> but it’s not totally absurd to think you owe something to a country whose citizenship you continue to benefit from
Yes it is honestly. The US is the only G7 county (and one of the only countries worldwide) to engage in extraterritorial taxation.
It is absurd. If you are gaining from services in that country, you should pay taxes to that country. If you have moved abroad and aren't gaining from any services if that country, you should not. Because you are effectively not a member of that community anymore and should be contributing your taxes to another society. To even have to handle the double taxation accounting is ridiculous. It's that simple.
Does someone gain benefits of being an American even when not living in America? Potentially, but many of those benefits could be connected to more targeted taxes than simply worldwide income tax.
This is clearly not about justice and is instead about the long arm of the IRS seeking their pound of flesh anywhere they can get it.
I know Americans who left the US 40 years ago and have lived and become fully integrated citizens of other countries. Yet simply to retain the right to return the US at some point, they must pay taxes every year in the middle? And trying to give up their citizenship isn't that easy either.
If we want to prevent tax havens, I'm totally fine with that. Force sensible global tax regimes and prevent countries from being havens. But the solution isn't extraterritorial taxation.