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Comment by learc83 | Hacker News Reader

>The point is a US passport is great to live in the US, that's it.

Yes assuming you never want to work or live in the US, compared to a Swiss passport and a handful of other passports that's true. Compared to 90% of countries on the planet, it's not true.

>the IRS issue is a real problem in a country where the median salary is just under 85k$ per year (no need to be a rich guy).

How many dual US and Swiss citizens are making under under or anywhere near the median income? It's very hard to migrate to Switzerland, so my guess is not many.

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A median is a median... and if you are a married couple very easily. But it is also the case if you have a EU-US dual citizenship. So in fact that's a lot of person. Also it's not that complicated to migrate to Switzerland is you are an American with a EU passport (get an Italian passport if one of your grand-parents was Italian and bingo), and that's the case of a lot of people.

In Switzerland every year between 500-700 people renounce their US citizenship... so at least a few.

>A median is a median

>in a country where the median salary is just under 85k$ per year

If $85k is the median salary for the country, that says nothing about the median salary of US expats in the country.

> But it is also the case if you have a EU-US dual citizenship

How is that relevant when we were taking about people with US and Swiss citizenship?

>Also it's not that complicated to migrate to Switzerland is you are an American with a EU passport (get an Italian passport if one of your grand-parents was Italian and bingo),

It's not that hard, you just need to have an Italian Grandparent, go through the process (which can take years depending on where you live), move to Switzerland, find a job, then live there for 10 years.

>How is that relevant when we were taking about people with US and Swiss citizenship?

It is relevant because if you are for instance a FR-US dual citizen (because for instance you were born in the US while your parents were working there as an expat for a few years), you can freely settle in Switzerland (CH-EU free movement agreement). In any cases you have to do your IRS stuff whatever the amount you are earning so this is already a problem and if you work in IT you salary will easily get over 100k which potentially trigger amount to pay (even with the high tax rate of CH). My colleague in front of me, was a US citizen because he was in this exact situation, and was tired of all the paperwork required by his US citizenship (and the fact that all the banks were considering him as a liability). So if you don't intend to live in the US, having a US citizenship is a problem for a lot of people, and if you have to pay for it, it becomes a burden (including all UE/CH-US dual citizen living in CH).

Anyway all of this to say that about 25% of the worldwide US renunciation are taking place in CH, so this figure alone prove that this is a problem in this country.

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