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Comment by dkjaudyeqooe | Hacker News Reader

If you become a US citizen you have to pay US tax for the rest of your life regardless of where you live.

If you don't feel committed to the US, then why would you put up with such a thing?

You have to report taxes. Whether you pay taxes depends on whether there's a tax treaty with your residence to avoid double taxation. Australia and the USA have such a treaty.

A note: reporting applies to tax residents, not just citizens. Brendan will be reporting to the US for some years to come, simply by virtue of his long time spent in the US.

(Of course, I am not a tax lawyer, etc)

> If you don't feel committed to the US, then why would you put up with such a thing?

For the protections of citizenship and the right to vote. If you have made a life in the US that's worth having.

Sure. And if you live in the US, you'll have to pay US taxes anyway. The parent's point is that, if you think you'll permanently move out of the US in a few years anyway, you should probably think hard about whether you really want US citizenship.

Only on earnings above 80k and foreign taxes are deductible. You can also funnel income through puerto rico and legally avoid US taxes.

In 1999 I was earning $135k from a US-based job while I lived in Italy. Thanks to the tax treaty, I did not pay US income tax on the first $85k of that, but I paid Italy for it. I paid BOTH COUNTRIES on the remainder. Lost over 55% of my income to taxes that year. I was not thrilled that a lot of it was going to the Berlusconi government.

I'm told (by tax specialists) that nowadays the situation is that you pay the taxes in whichever country has the higher taxation rate, but nothing in the other country. That will be fine - I'm ok with paying higher taxes when I'm getting better services, like a good public health system that works for everyone.

Many countries have higher tax rates than the US. Australia is one of them

What happens if you move and simply ignore US taxes?

Only works if the country doesn’t have a tax agreement already. Here in Singapore the forms have a box to state if you’re from the US. You can’t dodge it here. And apparently people here have given up us citizenship in favour of Singapore citizenship and tax was one of the reasons.

Oh yes I forgot that case as well.

Depends. If you have assets in US the Automated Collection System may be able to take part of what is due. If you want to go back to US depending on the amont you owe, it can be taken from property sells and can go up to US taking your passport (the US one only obviously), thats a recent rule and applies only if you owe more than $50k.

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