Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship
axios.com
axios.com
I'm sure there's a small number of rich people gaming the system, but for the vast majority of expats the citizenship-based taxation system is almost cartoonishly cruel.
I believe Eritrea does this, too. They don't have as much political power as the US though, so they resort to torturing your remaining family members in the country to get you to comply.
They're basically the North Korea of Africa. This is a massive understatement.
[1]: https://www.ato.gov.au/Individuals/coming-to-australia-or-go...
If they had permanent residence in a different country they wouldn't need to.
Anyway, I'm not an expert on Australian tax law by any means, I just wanted to note that it's not always so clear cut as "do other countries tax citizens living abroad".
In this example, the operative bit is this:
> She has a one-year contract, after which she plans to tour China, [...]
This time-boxes her intentions for living abroad. It's distinct from having an unlimited work contract with a temporary visa that requires renewals, which indicates intent to stay abroad (and potentially a basis for the visa renewals).
Other countries use things like a point system (UK), definitions of "centre of life" (Russia, where I live atm) and so on. Either way, Australia doesn't do the thing that the US & Eritrea do (tax applicability solely based on citizenship).
I joined a US-based Company who organized my Green Card without me having ever been there.
As long as your intention is to migrate to a different country you're regarded as a non-resident in which case you wont have to pay taxes on worldwide income, unlike in the US.
* the right to reside permanently in Australia
* Australian accommodation
* Australian family
* Australian economic interests.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=a9c5000f-bde6...
https://www.ato.gov.au/Individuals/coming-to-australia-or-go...
This suggests it wont come into effect until 2022:
> Since draft legislation is not yet available, the rules likely will not apply before 1 July 2022.
https://www.taxathand.com/article/17653/Australia/2021/New-t...
> If you spend more than 45 days in the country or tick two of the following dot points
The proposed secondary rules only applies after spending 45+ days in a FY, not OR. Which is important because this new criteria basically applies to most people born in Australia, so it basically reduces the 183 day test to 45.
If you took out a HECS (0% interest, indexed to inflation) loan for university study you still need to file taxes when resident overseas and continue making payments if you earn over the threshold.
If you are resident in Australia more then 6mths of the year you must complete an Australian tax return, but for most people that involves logging in around september and checking that all the auto-fills match up with what they expected.
It's more complicated for digital nomads that don't really have a permanent place overseas.
Other than that though, agreed. AU taxation filing is not complicated.
https://www.mondaq.com/australia/income-tax/1070880/tax-resi...
Sounds like they're just 'recommended' for now but won't take effect till next tax year at least.
Also sounds like its intended to catch people working 0% tax contracts in the middle east or digital nomading around east-asia till they need medical care. (still not a good reason to complicate things)
That said, it _is_ possible to lose your tax residency in these countries, where American citizens are simply fucked.
This is exactly why these people are renouncing US citizenship: They’re living overseas as citizens of another country and, like anyone rich or poor, don’t want to be paying taxes to a country they aren’t living in.
It’s not exactly unfair or nefarious. If they’re no longer living in the US and they are citizens and residents of another country, surrendering US citizenship is a logical choice.
Renouncing US citizenship is a common move for this exact reason. This article just happens to have drawn an arbitrary line in the wealth of people who renounce US citizenship and made a headline out of the wealthier subset. The wealthy are also more like to have dual-citizenship but relocate to another country, so they’d be over represented in this set.
"One example discussed was Kenneth Dart of Dart Container, who had become a citizen of Belize and then attempted to obtain a diplomatic visa to serve as Belize's new consul in Sarasota, Florida."
> The Department of Homeland Security has stated that they cannot obtain the information required to enforce the amendment unless the former U.S. citizen "affirmatively admit[s]" his or her reasons for renouncing citizenship, and so from 2002 to 2015, only two people were denied entry to the United States on the grounds of the amendment.
"The wording of the statute is embarrassing. How can an alien renounce U.S. citizenship? In what capacity would said alien do so officially? One assumes that a court of law would find the language incoherent and unenforceable ... This is the way we legislate at 5 o'clock in the morning 4 days before adjournment."
Nice to see lawmakers falling to the specter of trying to get that commit in for the next release, along with the rest of us.
Legal documents aren't code, but they do share many of the same principles and constraints - GIGO applies to both programs and contracts...
