Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S | Hacker News Reader

Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

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100 pointshoward941252 comments

Ultimately this indicates that people aren’t satisfied with the returns on taxation. I’m all for supporting a government that supports the people. From my perspective we don’t have this and haven’t had it for some time. Other developed nations have better infrastructure, better social support system, near free higher education, free at point of contact healthcare systems. What we get in the U.S. is the most advanced warfare system ever.

EDIT: I’m not complaining about the level of military spending or healthcare spending. I’m pointing out that from my perspective our return on taxation is a great military and a crappy healthcare system. Hence I’m not happy about the returns on taxation.

> What we get in the U.S. is the most advanced warfare system ever.

You get this in Canada as well, they just don’t pay for it - US taxpayers do.

Most of Europe, and most of Asia too.

In WWII Canada had the world's fourth largest air force, fifth largest navy. Canada was involved in WWII more than two years before the United States joined.

You keep the military for the times, or at least most countries outside of the United States and its absolutely outrageous military spend does. If you think the US went to Iraq or Afghanistan or Vietnam for Canada (or countless exercises throughout the rest of the world, usually to prop up whatever the favored dictator was, and to promote US interests), or that Canada owes US taxpayers for that, you're profoundly mistaken (though Canada went heavily into Afghanistan for the United States, the single time NATO was actually invoked for defense).

The US exports variants of a lot of military hardware for sure, but it still keeps the cream of the crop tucked away, such as the F-22.

Don't think for a second the US military hasn't planned for having to wage war against a country that it's outfitted with it's own technology. Many exported items have reduced capabilities, and lack the communications systems that allow information sharing between all military assets. Information at the front line is what wins battles.

Do you have any sort of evidence for these claims? This all sounds a little bit wild and "feely."

I would say it is dissatisfaction with the government's contract with the citizenry, combined with recent evidence suggesting that a good chunk, say half, of the population has no interest in progressing. So people who can leave for somewhere that more closely aligns with their values are doing just that.

I have family here and I love the United States, I'm staying, and I hope we can make some more progress, but I totally understand why some people don't want to wait that long.

> combined with recent evidence suggesting that a good chunk, say half, of the population has no interest in progressing

Different people have different definitions of "progress". Your definition of progress might not align with mine. That doesn't mean I am not interested in progress, just that I believe we should be progressing in a different (possibly even diametrical) direction than you believe we should be progressing.

Clearly OP means agreeing with his agenda here.

Anything contrary to his agenda is not progress, but going backwards. "around half" is a veiled hit on people who voted for President Trump.

No, I just mean progress. We have data, we could be using it to improve. But instead, we watch other countries leapfrog us in quantifiable ways while we point fingers at each other and accuse 'the other side' of being the real problem. And we are so enamored with ourselves being special that we won't even consider ideas from other countries which have successfully dealt with similar problems. It is very frustrating. And I don't care which side politically you are on, you are only part of the problem from my perspective if you care more about winning than actually making better policy.

That's fine to say, but it ignores the problem of minority rule. If we all take a big vote, and most people want Progress(A), you don't have the ethical right to jump up and down or put a gun to the rest of our heads insisting that we instead do Progress(B).

Maybe Progress(B) is a lovely thing for you. The rest of us, however, don't like it very much, and didn't vote for it.

If Progress(A) means taking stuff from a minority group, then sorry you don’t have the right for that either, even if your plan is to equally distribute it for the “good of everyone”. For some people who went through the hell of communism it is the opposite of progress.

>If Progress(A) means taking stuff from a minority group, then sorry you don’t have the right for that either,

Hold on, let me check something...

"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."

I rather think we do have that right. Human rights for minorities are indeed a thing, but they aren't a thing that gives you (or anyone else) a fully general right to rule over the majority, nor a fully general right to treat the government as illegitimate when it uses its constitutionally enumerated powers to go against your ideas.

> it uses its constitutionally enumerated powers to go against your ideas.

So let me clarify your position a bit: you do support immigration law enforcement, correct?

Also where did you get the idea that the majority of people in the US gets to decide the policy?

>So let me clarify your position a bit: you do support immigration law enforcement, correct?

Yes, of course. If enforcing the law as written involves doing Bad Things, the law should be changed, but if we aren't democratically deciding to change it, then it's on us what it involves.

Mind, there's been plenty of support for the DREAM Act for quite a while now, so...

>Also where did you get the idea that the majority of people in the US gets to decide the policy?

The basic ethical grounds for representative democracy, without which the US government has no legitimacy, no matter how many pieces of paper anyone waves around.

Majority rule is not “the basic ethical grounds for representative democracy”. US was set up as a constitutional republic specifically to limit the simple majority mob rule.

>Majority rule is not “the basic ethical grounds for representative democracy”.

Yes, it very much is.

>US was set up as a constitutional republic specifically to limit the simple majority mob rule.

The US was set up to preserve the power of the rural landowner class. It wasn't intended to be a representative democracy initially, and has only moved imperfectly towards representative democracy over time, with great struggle.

Rule by a minority elite claiming the mantle of national authenticity as its exclusive possession is, ethically speaking, far less legitimate than that of plain, old-fashioned majorities.

Everyone wants progress. Just not everyone agrees with you on what progress looks like.

Right, our government is now setup to allow minority rule unfortunately. I can't foresee us moving forward when states beyond the coasts are insistent on moving backwards to a mythical idealized time.

My main reason for wanting to leave right now is the state of healthcare. I already have one "preexisting condition" out of my hands, it's called sleep apnea. I'm in shape, it's just a matter of my anatomy. My costs are relatively affordable (aside from never bothering with another sleep study since that's seen as not covered), a couple hundred dollars a year. Maybe a large purchase of a new machine every 5 to 10 years.

But I realize that even though I'm saving large chunks of money thanks to America paying more, I'm one terrible illness away from having it wiped out. I'm not a gambler by nature, so it doesn't really appeal to me. Pay me less, give me subsidized healthcare, real time off, etc. Basically, treat me more humanely.

I could care less about money I may lose due to tragedy at any moment. Especially when that crazy inner state minority will simple lambast me for not planning appropriately for my illness regardless of how much of my savings I pour into it (why didn't you save a million dollars for your ongoing cancer treatment you bum?).

Do you not have health insurance? Why would a single illness cost you a million dollars?

Looking at his comment, he said 'Terrible illness' which implies something more severe than just the flu.

Right, and there's no guarantee I'd be able to keep my job (and hence my health insurance) during that scenario.

Having my illness would cause the rates for health insurance to sky rocket for my company the following year. I wouldn't blame them for letting me go since that would cause hardship for the rest of my coworkers.

Because of his preexisting condition. Even if insured, when all of the ACA prohibitions against preexisting condition exclusions are wiped away as the political wind is portending then the OP will be one illness away from a financial wipeout.

When I was in my 30s I had a blood test come back with what the doc said was moderately high cholesterol (185?). From that point on all of my policies excluded illnesses, diseases, treatments and medicines that were in any way connected with high cholesterol.

> Because of his preexisting condition. Even if insured, when all of the ACA prohibitions against preexisting condition exclusions are wiped away as the political wind is portending then the OP will be one illness away from a financial wipeout.

Honest questions:

Weren't pre-existing condition exclusions only relevant if the condition was diagnosed when the person was uninsured and only when that person was buying an individual policy (so you could still get coverage through an employer group policy)?

Also, even if the condition was diagnosed while the person was uninsured, what would happen if they subsequently spent a long period of time insured under a group policy? When the person went back to the individual market, they'd have a long paper trail of being insured from the group policy. Would a new individual insurer really be able to figure out that, years ago, the person was uninsured years ago when they were diagnosed?

> Weren't pre-existing condition exclusions only relevant if the condition was diagnosed when the person was uninsured and only when that person was buying an individual policy (so you could still get coverage through an employer group policy)?

I can't speak for anyone other than my Floridian self but my hypercholesterol diagnosis was while insured on a group policy and became a pre-existing excludable condition when I set up shop on my own and bought an individual policy.

> so you could still get coverage through an employer group policy

There was no employer to offer me group coverage. It was my way or the highway.

> Also, even if the condition was diagnosed while the person was uninsured, what would happen if they subsequently spent a long period of time insured under a group policy? When the person went back to the individual market, they'd have a long paper trail of being insured from the group policy. Would a new individual insurer really be able to figure out that, years ago, the person was uninsured years ago when they were diagnosed?

I hear you, but really all it takes is a question on the insurance application to find out the info. If I'm asked I answer honestly not only because it's a felony to do otherwise but because false answers on insurance policy questionairres is an easy win for the insurance company that wants to avoid claim payment. If I were to lie though it wouldn't be a walk in the park but finding out the adverse info is definitely do-able and so long as preexisting conditions can be excluded there's a tremendous monetary incentive to find this stuff out. They can tap into the place that tracks health issues for life insurance companies (the Medical Info Bureau) to find out even more or simply write all of my physicians and ask them directly.

My wife is in the same boat. She has a thyroid issue and her policy came with an exclusion for everything associated with hyperthyroid. This is pretty much the entire book of morbid cardiovascular conditions.

