which has more than 20 franchises across the world, gives area developers and owners social-media instructions during their training, and watches their online efforts. The company can monitor activity, measure analytics and make recommendations, says Robbie Vitrano, co-founder of the New Orleans-based chain. The company issues weekly “audits” to its stores, focusing on how much they post and how well they convey the company’s style, and sends out suggested best practices.

Wild Birds Unlimited Inc., a retail franchiser of bird accessories, started rolling out a systemwide social-media initiative about a year ago, says Jim Carpenter, founder and CEO.

It began with a Facebook page representing the company as a whole, managed at company headquarters in Carmel, Ind. Since several franchisees had social-media profiles of their own, Mr. Carpenter took steps to give the company a uniform online voice. For one thing, he purchased software that lets corporate staffers suggest content for franchisees to add to their social-media pages. Wild Birds also set boundaries for franchisee posts on Facebook. For example, headquarters recommends sharing information about birds, such as how to turn a backyard into a bird-feeding habitat. Sharing what a store’s employees ate for lunch isn’t allowed.

“If you have no policy, [franchisees] will do whatever they think they should do,” says Mr. Carpenter. “It may be wonderful, but it may be not.”

Some franchisers don’t just police what their owners write on social networks—they closely watch what customers say, too. The rubbish-removal chain College Hunks Hauling Junk, for instance, has a corporate employee who keeps tabs on what people post about the franchise.

Last year, a customer complained on Twitter that a price he was quoted over the phone didn’t match what he was charged in person. The monitoring employee saw the message and reached out to the customer and franchisee. The company determined within a few minutes that the issue was a simple misunderstanding.

“The customer later tweeted again that the problem was resolved,” says Nick Friedman, co-founder of the Washington, D.C., chain.

Ms. Needleman, small-business assistant editor in The Wall Street Journal’s New York bureau, can be reached at sarah.needleman@wsj.com. Emily Glazer, a staff reporter in The Wall Street Journal’s New York bureau, contributed to this article.

Even in the calmest times, commercial real-estate brokers are known to jump from one firm to another to get a bigger share of commissions. Now, given how eventful the past seven months have been, analysts are saying the movement could accelerate.

Since October, the business has seen the acquisition of Newmark Knight Frank by Wall Street firm BGC Partners Inc.; the collapse of Grubb & Ellis, which filed for bankruptcy protection; and then the acquisition of Grubb & Ellis by Newmark. Then just last week, CBRE Group Inc. announced that Brett White will step down as chief executive at the end of the year, to be succeeded by Robert Sulentic, the former head of Trammell Crow, which was bought by CBRE more than five years ago. Mr. White will stay on the board.

With all these changes, brokers may start jumping around more, and firms might have to offer more perks to retain and attract top producers, according to Anthony Paolone, an analyst at JPMorgan Chase. “Competition in the business has become fierce,” he wrote last week in a report on the CBRE announcement. Mr. Paolone also pointed out that the brokerage business has improved from the depths of the downturn. “With the business bouncing off the bottom a number of competitors are back on their feet,” he wrote. “Keeping the highest producers happy while maintaining margins for (CBRE) shareholders will be an important task.”

In recent months, dozens of brokers who were with Grubb have jumped to rival firms. Other high-level movers include Arthur Mirante, who spent more than four decades at Cushman & Wakefield and is now running the new Manhattan office of Canadian firm Avison Young. In addition, Amira Yunis moved last fall from Newmark to CBRE.

Firms often try to lure brokers by offering them different so-called “splits” of their commissions. Typically in the industry, brokers and firms split their commissions 50-50. But Avison Young offers brokers a commission split that’s about 10% higher than that, according to Mark Rose, chief executive of Avison Young. “While everybody is asleep, we’re starting to approach 25 folks in New York.”

Matthew Van Buren, president of the tri-state region for CBRE, said he’s confident the firm will be able to hold onto its top producers. “We have had tremendous success at attracting and retaining talent,” he said.

—Laura Kusisto

A version of this article appeared May 14, 2012, on page A20 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Chasing the Biggest Share.