Only because of US laws. I have two citizenships, but one residency. In most Western countries, being a resident is associated with healthcare and pension, so having one residency is logical.
U.S. citizenship carries extraterritorial benefits. For example, we're pretty good at getting our people out of thorny situations, even at great national expense. If someone isn't paying to support that, it makes sense to force a revocation decision.
If there is an act of war or natural disaster, the U.S. is good at extracting its citizens. There is also a decent precedent of negotiating to release people taken hostage or held prisoner by unfriendly regimes. (Or causing a fuss when Americans are harmed in a friendly country.) That, in turn, has a deterrent effect.
For Americans with access to legal counsel and the State Department, the benefits expand. Rich, overseas Americans thus present a unique free-rider problem.
Such a gruesome story: Kenyan sources supported Israel, and in the aftermath of the operation, Idi Amin issued orders to retaliate and slaughter several hundred Kenyans then present in Uganda. There were 245 Kenyans in Uganda killed and 3,000 fled.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idi_Amin
Amin first escaped to Libya, where he stayed until 1980, and ultimately settled in Saudi Arabia, where the Saudi royal family allowed him sanctuary and paid him a generous subsidy in return for staying out of politics.[18] Amin lived for a number of years on the top two floors of the Novotel Hotel on Palestine Road in Jeddah.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455590/
Movie The Last King of Scotland is Based on the events of the brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin's regime as seen by his personal physician during the 1970s.
It could even be said Americans are more at risk in those countries for being American and no other reason. So for people outside of that there won’t be any benefit.
I know a (thankfully small) handful of cases in which Americans' kids were arrested in a friendly country. The State Department provided invaluable support. (Recommendations on legal counsel, prudent next steps, relevant authorities' phone numbers...nothing nefarious, just context and support.)
I am under no illusion that I, with my resources, would get that sort of access. But it exists, and probably benefits U.S. international business concerns. Since this article concerns itself with rich overseas Americans, I think it's relevant.
One thing the US has is more bargaining power to force early release of some people accused of crimes (like Liangelo Ball in China, Anne Sacoolas in UK). That's significant leverage, but again: most people will never find themselves in that situation. But even then it's not like other countries will not imprison you if you're American.
Not many millionaires are getting arrested in general, due to the availability of lawyers and so on.
The US support might be very relevant for a war reported captured by ISIS.
But most millionaires are not going to be in those locations and/or able to afford good private security.
Not sure about actual benefits. The US passports is one of the worst when it comes to travel. Many countries have stricter entry rules only for US citizen, or require at least a higher Visa fee in comparison to other Western nations or outright don't allow US citizens entry at all. I found my Austrian passport to be actually extremely beneficial. Most powerful passport is still from Singapore when it comes to extraterritorial benefits.
In terms of getting people out of thorny situations, countries which don't have citizenship based tax laws are also pretty good at that, if not even better, because the US has in fact a lot of scarred relations with other nations whereas other Western nations have it easier to get a country pull some strings in order to get their people out.
Definitely. But comparing the benefits of US citizenship to that of, say, Venezuela or Tchad would be pointless, now, wouldn’t it?
Also because I suspect the population here to likely be mostly from Western countries. Cf dang’s comment[1] stating that 50% of the userbase is from the US
But I see your point, and we’ll probably have to settle on agreeing to disagree.
100% wrong! US passport is ranked 7th best in the world. You need very few visas and get waved through customs faster than visitors from most other countries.
* https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/2021/07/07/where-does-...
* https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/2021/07/07/the-worl...
how many American get into that kind of shit storm? it seem like this benefit isn't worth the taxes that you pay
I mean what is the objective? Raise tax revenue from ex-pats, or drive them out of US citizenship? What's actually happening seems to be the latter, not so much the former. Surely that's a serious policy failure.
And that’s for the simple scenario of someone actually living in the US.
But is also is another issue altogether. How US citizens can bear with this and the lobbying that spawned it is beyond me.
As you say, it's more complex income sources and potentially deductions that lead to big accountant bills.
And you mention 1099s, i.e. self employed. Well, if you run a sole proprietorship as an expat, you still have to file US self-employment tax forms, and there are also QUARTERLY filing requirements with penalties for non-filing.
Or you need to get the paper certifying that your country has a totalization agreement with the US (not all do).
And since 1099 isn't a thing in EU, you have to file the US 'small business' tax form, which is actually 3-5 forms.
so as an expat, even what should be very straight forward turns into a massive mess.