At this point I'm job locked: If I leave (or am laid off) the individual market will exclude the hell out of both of us.

>with recent evidence suggesting that a good chunk, say half, of the population has no interest in progressing.

Has it crossed your mind that this half might not see what you want as progress but instead destructive?

While this is a valid question, most people understand the fundamental concept of "disagreeing", even if they've considered the opposition and rejected it (perhaps justly, perhaps unjustly, by some metric). Therefore, I'd try to expand on this thought - your single sentence is a little hostile and curt. It doesn't really lead anywhere.

If you simply see it politically, then sure. I see progress as a fairly objective goal. We may differ on how, but surely we can agree on the facts and what the definition of better is.

A policy that's objectively better for one person might be objectively worse for another. I know several people whose health insurance became worse (more expensive for less coverage) due to Obamacare.

I believe that the government should focus strictly on macro outcomes. I.e big goals, like "more people covered by medical insurance" or "average life expectancy increase", etc. It's impossible at a high level to ensure that every last person gets a better outcome.

I'd also say that if anybody really did end up with more expensive policies with worse coverage, that's a continuing fault with our insurance companies. If they were functioning correctly, then an increase in policy premium after ACA would indicate that the consumer was not accurately assessing their own risk previously and thought their coverage was far more extensive than in reality. I haven't yet found an actual example of someone who really did get less coverage that cost more. Inevitably they are comparing an old plan that had basically no actual, effective coverage to one with far fewer loopholes.

>I'd also say that if anybody really did end up with more expensive policies with worse coverage, that's a continuing fault with our insurance companies. If they were functioning correctly, then an increase in policy premium after ACA would indicate that the consumer was not accurately assessing their own risk previously

Nope, it means that the risk pools changed and now everyone has to pay significantly more because they are paying for people with existing conditions. The only people that didn’t end up paying more are the ones who receive subsidies they didn’t previously.

The old plans were better if you didn’t have a condition because you were pooled with cheaper people to care for. Loophole reduction only plays a small part in that.

ACA changed health insurance from being insurance into a country-wide health program for already sick people. Insurance is a terrible vehicle for that. It was a horrible compromise and single payer would have been worlds better once you’re already down the path of that level of government intervention.

I see using nuclear to the fullest extent possible to displace all coal, gas, and wind generation as progress.

This view is directly at odds with the “progressive party” in the US that is convinced the only way forward is prayers that we will come up with an energy storage solution to make up for the instability of wind/solar while continuing to allow nat gas and coal in the interim while climate change marches on.

In my views, every time the government increases taxes and starts more individual and corporate welfare programs, that is the opposite of progress because it’s very rare that the government executes something effectively with self sustaining income.

Cap and trade is progress. Random bans on industries are not. And on and on.

So yes, we can certainly agree on facts, but I don’t think many people can agree on what the definition of better is because that’s definitely subjective.

Cortez and Sanders were elected on socialist platforms and they want nothing but massive government expansion of welfare programs that they see as “progress” and “better”. Their proposals so far have massive funding flaws and/or are ripe to fail in a short period of time (in my view) so I don’t see them pushing progress or anything better.

Blaming the people is never productive; instead engage with the people. Don't forget to throw out the bums in office (see, mid-term elections).

Israel’s warfare system is far more advanced than the US.

Paid for by the US taxpayer of course.

When is the last time Israel was able to project power thousands of miles from it's border for nearly two decades? They have cool toys no doubt but, not really compares to our arsenal in human history.

Considering Israel is increasingly succeeding in making it illegal for Americans to protest them, I would answer your question with, "A minute ago?"

This is a very strange area to discuss. And given the grayed out text, you've already been downmodded.

I had this, err, debate on Reddit recently. I am against the actions Israel is taking against Palestine. I view it as an atrocity in its own right. (There, I said my part. Please hear the rest out.)

From that, I said I was against the actions of violence. However I was attacked and called an antisemite. And it wasn't one person. It was quite a few. Something is going on, in that criticizing bad actions makes me construed as some sort of a hater (read: racist, sexist, ageist, nationalist, etc).

Obviously this also has other broad implications. If I disagree with practices of X, means I somehow hate X, even if I don't. I also see that similar viewpoint bandied here at HN, primarily with the once-a-month article about women and tech (which devolves into flamewars and large swaths of comments being disconnected by dang).

What's going on here? It's certainly a phenomenon which I'm seeing accelerated. Is this the growing pains of having hypercommunication across the world? Is this the problem of having up-to-the-second news?

Watch "The Lobby" by The Electronic Intifada. It will shed a lot of light onto what you're describing.

Oh yeah, "Electronic Intifada", a truly quality journalistic source that totally wouldn't tell you the Jews control America or anything.

God fucking damnit I hate these conversations. No, we don't manipulate the bloody government! We're less than 2% of the population. You know who passes all those laws "outlying" criticism of Israel, none of which have stood up in court, ever? Evangelical Christian Republicans.

Not American Jews or Israeli exiles, who, again, mostly vote Democratic and make up an insignificantly small fraction of the total population.

I disagree. I'm sure they have some cool toys, but they are not even in the same league in terms of overall military capability as the US. Their military is very specialized to deal with their specific circumstances. The US can conduct full-scale warfare anywhere around the globe, in the air, sea, on land, or in near-earth orbit.

Israel's Navy is a joke. They have nothing of any relevance except a handful of subs that might be capable of launching nuclear missiles. They have no destroyers, no cruisers, and most importantly, no aircraft carriers.

Aren't destroyers, cruisers and carriers considered antiquated in a modern / all out war? A few times a year, I see articles about how these slow moving, once mighty behemoths would make easy targets for newer anti-ship missiles / tech.

Nuclear armed submarines are probably their most important defensive asset.

So is Israel smart for not wasting money on a huge naval fleet?

You can't project power across the globe with tiny ships. It becomes a matter of supply and ability to launch aircraft. You can't do the same things with a tiny ship as you can with an airwing.

Also, destroyers and cruisers are primarily used as missile-firing platforms anyway. And good luck countering enemy submarines without destroyers of your own.

And I think you are overestimating how large destroyers are. They're basically the minimum size necessary to have a warship that can sail the world's oceans independently.

> You can't project power across the globe with tiny ships

Agreed, and currently a modern Navy and it's ability to "projct power" is unmatched.

I just see a lot of commentary about how these large boats would be sitting ducks for modern missile systems. I'm not arguing that they are, just that it's been suggested and I'm wondering if Israel's decisions regarding defense are effected by this (probably not)

Your other two points were good as well - thanks for contributing.

They haven't proven to be ducks for modern missile systems yet, though. And we've used our carrier strike forces to devastating effect in many countries since WWII. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan didn't see any major naval losses, and would have been impossible without the ability to project power and air supremacy clear across the globe that our Navy affords us. Sure, most countries don't need to be able to wage those kinds of wars and thus don't need such naval capabilities, but you're also not a first rate power if you can't do that.

There is no such thing as a modern all out war because of the massive US military and nukes.

Israel doesn’t need to worry about an invasion because it can fall back on the US.

> There is no such thing as a modern all out war

I generally agree. When I've debated this topic with others they basically say the carrier groups will be the first to go, but the response from nuclear submarines, and hidden fixed launch sites would be overwhelming.

Again, I'm not arguing this point, just suggesting that some may argue a strong Navy is antiquated.

We really need to address the absolute cost of healthcare in this country before we can make any progress on nationalizing any portion of it. The pure costs are outrageous. We spend ~$10,000 per capita in 2017 vs ~$6,000 in Norway which has a similar per capita GDP. (PPP adjusted https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-...)

Actually that's not that bad for the United States since the obesity rate in the US is 4x that of Norway.

If the US got its obesity rate under control, we could save a lot of money (less hypertension, less diabetes).

The US health care system is a very well run billing machine with average (compared to other developed nations) health outcomes as a lucky side-effect.

I pay $6000+/year in health insurance in the US + deductibles + co-pays + + + and I don't even know if they'll cover me when shit really hits the fan - but hey, I'll get a flu shot "for free".

Check profit margins for companies in the health care space, they're pretty good.

Do you have any studies that you can point to that support this view? It’s OK if you can’t or don’t. I’ve heard this point of view often but it doesn’t jive with my anecdotal experience.

Diabetes and hypertension both increase the risks of coronary artery disease, cerebrovascular disease, renal disease, peripheral vascular disease, blindness, heart chamber enlargement and failure, localized infections, decreased wound healing requiring increased post-op surveillance and complications, obstructive sleep apnea (obesity) and its associated problems including pulmonary hypertension and heart failure.

As you can see, obesity is a leading risk for all these problems.

We need to fix obesity.

Yes we’d save a lot of money but do you have studies to show that fixing obesity would mean that we’d spend much less per capita on healthcare than we currently do? And by much less I mean get to Norway levels of per capita spending on healthcare.

Nationalizing it is the single biggest possible step towards getting costs under control.

