No, the short-term capital gains rate is still 33%, making the puerto rican 'tax break' effectively worthless for traders. As far as long-term gains go, that's still around 23.8%, for the US Federal rate. Sure, Puerto Rico has 0% long-term capital gains taxes (for now), but people who make a living off of long-term capital gains (P.E firms/ investment holding companies) are not going to want to live there in the first place, especially considering the fact that they need to deal more with actual faces and will have to be traveling frequently for business anyway. It's not like trading, where you can do it from anywhere. Maybe they're aiming to attract business heirs?, but then those heirs would have to give up their glamorous lifestyles to live in the dump. What is 23% vs. living in a hellhole anyway?
Like I said, if they really wanted to attract Americans, they could cater to traders, and offer 0-10% (next to nothing) short-term capital gains rates and put their short-term capital gains rates in parity with actual foreign tax haven rates (even many first-world european countries have similarly low rates, so it's not even about tax havens necessarily). If they did that, then perhaps even major wall street banks would consider shifting *some* of their prop trading operations there, otherwise, this seems pointless to save a few pennies.