Most of my knowledge of it comes from all the threads about Intuit's and H&R Block's lobbying regarding what IRS could and could not do to simplify tax filling.
If you don’t me asking. If it is as straightforward, what actually is the point in said lobbying?
Without their contributions the Unites States will be less successful, thereby "screwing" everybody in it.
This trend within United States is especially ironic and alarming considering that United States gained its success specifically by giving home to persecuted people from other countries with capacity for success. Conversely, other countries, some obvious examples being Nazi Germany and USSR, were not successful specifically because they forced out their successful people.
Sorry, what? Exactly how much technical ability does it take to frequent a website? You have the strangest delusion I've seen on HN and that's saying something.
Some people that work in especially high-paid sub-industries have a mistaken idea of what typical "technical enough to frequent this web site" (?!) people make.
And even if most software developers did make over $100K, it could still be a lot of money? The median income in USA as a whole looks to be about $52K, with $100K being about 83rd percentile (83% of USA makes less than $100K).
Most software engineers in Europe, aside from freelancers, and probably the world, don’t make anywhere near $108k.
Furthermore, even under tax treaties, it is not uncommon for some part of your income to be double taxed due to differences in recognition and classification of income and foreign taxes paid. Americans often have to pay more taxes than if they only had to pay taxes in either country separately.
And this is on top of the onerous reporting overhead and other difficulties.
Where they do need to use it (such as registering a birth) it's usually replacing use of a different government office, had they not lived abroad.
Additionally a government should think about practicality and fairness before it implements policy. It is impractical and excessively burdensome to try and tax residents of countries that aren’t the US. Despite your stated beliefs elsewhere, it does not take very much income or bizarre situations to wander into dicey tax situations that are frightening for the expat. A small business (which is taxable in the US if you net more than about $430) can mean difficult filing in the US. I don’t earn all that much, and I’ve spent a lot of this summer working on my US taxes for no purpose other than to have them piled up somewhere, unless some IRS agent decides to make my life much more difficult.
I guess to fit in your analogy I live underwater?
The embassy is for maintaining relations with foreign countries, not just passports and birth certificates (and pricey notary services). That seems like a sideshow. When it comes to services for the public, they appear to spend most of their time dealing with visa applicants, based on the crowds and lines I've seen. They also do offer assistance for missing persons abroad; if you have a relative that goes missing abroad the embassy will investigate. That seems nice of them. I assume other developed countries' embassies are basically the same though.
1 - just trying to work through what all might possibly be owed and not owed to US as well as the country(ies) one operates in.
2 - Identifying through which paperwork to declare it, while also ensuring income / business reporting is copacetic with the tax regime of the country that same is actually earned in. As a business owner, (many operating overseas are looking after a business) I have to complete corporate accounts (which costs $$$$ and takes forever) before I can file American income tax for the same accounting year.
3 - the value of the tax liability itself is a distant third in terms of hassle than any of the above. (I’ll include in this bucket the fact that Americans are taxed on income earned abroad, putting us at enormous disadvantage for work opportunities vis—a-vis peer expats who come from other countries)
For this change to occur, many senators and representatives would have to be directly and personally incentivized to make the change.
They aren't.
I know at least one country that will not let you even open a bank account if you have a green card or US citizenship. Actually, even if you're a foreigner living in the US (student, H-1, etc), that country will not let you open a bank account - even if you are a citizen of that country. The rule is simple: If you have ties to the US that could require you reporting your bank account to the IRS, then you cannot open a bank account.
Basically, ever since the IRS required you to report foreign accounts (2007 or 2008), some countries have made it harder for people based in the US to get accounts. They see it as an indirect means to collect intelligence by the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Account_Tax_Compliance...
> FATCA also requires such persons to report their non-U.S. financial assets annually to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on form 8938, which is in addition to the older and further redundant requirement to report them annually to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) on form 114 (also known as 'FBAR')
What's ridiculous is that it also "requires" foreign banks to report details of accounts by US holders - even if the bank has no relation to the US.
Now, how do they actually enforce that supposed "obligation"? I do not know.
But it doesn’t surprise me. The US has already enforced it’s laws on foreign companies' dealing abroad merely because they had used dollars in their transactions.
And there are some instances of information sharing via tax treaty, but I haven't seen exact details on how it works.