Absolutely, and that's one of the rationales for incentive changes enacted under ACA. Before ACA, health systems were incentivized fee-for-service, not outcomes based. Under ACA we shifted to try to offer Americans options for preventative care, to avoid the extreme costs of emergency services. According to the same site[1] cost growth has come down as more people take advantage of their coverage.

1. https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-spe...

Things like cost controls and universal coverage are synergistic. People with coverage will seek earlier, cheaper remedies over waiting to the last minute expensive emergency care.

Republicans and conservative Democrats have allied to sabotage the ability for universal service to control cost. From the abandonment of the Public Option in the ACA marketplace, to disallowing Medicare Part D from negotiating with drug manufacturers for lower prices. We've been effectively hamstrung, but that means there's plenty of low-hanging fruit.

Yeah I was definitely hoping for a more aggressive overhaul in the cost side than what we saw with ACA but, it seemed to play out in typical DC fashion once the lobbyists got their teeth into it.

Somehow I doubt that most people are thinking of where they want to live in terms of "returns on taxation"

Maybe not directly, but that's the cause. Most people want to live somewhere clean, with low crime, good infrastructure, and jobs. Most cities have tax-funded programs for all of those things. If they aren't on par, then there's two culprits: a) not enough tax dollars, b) taxes aren't being used effectively. Personally, I think it's almost always the latter. You can look at the historical effectiveness of most programs, and coincidentally, they seem to get less effective as more money becomes available.

There are other things that governments do besides tax and spend. Things like individual and civil rights and freedoms, etc.

The United States doesn't have a monopoly on liberty and civil rights. 45% of all countries are "free" using The United State's own definition of the term [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_House

Indeed, seeking particular rights and freedoms might be a reason to live outside the United States.

It's not clear where the emphasis on taxation is coming from. It's not in the underlying article and the polling shows only two wealth categories.

Based on the data it's age that determines whether or not to leave the US, which makes sense since there'd be shallower roots to leave behind.

Federal healthcare spending is much larger than military spending:

https://media.nationalpriorities.org/uploads/total_spending_...

(from https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud... )

It's unfortunate the chart includes social security, which isn't quite tax and spend the way most of the rest of the federal budget is.

To most people, Social Security is seen as a tax, since it comes out of your paycheck in the form of a "Social Security Tax".

It's also an unusually regressive tax, because it's flat rate, which isn't that bad if what it funds is progressively delivered (i.e. paid out the same to everyone rather than based on how much income you had), but it isn't. And then on top of that there is an income cap above which you don't pay any more.

It’s paid out based on how much you contributed. Flat rate doesn’t mean everyone pays the same thing, it means same percentage.

That's the problem. Progressive means taking from the rich and giving to the poor. It's possible to do that with flat taxes when they pay for a uniform benefit, so everyone pays 20% and everyone receives $10,000, because paying 20% is $50,000 for someone with a lot and $5000 for someone with a little.

Social security doesn't do that. The rich get back everything they put in. Or more when you were forced to put money into social security and then couldn't use it for healthcare, then receive nothing because you don't live long enough, while the rich people who outlive you get the money you paid.

Progressive (when used in the context of taxes), does not mean this. It means that contribution increases progressively with income. What you are describing are redistributionary taxes. A flat tax of 10% on all incomes could still redistribute all of what the rich pay to the poor.

> Progressive (when used in the context of taxes), does not mean this. It means that contribution increases progressively with income.

That is the same thing once you account for where the tax money goes, which it is unreasonable not to do.

For example, if you have a 25% tax that pays for a $10,000 UBI, there is a single marginal rate but the tax system is progressive because the effective rate is a curve. Someone at $20,000 pays $5000 and receives $10,000, net $5000, an effective tax rate of -25%. The effective tax rate is 5% at $50,000, 12.5% at $80,000, increasing asymptotically to 25% with higher incomes.

Compare this with a version of social security that charged higher marginal rates for higher income people, but all benefits are still paid out in proportion to what each person paid in multiplied by their lifespan. There is nothing progressive about this -- if everyone lived the same amount of time it would be exactly breakeven, and since in practice the rich live longer it thereby becomes regressive.

Counting in lifespans is pretty senseless though. If your beef is with that then it would be much more effective to charge women more for social security than men. Smokers should get a social security discount along with obese people. Use actuarial tables from life insurance companies if you want it to be fair based on what people are expected to get out of it. Finally, the rich don’t really outlive the middle class by enough of a factor to matter (especially compared to the ones above).

> The rich get back everything they put in.

Source?

To most people it is a tax, because you're paying it but not getting any benefits from it (yet). This applies generally to any form of public spending that only benefits some smaller segment of the population.

The same for Medicare; everyone pays the payroll tax but most don't get to use it. We'd have more personal sense of investment in our social programs if they helped people more widely, e.g. everyone of every age can use the healthcare they're being taxed for in countries that have nationalized it.

The important question is not whether the spending is high. The important question is whether the spending is effective.

Yes, that was my point. It isn't that we don't have well funded public programs, it's that we don't bother with sensible regulation.

The US actually spends as much public money on healthcare as many other countries with universal heathcare, it’s just that it is spent very inefficiently.

This would be the return on investment aspect of my comment. We spend massively more per capita on healthcare and yet not everyone is covered and it isn’t free at point of contact. It’s easy to design an inefficient system when the goal is not actually caring about the people.

While I agree with the general sentiment, I think this stresses an emphasis on taxes that isn't right. Do you think these people would still be unsatisfied if the tax rate was 0%? I do.

Dissatisfaction with the govt does not necessarily mean dissatisfaction with the return on the investment of taxes. I want kids to be educated, people to be healthy, and that desire doesn't change if my tax rate is 0% or 80%. Sure, there's a point at which I think that taxes aren't the answer, but the root desire is not about taxes, they are merely a means to an end.

Many of the libertarian-leaning folks here will have a very different view of the above, but I think that would be apples and oranges - they view govt as either inefficient or unjust, but the issues in this article are different, about effectiveness and functioning.

> Dissatisfaction with the govt does not necessarily mean dissatisfaction with the return on the investment of taxes. I want kids to be educated, people to be healthy, and that desire doesn't change if my tax rate is 0% or 80%. Sure, there's a point at which I think that taxes aren't the answer, but the root desire is not about taxes, they are merely a means to an end.

The issue is about efficiency. If you pay $2000 in taxes, you want to be getting >=$2000 in value for it. If you have to pay $5000, the value needs to be >=$5000.

The problem in the US is that government efficiency is a disgrace. We spend more on the military than most other countries combined and get... what, oil? We already have oil. And we need less of it, not more.

Our healthcare costs are outrageous and rather than do anything at all to actually address the cost, we just keep increasing the amount of tax money that gets thrown at it -- which only raises the costs further.

Social security is designed to sound progressive when it's really a transfer of wealth from poor to rich (because the rich live longer), and which deprives the poor of money during their working years that they could have used to send their children to college and other investments in the future, intentionally making the choice to retire later or rely on that investment they could (and now can't) make in their children to support them in their old age. Or for that matter have just invested the same money in a major index ETF, which has always had better long-term returns than social security to begin with.

If we were getting what we're getting now and paying half the taxes then everything would be fine, because then you don't have free healthcare but you do have the amount of money it costs to buy healthcare. It would also be fine if we were paying what we are now but getting twice as much. But we're not.

> If we were getting what we're getting now and paying half the taxes then everything would be fine

This is the statement I disagree with. Me having a few thousand extra $ at the end of the year does not give the homeless homes, does not allow me to comparison shop for healthcare, does not tell me if the drug at the store is actually real, does not ensure the schools are safe and effective. And I can't buy those by myself for that extra cash. This is how the people under discussion in this article are feeling.

We won't resolve libertarian principles and divides here, but WITHIN THE SCOPE OF THIS ARTICLE, my argument is that the dissatisfied people would not be content if the tax rate is zero, because they aren't dissatisfied about the tax rate. That there is a separate group of people that ARE dissatisfied about the tax rate can be true without being relevant to the first group.

> And I can't buy those by myself for that extra cash.

Why not? If you had thousands of dollars a year in extra cash, you could donate to homeless shelters, pay the higher healthcare premiums, subscribe to a service that would independently validate pharmacies, pay for good private schools or donate to scholarship funds, etc.

More to the point, you wouldn't need to pay for them to the extent that they already exist. There currently are homeless shelters and multiple health insurance companies and an FDA and mostly reasonable public schools. But they cost twice as much as they ought to or more. The healthcare market in the US is completely broken, but it's completely broken by inefficient regulations. Some of the costs of the inefficiency are paid in private health insurance premiums rather than tax dollars, but the problem is still the inefficiency.

> Why not?

Drifting off-topic, but the short version is that "subscribe to a service that would independently validate pharmacies" (meaning everything on the shelf at the pharmacy), validating schools, etc all comes down to recreating work that the govt does and then making sure that it's more cost-effective to provide good value than it is to be deceptive about providing good value. I suppose I should get a few degrees to make sure I know how to evaluate these different areas. Hopefully I know which schools will teach me for real and not deliver empty bombastic lies. There's a reason that everywhere that does a good job at these (IMHO) have plenty of taxes.

