Hacker News Reader

Comment by GuiA | Hacker News Reader

There are pretty much no upsides to being a US citizen if you don't intend to make the US your primary residence ever.

And if you have a lot of money and want to get back in, an investor visa or even a green card is not that hard to get.

There are massive upsides to US citizenship. Few countries will exert the same effort as the US to help out any of its citizens that end up in harm's way in other countries; Americans have a high level of default business credibility; in many parts of the world, having an American employee can bring considerable prestige and so on. Of course these days it also means being more of a target for terrorism and so on so it's not all gravy for sure.

If you have already formally renounced US citizenship, though, getting a visa or a green card is damn near impossible. You'll have to put a lot of money on the table to win that argument. The rules very strongly discourage deals of this kind, though that probably doesn't mean much any more if the last 3 weeks are a guide.

All the things you say are equally true for holders of passports from any first world country, which the overwhelming majority of people renouncing US citizenship have.

And regarding "a lot of money", we are talking Eduardo Saverin levels of wealth here. At that level, if you really really need to make the US your permanent residence again, you can make probably pull some strings and make it happen.

According to the State Department's site, if you renounce U.S. citizenship to avoid taxes (i.e., if Homeland Security says that you did), you will be declared permanently inadmissible to the U.S.

> a green card is not that hard to get

Have you, like, ever applied for permanent residency?

Yes, actually. I have also directly seen people with high levels of wealth get one in < 24 months (perhaps even 18).

And how many of these people had previously renounced US citizenship?

If you have half a million dollars in free cash you can afford to set aside for a few years (you'll even get most of it back), you can buy a green card.

Yeah that's not most people.

That being said, the green card lottery is apparently much easier if you're from Europe (because of the lack of competition for the 7% country limit of cards).

But overall, the US is among the hardest places in the developed world to get a good visa situation, I think.

> There are pretty much no upsides to being a US citizen if you don't intend to make the US your primary residence ever.

Passport power?

There is a significant amount of countries with similarly or better ranked passports: https://www.passportindex.org/byRank.php

> There is a significant amount of countries with similarly or better ranked passports

Yes, and I'm sure after throwing away the US passport all it takes to get one from one of these countries is just asking them nicely, right? It's not like you have to spend years of your life living there or that your time has any value or anything.

I think that only people living abroad for a long time will have a logical intent on renouncing US citizenship...

You're not going to be renouncing your citizenship unless you already have another one... these people aren't going stateless.

People who are renonouncing their passport already have a passport from one of these countries.

Careful, even a green card status is difficult to throw off. Funny that you could lose your green card by not meeting the residency test, but that doesn't negate your USA taxation obligations on worldwide income. Not even sure why they think that makes sense.

Really? Do you have any source for that? (not arguing - genuinely interested. That's precisely how I lost my greencard)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2012/12/01/high-cost-...

Its complicated. If you don't have lots of assets, you are probably ok.

Wow, I had no idea, at all. Luckily my most valuable asset when I expatriated was a laptop, so I'm probably safe from capital gains.

>a green card is not that hard to get.

Are you eligible for Permanent Residency after renouncing US citizenship? I would have thought that such an action would have some consequences regarding future residency.

I hear Roger Ver has experience in this arena.

Oh god! Robert Ver got a passport from St Kitts and Nevis.

I remember reading this book about survivalism ("Emergency" by Neil Strauss--a really awesome read in investigative journalism btw), and he had a whole chapter on how to get a passport from St Kitts and Nevis. Basically, the point was that you need to buy property worth about a million, and if you don't get screwed over by real-estate agents or the government, you'll get it pretty quickly.

My main concern was that once you have it, it's not very likely that many countries would take it seriously. It's like a running joke that if you're a shady millionaire/mobster trying to dodge taxes and stash money away, you'd always have a St Kitts and Nevis passport.

I was responding sarcastically, but forgot the /s afterwards. My bad.

He renounced his US citizenship and then got pissy when the US wouldn't let him back in. It was hilarious.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com