Funny story: Overseas, I can remember going through anti-money laundering training. The week after, I went to open a new bank account. When I told them I was a US citizen, the account rep said -- without missing a beat -- "Do you want to report?" Jeez. That question alone is probably enough to get that bank into trouble! Obviously, that person failed their own FACTA training...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/north-kore...
In a country with higher taxes and a tax treaty you could earn $1M per year and never pay the IRS a dime.
Is it because every single US diplomatic relation is in one way or other tied to the military?
If a jibali captures an operator then fair enough. The US is very preachy about their soldiers. But for a civilian to think about that as a benefit is just wild.
It's not like the US made this up. The Roman citizens had this protection too as they wandered the globe.
Last year, Navy SEALs from the Navy's Special Mission Unit parachuted in the dead of night to save a missionary. When's the last time the armed forces of Brunei did that? Or DRC? Or Azerbaijan? The answer is never. Intent != capability. I'm sure Paraguay wishes they could put commandos on the ground anywhere in the world in hours, but the fact is that they can't.
Being American is like having an American Express Card: membership has its privileges.
Are we? I’ve been told to use my other passport if ever in a situation like that. Are there any stats that support either case?
This is also how it works with other countries (e.g., Russia). They'll help if they get something out of it, or won't give a damn otherwise.
Navy SEALs from the Navy SMU parachuted into Africa in the dead of night to save a missionary kidnapped from a known conflict zone, killing 6 of 7 combatants (one wonders if they let the last guy go to spread Fear amongst his fellows). Perhaps some of you had different experiences (and/or perhaps the State Department really, really wanted you to leave), but that doesn't erase the rescue of Americans such as this man:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nigeria_hostage_rescue
We sent the best of the best in to save him. Not the JV team, the varsity. Before you whine, ask yourselves if perhaps there was some motive to telling you that nobody would help you if you didn't leave. Maybe they were trying to manage their risk.
That could have been just Trump pandering to his base.
Moreover, from your link:
> Additionally American aid worker Jeffery Woodke was kidnapped from Abalak in October 2016, and is believed to be held in Mali.
How come no SEALs have parachuted to rescue Jeffery yet, huh? Reinforces my theory that it was just election-time pandering by Trump.
You're telling me that the US will do that for every Tom, Dick and Harry who gets caught by some $EVILDOER anywhere on this planet? Fat chance!
> The last I heard, the Houthis let the Americans go.
But how did they get out? Who picked them up?
That's pretty weak, you have to admit. Wouldn't Obama send the same men in to save a citizen? I think he would. This is undeniably what our military is for, what those special mission units are for, and what those operators live for. They went in to do God's Work, and luckily this time it worked with no Good Guy casualties. Why would you doubt this?
> How come no SEALs have parachuted to rescue Jeffery yet, huh? Reinforces my theory that it was just election-time pandering by Trump.
Maybe because they don't have actionable intel to find and fix him? Maybe because the Bad Guys weren't so stupid as to use something that would show up on our various SIGINT collection platforms? It's not always a great big Trumpian conspiracy.
> But how did they get out? Who picked them up?
The Omani military, our allies. I suspect more than one person on that flight didn't have an Omani passport.
You know who did get involved in our situation when I was with a group of mixed citizens from USA, UK, EU etc...? The UK and Denmark. France, the USA and Germany all did nothing at all.
This myth that the USA will save citizens from any situation needs to die. It's untrue and dangerous since it encourages Americans to do stupid things because they are convinced the Marines or Seals will come save them.
It is provably true the US does send armed forces in to save citizens, and it is obviously true that many other countries simply lack the ability to do so. That isn't a license to be stupid, but it is a differentiator between countries with true power projection capabilities and those who don't have the same.
How thorny a situation has to be? Because I'm aware of a case when an American couldn't bring his own children to the states because his ex wife didn't consent to issue them American passports. Petitions, letters to the embassy and his congressman, nothing helped. A 3rd world country his ex wife's a citizen of had no issue with consents, it just issued passports allowing her to get the kids and leave the country they were residing in.
