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Comment by marcinzm | Hacker News Reader

Taxes are part of the social contract for living in the US. If you don't like it then you can try finding a different country to live in. But don't act surprised when trying to skirt around the contract gets you in trouble.

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Are you aware that the USA taxes worldwide income of US citizens?

And before someone counters that you can renounce your citizenship, they tax that too.

Correct, it costs somewhere in the range of $5,000 to revoke your citizenship.

No, that's just the fee. There is also a tax and it can cost a whole lot more than $5k.

I don't like it particularly but let's be specific here. There is a threshold until which you don't get taxed. I remember it used to be about 90K USD/Year but I am too lazy to google right now.

Right, so basically the majority of middle to upper-middle class expats. People with enough money to be 'fat cats' have tax shelters.

You can renounce your citizenship and pay the related fees/taxes for X years. Granted, you need to leave early and not just right before a windfall but if you really philosophically disagree with the contract (rather than just being greedy) then that's not much of an issue. Of course, most people who talk about this are totally fine with having the advantages of the social contract but wish to skip out once they need to pay up for them.

What contract?

I don't remember signing anything.

Do you?

I didn't realize we were suppose to sign social contracts, must've missed that memo.

Did you sign anything agreeing to not murder?

Have you signed any contracts at all in your life? The protections and restrictions from that contract are enforced by the same mechanism, via the same social contract.

Honestly, if you don't know what terms like "social contract" mean, you should go read what it is, not just antagonize the person who's sharing an educated opinion with you.

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