Ultimately it's a war between where you want efficiency (private market) and reliability (govt).

All of which is mostly unrelated to the point I made above: The people under discussion are upset about results, not taxation. Even if you are 100% correct that giving them their tax money will allow them to fix the issues they are upset about, that's not the same as actually fixing them. And I, for one, pay taxes so that people with the right knowledge, authority, and economies of scale CAN fix those things. Giving me a tax refund is no different than refunding me for a product not delivered - it's better than losing the money, but I wanted the product.

> "subscribe to a service that would independently validate pharmacies" (meaning everything on the shelf at the pharmacy), validating schools, etc all comes down to recreating work that the govt does

That's kind of the point. If the government is doing a crappy job and you can get your money back, go take it to someone else who can do a better job. Maybe even your state or local government instead of the feds.

> and then making sure that it's more cost-effective to provide good value than it is to be deceptive about providing good value.

This is the exact problem we already have with the government. It isn't inefficient because nobody wants it that way, it's because of regulatory capture and corruption. The only way out of that is for the real party in interest (i.e. the citizens) to be paying attention.

But that doesn't work at the scale of the federal government, because a billion dollars in graft is a rounding error but it's still a billion dollars, so you get a billion dollars of incentive for corruption and the taxpayers only care about that specific thing as much as they care about 0.03% of their tax dollars. But the same is true for every other individual program, so corruption and waste is rampant.

The problem is that we keep comparing the US government to the governments of other countries when it's the individual US states that are at the scale of most other countries. The national healthcare systems in Europe aren't administered by the EU. They don't have a single military or school system. If they did they would have all the problems we have by trying to do it here -- that much centralization is too big a target for corruption and too easy to hide inefficiency in the complexity and scale. There is a point at which more scale no longer yields more efficiency and instead yields bureaucracy and inefficiency.

This will be my last comment on this thread as you've repeatedly failed to keep it topical, but I'm loathe to stop commenting and let your points appear persuasive by default. (the trap of the internet)

The issue is not that I trust the government, it's that I trust companies less. Governments have done a lot of bad things, and have done a lot of deception, but ultimately I trust their model of accountability more than I do companies. I'm not against being persuaded...but I don't see a lot of (any?) real world examples of this free-market utopia you describe, nor signs that it would come about. Instead, whenever govt reduces regulation too far, companies form monopolies, perform deceptive trade practices, and break the fundamental concepts of capitalism. That govt can over-regulate does not mean that (1) it must, nor (2) that it is.

All of which is irrelevant (again) to this article, which is stating that people are unhappy with the results. They aren't demanding tax cuts, they want the results. The primary obstacle to results in recent decades has not been the govt being bad at it's job, but people demanding the govt stop doing these things and cutting their funding to do so, then complaining about the govt's inability to fix things. These are the same people demanding bigger military funding and focus on oil, so the govt seems to be doing a decent job of doing what it's asked...it's just not what I and many others are asking for.

> I'm not against being persuaded...but I don't see a lot of (any?) real world examples of this free-market utopia you describe, nor signs that it would come about.

The common examples are invisible because nobody talks about things that are working. For example, ever have to buy a box of screws, or a hammer, or a piece of rope? Sold in any hardware store at low, transparent prices with minimal regulation and good quality.

> Instead, whenever govt reduces regulation too far, companies form monopolies, perform deceptive trade practices, and break the fundamental concepts of capitalism.

This is the trap of ideological purism. You can argue about "less regulation is better" or "more regulation is better" as an abstract principle but that's not a way to evaluate an individual regulation. Applying either principle blindly and universally would require either total anarchy or total authoritarianism, which isn't what anybody actually wants.

It's possible to eliminate necessary regulations while still having too many (or the wrong) other regulations -- this is in fact what commonly happens in Washington, because the people who win there are the people with the best lobbyists, whether they want to pass/preserve bad competition-destroying regulations or eliminate good competition-protecting ones.

The advantage of a general principle of less regulation, especially at the national level in an environment known to be wasteful and corrupt, is that you can find alternatives for the national government not doing something -- whether it's markets or citizen organizations or local government. But if they waste your resources on corruption and bureaucracy, you can't recover them to use for something better, which interferes with anybody doing something better.

> All of which is irrelevant (again) to this article, which is stating that people are unhappy with the results. They aren't demanding tax cuts, they want the results.

You keep saying this, but the article doesn't say that at all. It says that people are dissatisfied, not why. And given the demographics of the most dissatisfied groups, it wouldn't be the least bit surprising to learn that they would e.g. prefer to reduce military spending.

And if you do want the results, wasting tax money still interferes with that.

For example, you mention homelessness, but that is inherently a local issue. There is a major homelessness problem in San Francisco but not so much in Kansas. And you also can't solve it in SF by building shelters in Kansas. You can't even solve it in SF by building shelters in Bakersfield. The relationship it has with inefficient military spending is that they come from the same tax base -- if the people of San Francisco are paying taxes to fund the military, those dollars can't be used (by the local government or the people themselves) to address homelessness there. Resources are scarce. When the government wastes them, you no longer have them.

> The primary obstacle to results in recent decades has not been the govt being bad at it's job, but people demanding the govt stop doing these things and cutting their funding to do so, then complaining about the govt's inability to fix things.

Only the federal budget hasn't declined. It has been ~20% of GDP since the end of WWII and still is. Which means it has been growing over time, since real GDP per capita is up. If they're providing worse or fewer services than they used to, it's because they're doing less with more, not because they have less in total.

> These are the same people demanding bigger military funding and focus on oil, so the govt seems to be doing a decent job of doing what it's asked...it's just not what I and many others are asking for.

That is the corruption and inefficiency. The people asking for that are defense contractors and oil companies and their workers, who have tons of (taxpayer-sourced) money to lobby with are not a small voting block because the scope of the expenditures is so massive that it employs a large number of people. It's exactly the sort of thing we could reduce in order to lower taxes without impacting the level of actual services provided.

The idea that we can just take our tax dollars elsewhere and get better outcomes for less money doesn't seem realistic to me. At worst, these essential services just fall apart because not enough people would be willing to spend their tax refund on them. At best, we'll end up with the same thing because corporations are greedy and there's not really a good reason to have competition in pharmaceutical oversight.

Do you really want to have to shop around for a service that tells you which drugs are safe? You can't pick the cheapest because they probably cut corners or took industry kickbacks, but are you throwing away money if you pick the most expensive one? Do you just pick the average-priced option and hope they are trustworthy?

> At worst, these essential services just fall apart because not enough people would be willing to spend their tax refund on them.

That would imply that these "essential services" are worth less to people than the cost it takes to provide them. Especially when the primary customers for such a service would be doctors, so the typical patient wouldn't even have it as an independent cost separate from the doctor's visit.

> At best, we'll end up with the same thing because corporations are greedy and there's not really a good reason to have competition in pharmaceutical oversight.

Why would you not expect competition? We don't have a monopoly provider for credit reporting or product reviews.

> Do you really want to have to shop around for a service that tells you which drugs are safe?

Do you really want to not be able to? What happens when the FDA approves Vioxx or the dozens of other drugs they've approved, often on the market for decades, that will give you a heart attack or liver damage or cancer or birth defects?

Or even worse (since you can't opt-out), when they fail the other way and don't approve the only drug that would save your life?

I believe inefficiency is a red herring. I want the government to collect taxes to fund these efforts for two reasons:

1) So that we can have consistent, reliable, and widely-available services. 2) So the financial cost of society is spread fairly across everyone.

These are not guarantees the free market provides, because the market doesn't care about outcomes. Giving people tax breaks and hoping they donate it to homeless shelters will probably not help all the homeless people in the country. Switching the FDA to an opt-in subscription service will not prevent unsafe drugs from reaching consumers.

Sure I'd prefer government to run be as efficient as possible, but the goal isn't efficiency, it's better outcomes.

Consider that most, if not all, of these developed nations can afford the services you listed because America has vowed to protect them with it's military power.

We spend on military force so they don't have to. The money they save is used for the services you listed.

We could renegotiate, which is what President Trump is doing, yet Id guess Americans want to have the worlds largest and most advanced military. "He with the biggest stick" mentality.

We spend on military to protect our economic and imperial interests abroad, and no other reason.

I think this hits the nail on the head. I don't like our healthcare system, daycare like school system, lack of mass transit, and defense spending. In theory, of course I'd like to move to another country that better serves its citizens. Will I? Very doubtful. But as long as the government fails its people, a lot of them are going to -want- to leave.

I agree that we don't get a good return on the taxes we pay. But, defense spending is about 1/6 of the federal budget at around 3% of GDP. For comparison medicare/medicaid combined is about 5% of GDP. Apparently France spends 4% of GDP on healthcare total, not just for old people. I think the biggest problem with our system is not necessarily that defense spending is so high, but that our healthcare system is so inefficient.

much of the defense spending is hidden in other areas: like Dept of energy, dept of veteran affairs, homeland security, etc. So it's a lot bigger than it looks.

Where could I see numbers on this?