So if anything, I'd say America is worse than other countries at getting citizens out of bad situations. But there seems to be a tendency for people to not look at what other countries actually do and just assume that America is the best.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32162364 [2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/21/washington-to-americans... [3] https://twitter.com/SMedia4/status/585286801968893954
I believe BLM to be led by Marxists and that is backed up by objective evidence. I'm not sure why that's controversial. It's also objectively true that George Floyd had a criminal record. Again, I'm not sure why that's controversial. One can be very socially aware and also recognize those two facts. It is indeed problematic that Floyd pointed a gun at the abdomen of a woman whom he thought was pregnant during a home invasion robbery, or that he had significant amounts of narcotics in his system when he died. That doesn't make his death justifiable, it's just the real life complications of a real life case (which tend not to be overly clean). When did we get afraid of objective facts?
EDIT: Downvoters: explain why. Simple Q. What is it about facts you don't like?
Are those statements you made relevant to the death of George Floyd? The answer is no.
He was a criminal who made mistakes - for which he served his time. Stating your "objective facts" appear to diverge attention elsewhere and in particular to paint George as the guilty party that warranted the police response that he received. Did he deserve that?
He begged for his life while being kneed to the throat for over 10 minutes. He then died on the floor by a police offer. There's some objective facts for you pal.
Further, there was no "real life complications of a real life case" he was literally murdered. That's the point and is why the police office is serving jail time!
Please take some time to consider what and WHY you wrote what you did. Do you think that he deserved death? Why?
They were in the judgement of a coroner. Not enough to mean murder wasn't called for, but it's obtuse to not observe that Floyd's drug load was past the lethal level for most people.
> Stating your "objective facts" appear to diverge attention elsewhere and in particular to paint George as the guilty party that warranted a cold bold death sentence. Did he that?
No, and when did I argue that? I never said he deserved to die. He should have been transported to jail and then tried for his crimes, not killed.
> He begged for his life while being kneed to the throat. There's an objective fact for you pal.
Anyone with any experience with corrections finds statements by suspects like this laughable at best. With him it was perhaps true (you physiologically can't speak if you can't breathe, but I don't deny he was killed). With someone else, it was because their wrists hurt because of those shiny bracelets they earned by committing crimes. I believe essentially nothing that a suspect says about their comfort, because the majority are accomplished liars. This is what they do. It is literally their occupation. I also believe Floyd was killed. Can you fit those two concepts in your head?
> Further, there was no "real life complications of a real life case" he was literally murdered. That's the point and is why the police office is serving jail time!
His drug consumption was absolutely a complication with his trial. Why would you think it wasn't?
> Please take some time to consider what and WHY you wrote what you did. Do you think that he deserved death? Why?
I don't think he deserved to die. I wrote what I wrote to illustrate that Real Life is hardly clean. There's nothing class-, race-, or otherwise-based in what I wrote. Objective facts.
Got it.
Why are you so hell-bent on painting me as a racist? I've said nothing of the sort. I've never said anything apologetic towards the actors in Floyd's death. I've not even made a statement on his death at all, other than his drug use complicates things (which I think anyone would agree upon).
Sure seems like you're out to get someone. Why? What makes you so hungry for blood? I did nothing to irritate you.
Every single developed country practices capitalism. Every one. The Scandinavians practice Democratic Socialism precisely because they have a surplus to spend on social programs (largely due to a combination of oil money and a lack of a semi-permanent underclass), none of which sounds particularly socialist to me.
To focus on his personal history is simply irrelevant and is in disrespect of the judicial branch and the principle on the separation of powers. No one is contending the truthfulness of his criminal history, but he didn't die as a result of that, he died as a result of the disregard of human life by an officer of the executive branch.
Even if you don't like BLM, which is okay, it stretches too far to claim it a terrorist group.
Please don't just reduce it to 'facts you don't like', facts won't get you banned, but those claims the OP made are more than that.
I last saw data through the UNDP about ten years ago. It's very possible that the situation has degraded. And no country has 100% coverage, far from it. At the time, however, the U.S. government was exceedingly good at exfiltrating citizens from disaster zones. Granted, it has had more experience doing this because, well, empire.
The situation was starker for low-level assistance, in which many diplomatic missions will not get involved.
> According to a database compiled by New America from public sources, since 2001, American hostages taken captive by terrorist, militant, and pirate groups have been more than twice as likely to remain in captivity, die in captivity, or be murdered by their captors as the average Western hostage. Forty-three percent of American hostages died, remain in captivity, or remain unaccounted for, compared to an average of 19 percent for all Westerners.
[1] https://www.newamerica.org/international-security/policy-pap...
[1] https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/...
