Hacker News Reader

Comment by Qwertious | Hacker News Reader

If you don't want to pay taxes, waive your citizenship and move to Somalia.

Tax is optional, you just don't want to give up it's benefits.

There's no such thing as "waiving" your citizenship. You have to renounce it. It's a complicated process that must be done in person, under oath, before a consular or diplomatic officer. And there's a bunch of paperwork.

Also, crucially, if you have not obtained citizenship elsewhere first, you will be a stateless person with no rights anywhere. So you can't just renounce your citizen and then move.

Also, it's irrevocable — if you change your mind, you can't get citizenship back except by immigrating the hard way (visa/green card track).

You may also owe an exit tax, depending on your recent income and current wealth. Oh, and it costs $2,350.

The 'just move' argument doesn't work. People want to live here and improve the country at the same time. Likewise, someone may say to someone who advocates for higher taxes 'waive you citizenship and move to Sweden,' which is equally unfair

I think there's a point where it's reasonable to say that the goal they have is too far from where America exists now and they should give up and leave. Someone who wants to introduce a monarchy, for a random example that I expect is uncontroversial. And arguably, a society without taxes is also beyond that line.

> And arguably, a society without taxes is also beyond that line.

The argument is not for no taxes, the argument is that taxes are too high. Reducing taxes is definitely achievable.

>waive citizenship Except you get a massive tax if you try to do this too

Somalia may be an overkill.

Florida, on the other hand, does not tax its residents, while still having roads, schools and police.

> Florida, on the other hand, does not tax its residents

Yes, it does.

It doesn’t happen to use a personal income tax, but it absolutely does tax it's population.

That being said, Florida's sales tax is less than that in New York and property tax is half of New York's.

The roads in Florida are generally better (and cheaper), schools are good [1] and Florida State University is ranked higher than SUNY [2].

[1] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education

[2] https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/florida-state-universit...

This is what I think when I read about these libertarian paradises people want to build on a huge floating barge in the ocean.

Watch how fast they start radioing for the coast guard when the pirates start showing up.

I think the libertarians of all people would have an ample supply of munitions. I could see a libertarian offering a pirate safari

They wouldn't be able to maintain a sewer system or a public health infrastructure though so they'd probably all get cholera.

> They wouldn't be able to maintain a sewer system or a public health infrastructure though so they'd probably all get cholera.

But imagine the market for patent snake-oil medicines that would create! The business opportunities boggle the mind.

Keep moving the goal posts. All these things can be done (as they are generally done privately). The only thing Libertarians can't do is fight a total war.

Yes, they can be paid for by turning to piracy so you don't have to raise taxes.

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/771371881

Piracy can only happen in non-private properties.

or, see how fast the surviving citizenry starts raising a defense budget when the US Coast Guard doesn't show up

USA was created as a "libertarian paradise" with people renouncing citizenship and picking up guns to defend it.

It is not what it has become in the last 200 years. Modern society is very hard to revolt like this country was founded, but there are sprouts of it in the crypto community.

> you just don't want to give up it's benefits.

Your mistake is in assuming the tax is necessary for the benefits.

We know some roads would be built without a tax. The issue is that only roads that benefited the wealthy would get built. Taxes are required for equitable access to public infrastructure.

Taxes are what give the rest of your money value by giving USD an inherent demand. Thinking you're losing out is bad economics because you're forgetting everyone else also pays.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com