Isn’t the CIA, NSA, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Coast Guard (which is not part of the Pentagon), etc. all part of national defense? You can look up the public portion of their budgets online. The VA should be counted too since it’s a cost of national defense.

Also things like interest on the amount of debt used to fight wars

Probably dwarfed by borrowing required for the tax cut now.

Your conclusion is correct, your numbers are not - the spending gap is much higher (which supports your point even better)

US spending is over 18%, almost double the cost in France. Even the oh-so-expensive Switzerland spends ~12% of its GDP on healthcare.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/184968/us-health-expendi...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-spending/u-s-healt...

I disagree for the opportunities we have here and the amount of taxes we pay it's pretty great!

People contently use this false dichotomy around military spending to avoid acknowledging that we spend just as much or more on health care and other social services per capita as the other western nations. How we spend that money is just horribly inefficient!

We can have both the most advanced military and a solid social system if we can figure out how to get our social spending return on investment close to other western nation. Universal Health care would be a big step. Other stuff to look at is collapsing the number of social services agencies down to a more reasonable numbers, not removing the benefits. Actually auditing our system to figure out what is and what is not working rather then allocating money based on political appearances.

There was no false dichotomy in what I wrote. Our return on taxation is a horrible healthcare system and an extremely effective military. I mentioned nothing about level of spending. I mentioned the returns on said spending. Of corse we could have a powerful military and a good healthcare system but we don’t. We have the former but not the latter.

It’s an implied false dichotomy. There is no reason to mention the military spending otherwise.

I didn’t mention military spending or any other spending. I mentioned returns on taxation. What we get in return for our taxes in the U.S. is an overly expensive healthcare system, overly expensive education system, etc. and the only thing that really shines is the military. Hence, I’m disatisfied with the returns on taxation.

> How we spend that money is just horribly inefficient!

Well, it depends on what your goal is.

If it's to improve population-wide health care outcomes, then yes, we do a worse job than many other first world nations.

If it's to allow for a, ah, "vibrant" set of industries who can benefit from capturing social spending while providing mixed outcomes which we justify by enshrining the fundamental attribution error under the banner of "meritocracy" then perhaps we're being efficient after all.

"aren’t satisfied with the returns on taxation"

Ironic as American expats are still taxed, unless they give up citizenship.

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/when-us-citizens-liv...

https://www.americansabroad.org/us-taxes-abroad-for-dummies-...

The reduction in tax is still substantial.

I've heard scare stories of dual nationals who have never been to the US being taxed.

As far as I'm aware, its the only nation that taxes its citizens in that way.

How is there any reduction in tax if expats must still pay US taxes?

There is foreign earned income exclusion. Which stops at $100K but this is still a lot for many people.

I’m not American so it’s not my problem, but it’s what I hear from other tax exiles.

My parents are American but given the choice for me to become American I declined due to the whole tax issue.

https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/fore...

there is a "physical presence test" where you need to be resident outside the USA for 330 days or more a year.

https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/fore...

I’m a tax exile. It has been the best decision I have ever made. I now save 10x more money each year. More and more Americans are turning up every year doing the same thing. I love America but the idea of paying American taxes is just too much from a fiscal, moral, ideological point of view.

Where? Somewhere with decent jobs or do you need a remote gig?

I can’t say where I live as there are not enough expats here for me to stay anonymous but I can say work remotely for US companies.

> Ultimately this indicates that people aren’t satisfied with the returns on taxation.

No, not at all. In the US, it's not uncommon for partisans to threaten to "move to Canada" if the party they oppose wins the election. Here's are some examples (http://fortune.com/2016/11/08/election-move-canada-trump/).

All this indicates is that some people are dissatisfied with the results of an election and the party and politicians who are in power.

I can't help but feel that is misguided because it sounds like the only solution is to lower taxes and make people happy.

From my experience some of the reasons people in my circle have left / wish to leave the US are the following:

- Race relations have become more divisive. If you speak spanish in certain parts of the country you are outright asked to provide proof of citizenship as though you are a second class citizenship. BLM has also made counter movements more bold with my black friends being harassed more by the police over trivial things.

-Gun Violence. I live in Florida and have had two close calls with gun massacres in Parkland and Orlando. I am reaching the age where if I were to have kids I would have to make a cost/benefit analysis of their chances getting shot down in cold blood.

- Politics have become more divisive than ever. I have friends on both sides of the political spectrum and it is becoming unbearable if you are anything but a left/right wing radical. Either way every election ensures that 50% of the population is outright mad at all times.

-General Cultural Differences. In the US you need to have a car to get anywhere and opportunities for employment feel very limited outside the mega city centers which tend to be very car centric and have no real culture outside of a few museums.

Obviously it would help if the government was better organized but I don't see how the points I raised would be solved outside of a huge shift in culture.

I've seen reasons listed and also:

- Health Care. Before a few years ago, it was possible to be completely rejected by all carriers and not be able to buy it at any price. Even with insurance, a major illness or chronic condition can cost hundreds of thousands or even millions and wipe out a lifetime of savings.

That’s a fair point. I guess underlying my view on return on taxation is a belief that government ought to be there to support people. If Americans en masse could be convinced that this is what government ought to be about then the shift in culture you speak of might come about. Maybe then the public debate would be about what is efficacious and not the vapid vituperation that currently pervades American political discourse.

I'm well into the ~16% mentioned in this article, and you hit exactly on the reason why. Other countries may pay 10-20% more for their governments, but they are getting 100-200% more value from it.

We pay 4-10x the price of comparable first world countries for basic infrastructure like water, roads, and transit. We already pay more per capita for Medicare than most countries spend on universal health care. 15% of my earnings immediately go into a social welfare system that will be insolvent before I'm 50 years old. And even though our military has the best technology and funding in the world, we can't win wars against AK47s, IEDs, and Toyota Hiluxes. Paying taxes in the US is like throwing cash into a dumpster fire.

The sad thing is that due to tax rules on expat earnings, I can't just vote with my feet, I have to vote with my citizenship. That may not be the end of the world (I'm already on the path to dual citizenship with an EU country), but its a bit like getting a divorce because your husband spends too much on beer: it has to get really bad before it gets to the point of divorce. And for me, it's almost there.

I find it interesting how many comments here and on other sites that linked the same article talk about this being tied to concerns around how their tax dollars are spent. It seems many people are not aware that the US is one of only two countries which taxes it's citizens no matter where they reside. Leaving the US is not enough if you wish to avoid taxation, you must also acquire citizenship in another country, and then renounce your US citizenship. Both of those things are much more difficult than they appear at first glance, and renouncing US citizenship has extremely broad and far-reaching consequences.

Someone who has renounced their US citizenship is forever barred from ever getting citizenship, and their children are typically also barred from getting citizenship. In addition, they will pretty much always be denied a visa for entry, and they are ineligible for visa at arrival, and may have difficulty to get even pre-applied visas for visiting such as B-1/B-2.

If you decide to emigrate elsewhere and renounce your US citizenship to avoid paying taxes, you basically give up on ever coming back to the US ever, and you'll be watched like a hawk by every single US ally. Denouncing your citizenship is a pretty radical move and is something that hallmarks you as the type of person who might go join ISIS or something.

This is one reason why it doesn't matter how many people say they want to leave the US, almost none of them actually do it permanently. No matter what, you'll be paying taxes to build bombers, so you might as well enjoy the much higher quality of life on offer in the US while doing so. As someone who has traveled around the world extensively, staying in each place for very extended (months/years) periods of time, I can honestly say that despite all of its flaws, the US is still probably the best place one could possibly live inclusive of all factors. There is a reason we're a net importer of people rather than a net exporter.

Americans can't declare themselves as non-residents that don't need to pay tax? Canadians who work abroad can do that. And then if they ever move back home, they just have to declare residency again. It's a bit of a process to do both, of course, but it's definitely there. Without this, Canadians who work abroad also get taxed on their global income. Just if you're lucky to work in a country with which Canada has a tax treaty, you don't get double-taxed. You just pay for taxes for the difference on what you would need to have paid in Canada for the same income level if your current country has a lower tax rate.

American citizens pay US taxes, full stop. As the comment you're replying to says, this is very unusual among countries. Canada doesn't work the same way.

Although you don't get double-taxed, so if you're living anywhere where the tax rate is higher than in the US you pay nothing to the US. If you're living in a tax haven like the Bahamas then you do pay a substantial amount.

Even when you're not paying you have to continue filing US tax forms, though, which is annoying and complicated in international tax situations.

The US has tax treaties with pretty much every country that's a viable destination. [0] Double taxation is not really much of an issue. What is an issue, however, is that there still exists the requirement to file an annual return which can be a pretty expensive proposition over the years, especially if a person is retaining an accountant to handle things (as they should given the complexities of US non-resident citizen returns).

[0]: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/international-businesses/unit...

How can the US tax foreign income? Presumably they would have no idea about your earnings abroad.

It’s up to you to report it and it’s a crime not to.

Most places you'd want to move to have extradition treaties with the US.