To be clear, most if not all countries chartered special flights for free. Later on, some more flights were organized with the help of airline companies, but those were paid.
Apparently they charge the price of a one way Economy ticket. The difference in cost was paid by the Government. Seems quite reasonable to me.
Many citizenship's include extraterritorial benefits, but few of them are as aggressive with foreign income.
It's a fair question which countries approaches are the most effective, but this is hardly unique.
It's not unheard of, that dual citizens renounce their more or less vaguely authoritarian citizenship when it's too dangerous to live or visit there with a dual one. Since then the other state has no obligation to intervene and is even blocked from reigning into the affairs of another nation.
Since we are stepping out of playing world police, we have stopped doing that FYI in the past 15-20 years incrementally so. This ain't the late 20th century anymore.
So let’s drop this extraterritorial benefits stuff. No benefit the US has provided has been worth the worry, anger, and tedium of trying to be tax compliant in a situation where it’s impossible to be truly compliant (thanks to how irreconcilable foreign arrangements often are to US tax law).
https://americanexpatfinance.com/news/item/782-state-dept-re...
India is the opposite. You can work on a boat get paid in India and owe no taxes.
ding You've just discovered another hidden trick that the ultra-wealthy use to minimize their tax-burdens: in each year, they travel and ensure they do not reside long enough in each country to be considered resident fir tax purposes.
Then that's the difference.
American citizens can collect Social Security while residing in foreign countries. Same with VA benefits.
It is the 'putting in' part which depends on residency.
That would seem.....unfair.
Furthermore, the burden of FATCA is sufficiently onerous that many banks etc. just refuse to deal with it and close the accounts of US persons. A number of long-time expat Americans, e.g. in Germany, have renounced their citizenship because they are unable to function due to this.
WOuld you care to expand on that? I'm curious what in particular about the US immigrant culture you would like to see adopted, and what about the current German system prevents that culture from developing.
Attidudes of Germans at large towards immigration are very mixed: 71% think that it leads to higher strain on the welfare state, 69% think it leads to conflicts with "the natives", 63% think it leads to problems in schools. At the same time, 67% think that it makes life in Germany more interesting, and 64% think immigration is important to combat the effects of our quickly aging population.[2]
Now on to what I think is the biggest failure, which is now very hard to correct: Many second or third generation immigrants still don't feel like they are "real" germans. There's still a strong class divide, which in urban areas also leads to segregated communities. They are underrepresented in politics (except for the Spätaussiedler) and white collar jobs, and there is whitespread employment discrimination, especially against people of turkish, arab and african descent.[3] While the current government declared a "welcome culture" in 2015 during the refugee crisis, in the heads of the majority of the population, there's still a very clear picture of how a "real german" looks and acts. - While close to half of the population admits that "Islam is a part of german culture now", they will still ask Ahmed "where he is really from", and rather hire Oscar over him.
This also partially explains why Erdogan is so popular among turkish Germans: They feel disrespected here, so the vision (delusion) of Erdogan making Turkey into this powerful and strong state is very appealing to them.
I do think things are getting slightly better, but there's a long way to go, and there's also risks of things turning really sour: Anti-democratic ideology is relatively widespread among the muslim minority, in contrast to the rest of the population, their level of religiousness stays about the same, the current money policy of the ECB leads to an enormous rise in living cost in urban areas, and the divide between rich and poor in Germany is increasing.
[1]https://www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/zahlen-und-fakten/soziale-si...
[2] https://mediendienst-integration.de/integration/einstellunge...
I suppose this is just the unavoidable result of too many immigrants arriving around the same time. And when they have their own communities, they have no reason to integrate into the host culture.
Has Germany done anything to reduce the number of new immigrants coming in?
I re-read this part a few times: << Attidudes of Germans at large towards immigration are very mixed: 71% think that it leads to higher strain on the welfare state, 69% think it leads to conflicts with "the natives", 63% think it leads to problems in schools. At the same time, 67% think that it makes life in Germany more interesting, and 64% think immigration is important to combat the effects of our quickly aging population.[2] >>
At first blush, I think "Oh come on people, pick one side or the other!" Then I think again: Each one can be independently true. Taken as a whole, these opinions appear conflicted. This is the reality of large scale immigration: It is complex is any society.
When I think about immigration, I try to separate high-income/-education/-skill from the low- counterpart. Germany should be doing everything possible to attract the high side. It's a great place to raise a family.
If you really want to fix this, you have change the main demographic of Turkish immigrants, probably by offering a clear immigration path to students who come to Europe for graduate programs or such.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nationality_law#Victims...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_earned_income_exclusio...
But you still have to file US taxes. As an expat, you have more forms to fill out.
AND the bigger challenges are banking. You still have to find a bank willing to open an account for you, and good luck getting more complex financial services.
I've been living here 3.5 years, 2 on a YM visa, 1.5 on a work visa. Unfortunately, my 2 years on YM don't even count towards the 5 required to get ILR. You can build up an entire life here & all it takes is for your work visa to be disappeared and then you have 1 month notice to gtfo the country otherwise you're "overstaying".
After 3.5 years somewhere you definitely build up "a life" there, but the UK gov offers no protections at all. Until you hit that 5 year mark they don't give a toss about you.
Challenging, and potentially criminal.
If you have any management authority over the bank accounts owned by the business, then those accounts fall under FACTA.
Hell, if you are even just an employee, but can sign on the bank account, then you have to report it to the US authorities.
So a 'business account' doesn't get you out of the US required reporting.
Also, the implication is that you'd use this for 'day to day' banking. Using a business's funds (a business bank account) to cover personal spending is typically criminal (embezzlement).
So not a solution.
And this doesn't solve the other problems, like pension savings or other financial products.
Good read: Kim Philby as a Real Case of Indeterminacy of Radical Interpretation:
http://polatulet.narod.ru/dvc/ddbs/dennett_breaking.html#ch_...
Looking “overweight” can be quite deceiving.
> The IRS publishes a quarterly list of the names of people who have renounced their citizenship or given up their green cards, but it only includes people with global assets over $2 million
It may be an arbitrary line, but if so, it's the IRS drawing it.
> Gibbons expected that the list would include only "a handful of the wealthiest of the wealthy" motivated solely by taxes; however, the people named in the list turned out to have a wide variety of motivations for emigrating from the U.S. and later giving up citizenship, and few were publicly known to be wealthy.[7]
> ...In contrast, Andrew Mitchel, a Connecticut tax lawyer interviewed by The Wall Street Journal for its reports on Americans giving up citizenship, states that the list is required to include all former citizens. [15]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarterly_Publication_of_Indiv...
This claim is total crap. The list includes all US citizens who renounce their citizenship, regardless of their net worth. [1]
You also cannot renounce your citizenship for tax dodging [2]:
> Persons who wish to renounce U.S. citizenship should be aware of the fact that renunciation of U.S. citizenship may have no effect on their U.S. tax or military service obligations (contact the Internal Revenue Service or U.S. Selective Service for more information).
So plan to become rich after renouncing (and without the IRS noticing).
[1] https://www.federalregister.gov/quarterly-publication-of-ind...
[2] https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-lega...
You just pay an exit tax, which is a percentage of your total wealth. The exit tax only applies if your total wealth is over 2 million (or less than that if you haven’t been filing properly).
https://americansoverseas.org/en/knowledge-centre/us-taxes-a...
E. TAX & MILITARY OBLIGATIONS /NO ESCAPE FROM PROSECUTION
Persons who wish to renounce U.S. citizenship should be aware of the fact that renunciation of U.S. citizenship may have no effect on their U.S. tax or military service obligations (contact the Internal Revenue Service or U.S. Selective Service for more information). In addition, the act of renouncing U.S. citizenship does not allow persons to avoid possible prosecution for crimes which they may have committed or may commit in the future which violate United States law, or escape the repayment of financial obligations, including child support payments, previously incurred in the United States or incurred as United States citizens abroad.
I read that as saying "If you owe the IRS money already, renouncing your citizenship isn't going to get you out of paying it".
>So plan to become rich after renouncing (and without the IRS noticing).
Do you have any other sources that corroborate this? I've certainly never heard of the IRS coming after someone for money they've earned after renouncing citizenship, except perhaps in complex cases involving international companies.
You are correct in that the IRS chose this number.
No taxation without representation.
The "no taxation without representation" was a slogan applied after the fact.
Do you have any evidence of this?
I gave up jumping through the hoops in 2018 and the self-torture and renounced. I shared my story in case anyone is interested: https://larrysalibra.com/goodbye-usa/
The stay versus go debate in HK is always very interesting and one that has been going on for decades and will no doubt continue for many people.