Well, you've never lived abroad... Google FACTA some time when you're feeling cheerful for a real downer. The IRS and Treasury basically treating the world wide banking system as their dominion.

Expats usually don't renounce because of the worldwide taxation rules (though they don't help); they renounce because of FACTA.

> Well, you've never lived abroad

Maybe he's not American?

Many countries are now sharing this info, with stiff penalties for non-reporting.

It's worth mentioning that this only affects the middle class. There's a 100k deduction on the low end, while the rich have staff to hide the money at the top.

While it is true, isn't only after the first 100K USD or so that you have to pay taxes on??

Source?

Not exactly. The FEIE limit is $100,800 USD, but you still MUST file a tax return every year, no matter what, and no matter where you reside. It is extremely expensive to file that return and you pretty much must retain an accountant who understands the tax laws of the US for non-residents and your resident country's tax laws. FEIE only covers situations in which you can prove non-residence, and only makes you whole for the amount of difference between the tax you would have paid in the US and the tax you paid in your resident country for that time period. If you make over $100,800 USD, you will need to pay taxes in full to the US in the brackets above that amount, regardless of FEIE.

If you make say $135k/yr as a senior engineer for a US company, you will actually pay so much in taxes abroad and to the US, even with FEIE, that it's better to ask for a salary reduction below the $100,800 USD FEIE limit.

If you are working in a high-tax country, like any of the European ones, aren't you paying so much tax to that country that your US tax liability is essentially zero? Due to credit for foreign income taxes paid, separate from FEIE?

I.e. if an American moved to Netherlands and made 100k of which 40k went to Dutch taxes, wouldn't they effectively pay $0 in US because the credit for 40k paid to the foreign govt would wipe out the US tax liability (which would have been about $20k depending on status, deductions, etc)

Yes and no. It's actually really complicated. For instance, you can be taxed on earnings against foreign-owned assets, such as stocks, bonds, ETFs, futures, commodities, and ownership in investment real property, which is not excluded from taxation in FEIE. FEIE only affects income tax, not capital gains tax or other forms of taxation. It also does not exempt you from FICA (Medicare, Social Security, et al).

So you're working for a US tech company that issued you RSUs and options in the US market, and you also bought an apartment in your foreign country of residence, and you also happened to buy some ETFs once on the London Stock Exchange. Good luck with filing without an accountant or being audited :)

Also, have fun ever selling foreign property. Being subject to expatriated taxes means you are automatically ineligible for real estate capital gains exemption. Decide to move to a better apartment and sell your old one in a foreign country? Welp, now you owe capital gains on the sale with no exemptions allowed, even though the transaction had nothing to do with the US in any way. [2]

In addition, if you earned over the FEIE limitation, you'd be fully taxed in that bracket by the US AND by your resident country. Some EU member nations have special taxation rules especially for US expats (Germany for instance) thanks to a cozy relationship and a huge number of US foreign nationals living there (civilian employees of the US military, for instance). In general though, you'd be strictly double-taxed on income. You also get no credit against paying VAT, which is a significant tax in the EU.

Trust me, I am speaking from experience here, there is nothing at all simple about paying US taxes while living abroad or even filing an accurate return. You're also at higher audit risk. You basically /have/ to hire an expensive accountant (or be lucky enough that the US government supplies/augments one if you're a government employee).

Also if you own real property in the United States, you are automatically excluded from being eligible for FEIE. I owned my home in the US while I was abroad, which meant I was never entitled to FEIE unless I transferred the property into ownership of a trust (like a REIT) or sold it. If I moved it into a trust, I'd have to pay taxes off any gains made and those would not be excluded and do not have to be fully realized to be taxable in some scenarios.

Taxes are really really really complicated in general, and US taxes are bonkers stupid complicated. And then there's FATCA, so good luck even trying to get away not filing a return or dealing with this situation [1].

Basically, the short answer is if you are a US citizen and you move abroad, be ready to get shafted hard by the IRS and also pay extensively for the privilege of telling them how hard to shaft you.

[1]: https://www.usexpattaxhelp.com/us-american-expats-what-%20is... [2]: https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/taxes/selling-home-capital-g...

P.S.: Sorry about all the edits in a short amount of time. I kept finding more things I thought needed to be said. I'll leave this response alone now.

Thanks for the response.

I was reading this in the interim: https://tax.kpmg.us/content/dam/tax/en/pdfs/2019/2019-us-tax...

The answer to my question appears to be on the bottom of page 8, which paraphrased is that FEIE and Foreign Income Tax Credit are exclusive, so high income earners may wish to take the latter rather than the former (and the latter is what prevents double-taxation).

That document is pretty good and relatively thorough. Interestingly enough, when I was working for a US company abroad, they used KPMG Global Mobility Services to help me with my taxes and relocation and all of that.

FEIE And Foreign Income Tax Credit are for different situations. In my situation initially, I would have taken FITC to try to avoid double taxation, but in my later situation I wanted to take FEIE but was ineligible and was also ineligible for FITC. Deciding which to take can actually be a complicated question.

I don't want to go into further detail on my situation, but I will say that things are greatly simplified if you go all-in on being an expat, without retaining any property in the US and you intend to limit travel outside the country you expatriated to.

I don't think it's so terrible. E.g. if you buy real estate and live in it, then you can deduct 250K gains for a single person or 500K gains for a couple. To that end, you'll only be paying capital gains if you did very well.

That’s only true for property in the US as a US resident in that property. Read the last bullet of my link. Expatriate taxpayers are ineligible for real estate capital gains exemptions.

Yes and no, but in the simple case: that's right, in a higher-than-us-tax country, you will likely only pay a tax advisor, the host country's tax, but not any US tax.

I was under the impression that you only pay taxes to USA while living abroad if you move somewhere with lower income taxation than the USA, in which case you deduct the taxes paid to the other government from US taxes and pay the difference. This means most people don’t have to pay taxes to the USA while abroad because most countries tax you more than USA federal income tax rates.

That is not how it works. No matter where you reside, you MUST file a tax return every year. There is something called the Foreign Earned Income Exemption (FEIE), which is relatively significant but only applies to the first $100,800 USD to earned that year, and does not apply to limits on taxation against foreign owned assets.

If you are making a senior engineer salary at a US company but living abroad, you will be taxed quite heavily since you'll need to pay taxes in your country of residence, plus be taxed on income at the higher brackets over $100k in the US.

From your other comments it seems like you're well versed in this stuff, but here there's some missing nuance.

Most countries have double taxation treaties.

1. If the tax rate is lower in your host country, you pay tax on income greater than 100K minus whatever tax you paid in your host country. Let's call the US tax rate 35 and the host country 30%, and your income 110: You pay 5% to the US, e.g. 500 USD (plus, probably a similar amount to a tax advisor)

2. If the tax rate is higher in your host country, you deduct your host countries taxes from your US tax and only pay the tax advisor.

> Someone who has renounced their US citizenship is forever barred from ever getting citizenship, and their children are typically also barred from getting citizenship. In addition, they will pretty much always be denied a visa for entry, and they are ineligible for visa at arrival, and may have difficulty to get even pre-applied visas for visiting such as B-1/B-2.

This does not appear to be true, can you provide sources?

The State department's website makes it clear that you'll be treated as any other "foreigner", and a Google search shows plenty of articles noting that while _near impossible_, there is at least a possibility you can regain citizenship - but you'll be competing against the entire world.

Also, your children can get their citizenship if they were born in the U.S., as long as they apply within 6 months of their 18th birthday.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-lega...

I don't have a documented source, it's based on conversations I had at one point with State Department officials when I considered permanently emigrating to a country I'd lived in (In the EU) for a number of years. I wanted to avoid being double-taxed, since the FEIE wasn't sufficient to make me whole. I ended up moving back to the US (for non-economic reasons).

The thing you need to understand is that the State Department/US Government has extremely broad leeway under the law in how they process citizenship applications. What the letter of the law says is almost meaningless, what matters is that you get 1) Lucky, and 2) Don't have black marks against you. Denouncing your US Citizenship is basically the ultimate black mark, and you are frankly never getting past it unless you are personal friends with the President or something.

> [...] the US is still probably the best place one could possibly live inclusive of all factors. There is a reason we're a net importer of people rather than a net exporter.

The first sentence is a highly subjective opinion, and the second one is biased. I'll try to bring some (factual) dissonance.

Most immigrants into the USA come from Latin America and Asia. I haven't found recent immigration balances between the USA and other rich countries, but I doubt it would always be a net import to the US, especially if one considers permanent immigration. For instance, more American citizens (120k) live in Australia than the contrary (90k).

As for the USA being the best place to live, it's surely not based on life expectancy. Even the CIA world facts ranks the country after the 40th position, with many English speaking counties better ranked. The obesity rate of 39% is probably the largest factor of this lower quality of life.

Now for a subjective opinion, I like my way of life because I live in a town where I can walk/run to the nearest mountain in half an hour, I go to work on a bicycle-only road, I buy fresh food in a nearby open-air market where farmers sell their own production, I only use my car on week-ends... Many countries offer all this, but I suspect few places in the USA could compare. And when I went to dentist this morning, I did not even bring my wallet, because I knew that, like almost everyone in the country, I don't have to pay for basic care.

I like America. I find its people, at least offline, to be warm and generous. I love the outdoors and the massive breadth of natural beauty in this country.

However, it is very painful to me that part of my income gets funneled into the pockets of mass murderers. If I were to choose to leave this country it would have to be to some place that at the very least, spends less of my income on endless war. It's a real shame there is basically no peace movement anymore.

>It's a real shame there is basically no peace movement anymore.

It exists, but the form it takes has been highly stigmatized to the point of presently being litigated out of existence by the current Senate[1].

Call them 202-224-3121 and express your displeasure at the outlawing of peaceful resistance to occupation.

1. https://theintercept.com/2019/01/05/u-s-senates-first-bill-i...

You are the second person to link me to an article about this bill today - absolute insanity.

"I would love to travel" and "I would love to live somewhere else" are some of the most worthless declarations I've ever heard.

You'll find that people don't even want to invoke the tiniest bit of effort to realize either of those ambitions. Instead people prefer the self-limiting beliefs of why they cannot, like it somehow being expensive or that everything will collapse in their absence as if their life is a house of cards.

Anyone who has lived abroad in a cheap country and dealt with a barrage of "omg I wish I could do what you do" knows what I'm talking about. At first you think people mean it, but the instant you challenge them on it, you realize they prefer the Skinner box of desiring rather than having.

I see that people are assuming that the ones who want to leave do so because they feel the government is insufficiently liberal. The truth is, I have met some people who wish they could leave to go somewhere more conservative. I think that everyone would want to leave the US if somewhere out there was a utopia that exactly implemented their political and social views. The main thing that tamps down that desire is the fact that such places rarely exist.

>The truth is, I have met some people who wish they could leave to go somewhere more conservative.

That sounds weird. Where are they going to move to? There are only a few select places in the world with freedom of speech, which seems like a very necessary value to be a conservative in the current times.

My first thought was Asia.

What country exactly? I heard Japan has free speech.

A new Confederacy located in the former US South.

Anecdotal evidence isn't really all that interesting.

Gotta source on that? /s

STEM education.

Anecdotal evidence is interesting because it prompts you to consider the mechanism by which that one case might arise, and it also proves that such a thing is possible. It's basically a statement with the logical qualifier "There exists...".

Anecdotally, I am sure there are people who wish that the USA was more conservative, and who would leave if there were an appealing alternative.

But given that this spike in potential ex-pats corresponds with two years of unprecedented bad leadership by a largely Conservative/Traditionalist President - I find it hard to believe that this has anything to do with Conservatives finding America to be too left-leaning. If that were the case, such a spike would have been seen during the 8 years Obama was president, not after two years of Conservative domination of the American government.

Furthermore, pinning all of this on the economic theory of Liberalism is either oversimplification, or a complete misunderstanding of leftist ideologies. If anything, the left is becoming less liberal, and more socialist.

The real culture war going on right now appears to be between Capitalism vs. Socialist Policy & Traditionalism vs. Progressivism.

> The truth is, I have met some people who wish they could leave to go somewhere more conservative.

It's ironical because it's mostly conservatives who seem to be against immigration (into America) and yet they want to migrate to another country.

Unrelated to the reason that was listed in the article, but I've spoken to numerous people over the last couple of years who've expressed they would like to leave due to the US's culture.

Although this is a beautiful, diverse, and free country (compared to the rest of the world), everything in the US revolves around work and money.

There is no way people answer truthfully on these surveys, since the numbers don't come anywhere close to actual emigration; it seems more of a vote of dissent against the government.

It's a simple gap between wishes/hopes and actions. Way more people make new year's resolutions to lose weight than actually follow through on that, too, and eating less is easier than spending your whole life.

% of people who will actually leave the US?

I'd wager near 0.

[citation needed]

From the article:

> It's important to note that people's desire to migrate is typically much higher than their intention to do so -- as such, it is unlikely that Americans will be flocking to the Canadian border. In fact, since Trump's election, Canadian statistics show only a modest uptick in the number of Americans who have moved to Canada.

"modest uptick" != 0

Not negligible, not imperceptible ... modest.

I'd wager it's negative, actually. :-)

yes, but that's going to be more a result of financial restrictions, not lack of real desire.

We left. Three years ago, for Spain. We're not planning on returning, barring some sort of international catastrophe.

If you don't mind me asking...

Did you find a job before you left?

Did you already speak Spanish?

Do you have any good resources for someone looking to do exactly this?

Would you mind sharing some of your experience (to whatever level you're comfortable with)?

I actually have spanish citizenship as well as my US one, and have considered moving there (temporarily or permanently) to be closer to family a couple of times.

I left, in my early 20s, mostly as a way to expand my horizons and escape the suffocating conservative religious environment I grew up in.

I recently came back to get a career in IT going, but will be moving again soon.

Partially it's just really hard to move, visas can be hard to come by and moving away from family is difficult. For what it's worth though my parents currently live in Amsterdam (and love it) and my in laws moved to Canada. My cousin moved to New Zealand, my uncle to Rome, and my wife is trying to convince me to go to England. It's obviously an outlier case but about 1/4 of my family has left and they all seem to prefer being out.

Outside a few job categories like tech emigration is quite difficult so I also expect the actual number to be quite low. A lot of people may also realize that other countries also have a lot of problems. The US is a pretty good place to live. This is coming.from.a German who lives in the US and is generally quite critical of this country.

>Outside a few job categories like tech emigration is quite difficult

This is the flip side of the whole "I'd like to leave the US" movement that is hardly ever talked about. A lot of people who express these desires to leave and gain citizenship elsewhere simply do not have the credentials to do so.

It looks like the State Department doesn't keep such a statistic, but the estimate is in the vicinity of 2%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_diaspora

It's definitely non-zero, but there's also no evidence actual percentage of expats has increased even if reported desire to become one has increased.

I don't want to leave the US. But I was in England on a business trip last fall, and I was talking to some people. They mentioned thinking about leave England (I think because of Brexit fallout). For the first time, I could not recommend that they come to the US.

A lot of people in developed nations dont find the US an attractive destination, based on things that wouldnt define their user experience at all (human rights, south side chicago violence)

The most closest analogy would be how Americans dont find China to be an attractive destination, for reasons they would never experience (human rights, poverty) or would most likely benefit from (credit scores)

1.5x the population of Canada wants to move to Canada.

They better be able to prove their skills, since Canada only accepts skilled immigrants.

Or people seeking asylum. But yes, the Venn diagram of people who answered "yes" in this poll and those who would qualify for asylum is probably small.

Bah, asylym. I bet a significant fraction of those surveyed think they can just walk over the border and live there.

I'm sorry, but what does that add, other than by going "bah, I'll make up things about people I don't care for"?

That people nearly universally think that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, whereas it's really not. And that most people in the US neither qualify for asylum nor would they pass the skilled immigrant criteria.

Speaking from experience here: I almost moved there before I immigrated to the US. The US process was easier believe it or not, and I'm glad I decided to move here and not elsewhere.

This is not about the current leadership in U.S but if I had to boil it down to one thing for me that really bothers me is the healthcare situation in this country. I've never seen healthcare system that is so difficult to navigate and so ridiculously expensive.

The hassle of moving to another country is not small. I gotta think there is a desire for personal change / lifestyle / even just seeing what it is like elsewhere, as much as just recent political stuff.

It's easy to tack on reasons that are convenient to say, you might even think that is the reason... but the trigger might be something else.

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se...

Wait. You don’t just walk across the border, you have to file an application and have it approved to live in Canada? Is this how a progressive nation should behave?

IIRC it's pretty common to walk across the border and then present yourself to immigration and ask for asylum. Assuming that is your only probable immigration method, since otherwise it's reputedly quite difficult to gain approval.

Also, Canada handles the whole process a bit more humanely than the United States does.

are hundreds/thousands of people trying to cross in to Canada everyday? Easy when its only a few people, harder when its not.

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se...

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/asylum-applicatio...

It looks like it's actually pretty proportional. And based upon that data, thousands of people are NOT trying to cross into America via asylum seeking every day.

It's not a matter of "easy" or "hard", it's a matter of how much money you're willing to spend on processing asylum claims. Hiring more immigration lawyers, building more offices, hiring more officers for patrolling borders and ensuring seekers get across safely, and not wandering around kicking over water reservoirs[1].

Considering the US is spending $210 million[2] to lob gas canisters at a migrant caravan instead of processing their claims, I don't think it's a matter of not having enough cash.

also, Canada saw 25,000 asylum claims last year[3]

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-border-...

[2] https://globalnews.ca/news/4684164/trump-border-troops-cost-...

[3] https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se...

Yes. Look at Roxham Road.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/migrants-flood-canada-roxham-ro...

I guess that depends if you're a member of a desperate group of poor, or someone browsing Hacker News on a Monday morning.

This argument is not genuine. US has a legal immigration requiring much the same process as Canada. If you end up crossing into Canada outside of a port of entry, you can request asylum from the Canadian border patrol just like you can in the US.

Of course you can apply but does a random person living in the US has enough grounds to receive an asylum in Canada?

Possibly, but given the US's relative freedoms unlikely. Here's your criteria:

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se...

If there's a risk to your life or to you being mistreated upon your return, then you may qualify.

I'm torn. On one hand I shouldn't feed the trolls, OTOH it sounds like you genuinely believe that "random people" from Central America are equivalent to the US.

Many Central American countries, including El Salvador, do not have the rule of law that we have in the US. They're overrun by gangs [1]. It is a legitimate claim to asylum. "a random person in the US" does not have this same claim, so, no, they do not have enough grounds.

The United States of America has historically been a bastion of freedom. It's no BS -- we need to live up to the inscription on the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore."

My ancestors (now me and my descendants), likely your ancestors, benefited from legal immigration and didn't even have an asylum claim. The 19th and 20th centuries also saw the demonization of various European immigrant groups. Don't buy the hype, your fortune/misfortune is not impacted by immigration. Globalization has had a WAY bigger impact and was/is inevitable.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_El_Salvador#Gang_invo...

> OTOH it sounds like you genuinely believe that "random people" from Central America are equivalent to the US

The main topic of the discussion is people leaving the US and the parent comment offers Canada as an option - what does Central America and their 'equivalency' has to do with all this?

if you're not being sarcastic, what are you proposing? that progressive nations shouldn't even keep records of who is living there?

Probably hard to find, but I’m curious to know what are the numbers about foreigners wanting to live in the US compared to the numbers from 10 or 20 years ago.

Would be really hard to ascertain those numbers.

There might be some data that might indicate some of that kind of intent. Like number of apprehensions of illegals at the border. That peaked in the 80s and 90s and has dropped since: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-trump-mexico-wall/im...

People always say they want to leave, but I'm curious in the actual stats of what percentage actually leave.

Well, we did it to ourselves. I hope I'm living elsewhere when the reckoning comes.

Reading the article at first it seems they intended to move, as in they were researching their options but it is not quite that, it's more of general musing of "maybe would like some day to move...". And Canada says very few actually moved.

This confirms to what I've seen in my circle of acquaintances of out maybe 4 people who claimed they would move to Asia, Canada or Europe, none actually took any steps to do so. I can't blame them, having moved between countries before, it is a huge hurdle. I had the initial thought of saying "You probably won't..." to some of them but figured it would just get them upset.

> Regression analysis shows that regardless of differences by gender, age or income -- if Americans disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president, they are more likely to want to leave...

> Before and after Trump's election, many Americans -- particularly Democrats -- threatened to move to Canada (as Republicans did after Obama was elected).

So this is just the often-mocked empty-threat to move to an idealized Canada that's commonly made by politically dissatisfied (partisan) Americans?

[deleted]

It's very easy to get a visa in Europe. Only $300k for an investment visa in Hungary.

How are other countries able to criticize American immigration policy if they are not immigration-friendly themselves?

Yeah you are misinformed about this

Most (not all) countries in Europe have a straightforward way of obtaining citizenship with time if you're lawfully there.

Of course, overstaying won't make things easier, but nowhere that happens.

Argentina, for one. (of course, I'm a US + Italian citizen, soo...)

A truly incredible statistic:

“40% of women younger than 30 would like to leave the U.S.”

That says a lot about the extent to which Trump has alienated young women.

That number seems extremely suspect. If that were really true, it would bubble about culturally in all kinds of ways.

Record turnout at the women’s marches and the midterms seem like a good indicator.

Wouldn’t surprise me if the question response was just hyperbole from the answerer.

.... Have you not been paying attention? A lot of women are pissed.

Which is very different from nearly half the population wanting to permanently emigrate.

Maybe they see the writing on the wall with the president, senate, and especially Supreme Court and don’t want to stick around to see when their human rights get rolled back?

Yes, but if you’re saying “I don’t see any other evidence of dissatisfaction from that cohort” then that’s because you didn’t notice it, not because it isn’t there.

That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm specifically saying that I find that hard to believe that 40% of female youth would emigrate, or 40% of any large scale demographic of US citizens for that matter.

Ah, my mistake.

I agree that 40% of such a large population will not emigrate, yes. But the article is saying that 40% want to leave, not that 40% will leave. Migration is complicated, expensive, and painful. It’s perfectly reasonable to expect a significant gap between interest and follow through in this area.

There is however some historical precedent here. When east and west Germany united, about 10% of the population moved from east to west, most women in the 18-29 bracket. The result is that by 2012 east Germany now has 89 women per 100 men (80/100 in rural areas), a significant statistical gap.

While the causes of the above were different, I’d be pretty comfortable saying that the culture shock between east/west Germany was equal to or less than the culture shock between the US and English speaking Canada. So I wouldn’t find a young female migration in the 8-10% range surprising, although I would find it deeply alarming.

But to say that 40% want to leave would imply a considerable number will overcome whatever burdens one has, particularly in the US where the youth tend to be fairly geographically mobile in general compared to most of the world. If you told me 40% we’re displeased with the US and fantasize about living elsewhere, then I’d say that’s more realistic. But to actively want is another matter.

I don’t think you can fairly compare the the unification of post-communist East Germany and everything that it implies (secret police, Cold War, differing economic systems and promises of prosperity, fashion, etc) with the US vs Canada, especially saying it was less different! Canada isn’t that fundamentally different in day to day life!

Honestly, it seems like you’re trying to determine who has a “genuine” want to move vs. fantasizing. This is a pointless pursuit, it’s impossible to know what is anyone else’s head.

If you want to nitpick the Pew’s polling, go find or make something better.

What more proof are you waiting to see? Marches, record numbers of political candidates...

I agree it's quite high, but knowing the "baseline", whatever that is would help give some context. They give the Bush & Obama numbers for other categories, but I didn't see it for this one. But based on what's there, I don't think it'd be far off to say that, at any given time, about 1 in 4 women under 30 wants to leave the US. Some of those reasons may have nothing to do with politics. Still, the sharp increase for the current president is notable.

40% is just ridiculous. As we've seen in past US presidential elections, the vast majority of Americans who claim they want to move out of the country will not actually do it. Moving to a major metropolitan area within the US that aligns with their values is much easier.

Probably true, but this Presidency and the corruption of the majority party is unprecedented.

Wanting to do something never results in 100% conversion for anything, let alone for something as difficult as migration. "But they don't follow through!" is a lazy take.

This seems like a sensational title. The basic gist of the article is that while the US in inline with the rest of the world, there is a significant uptick in younger women who say they would like to leave since Trump.

downvotes but no responses?

I have a genuine question for people who want to leave the US because of Trump:

Is your life actually any different since he's been elected (minus constant media coverage)? I have to say, mine isn't at all. He's barely accomplished anything that's had an impact on our lives yet people are still so upset about him becoming president that they want to move to another country. Can anyone give concrete examples of his policy decisions that have had a negative enough impact on their life that they would relocate to another country?

I wanted to leave the US well before Trump. He's not the disease. He's just the most visible symptom.

My German wife's grandparents probably personally experienced no noticeable negative impact on their lives in the 1930s.

Godwining this is super unhelpful. Maybe your wife's grandparents didn't experience anything negative but millions did.

Age 15-29: 30%

I don't really give a shit about 15 year olds and their perspective on the world considering they hardly live in it until about 10 years later. The biggest impacts on their lives are from their parents' circumstance or decision making.

People don't suddenly become politically aware at 18. Paying taxes and graduating high school doesn't grant you deep political insight.

>The biggest impacts on their lives are from their parents' circumstance or decision making. While yes, their parents generally have the greatest direct control over their material conditions, the assumption that they then can't have any insights into political conditions that surround their parents, and their own, lives is absurd. For example, the gun violence high school walkouts were conducted by plenty of fifteen year olds, whose lives are directly affected by political conditions.

I'd be willing to bet good money that the number of teenagers who actually read propositions dramatically increases at literally age 18, considering that's when you can vote.

So no, people do actually become politically aware, usually around 18 years of age or older. Until then, sentiment dominates.

>These results are based on telephone interviews with approximately 1,000 adults per year, aged 15 and older, conducted in the U.S.

They only asked 1,000 adults via phone calls? Pretty small survey but I’m not a statistician.

Edit: Downvoters. Please comment. Was the survey larger? Is 1,000 a large enough sample size to make conclusions about the whole US? This is HN please engage.

There also is low quality of respondents in addition to low quantity. I don't really think that 15 is adult...

1000 gets you down to 3% margin of sampling error.

Asking the question in different ways can affect the results a lot more.

Not very knowledgeable of margin of errors but does 1,000 people, not women, really give you enough data to represent 30+ million females between 15-30?

Out of 1000 adults, you'd expect 125 to be women 15-30. That gives a margin of error for that subgroup of 9% (at 95% confidence level). They quoted 40%, so it's 95% likely to be between 31% and 49%.

The size of the population doesn't affect the accuracy of a survey, only the size of the survey.

You answered my first question and now I have many many more.

Thanks for responding.

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