Singapore is more stable, but has even less freedoms than HK though.
Similar how a lot of Asians living in Africa (Uganda Kenya etc.) did in the 1970's, Without the ethnic cleansing aspect.
My friend moved on that visa this week. Before Hong Kongers could get a BNO passport and it wasn’t particularly useful. The British government changed the conditions a year ago, and now it’s an open residence permit with a direct path to full citizenship.
There are at least a million people eligible for a BNO passport.
And it’s getting worse every day. I.e. recently they allowed “social distance enforcement officers” to get into your house to check that you’re not breaking any rules (for instance not having a party with more people than allowed by current regulations). No warrant needed. Non-compliance penalized by up to $10000 and/or jail time.
Very interesting indeed.
Thankfully, it's not as hard to not pay AU/NZ taxes, it's still a little bit painful to prove you're not living there, but not even in the same league as the US.
I’ve certainly liked visiting a number of places in the EU - it might be fun to try to live there.
The other extreme is what we currently have in Croatia:
A vast group of people who don't live here have citizenship and they express their patriotism by voting for the conservative right without exception for the past 30 years.
If you want to be treated as a citizen — live here and pay your taxes. If you don't, the door's that way.
Lol, that's considered "conservative right" ideology in the USA.
I can certainly understand the anger of the GP, apparently roughly 25% of the Croatian citizens do not live in the country. As an expat myself, having a say in how my home country is run is nice, but I feel it's a bit "easy", because I mostly do not have to live with the consequence of my choices.
The expats usually left because they didn't like the strictures or ideology of communism. Some had property confiscated and/or were harrassed by the authorities for whatever reason. Most of these people have a reflexive aversion of the left and are reliable right wing voters.
Those who stayed seem to be those that agree with communism to whatever degree, who were part of the communist regime in some way or those that did not mind or did not have the means or will to leave. Some have been indoctrinated to some extent, or maybe more correctly they have grown up in the culture of that time.
Many ordinary people suffered from a relatively poor quality of life under communism. Croatians received a relatively smaller share of resources and opportunities because of Serbian dominance of Yugoslavian government.
The differences are not all or even mostly political. Many locals just resent expats who avoided the misery and show up with money and a particular attitude, usually a critical one as to the dysfunction and corruption in Croatia, amongst other criticisms.
Full disclosure: I'm an expat (who lives in Croatia, for now), so that may colour my view.
These must be very small meat and potatoes investment firms then. They might not have a compliance department and might not be able to justify the salary of having someone tackle FATCA requirements. I, as an American abroad primarily used the big banks (HSBC, BNP, Barkleys) because its built in to the service.
HSBC in Israel, last I Heard, had a $2M account minimum.
You read that right.
The US is the top place to hide your money if you are a foreigner
Yet foreign countries are not rushing to change their laws to tax their citizens living abroad. There is no urgency to tax their expats who havent worked or lived back on foreign home for years, even decades.
So if nost countries have reason to complain about us helping hide stuff, they dont seem interested in enforcing anything
Or are not able to. Weather it's because of risking more people with money fleeing before changes take into effect, to much influence of wealthy people in politics or being forced by external forced, e.g. in context of not-so-public trade agreements.
I think that was the original intent but:
1. It affects everyone including many people not paying taxes in a amount where it matters.
2. I'm not sure if it works, the really rich people (i.e. the ones you would want to be "captured" by this law the most) have way to many ways to avoid paying taxes and reduce the amount they "in person" have to pay.
It might be reasonable to have a cut blow which you you don't have to bother with this.
I also have frequently considered if it would make sense for the country I live in to have such a law.
But in the end I realized that this is probably not what I would want.
In the end the problem is much more countries which intentionally create tax gaps to benefit from it but directly hurting other countries with that and even potentially undermining their governments independence.
Through without question even if that is solved there is still the fact that even wrt. countries which do not do so their can be huge differences in taxation, but "somehow" "disabling" tax havens would be a much bigger step in the right direction then this regulation IMHO.
I think keeping hold of foreign citizenship represents an unfair advantage to some degree, as a kind of "fallback" - e.g. if things go to shit you always have the option of returning home.
but other nationalities generally don't need to pay to remain citizens while they are abroad, so Americans are treated unusually.
because natives with just one passport don't have that option.
> Is it unfair to California..
California and Texas are in the same country
If by natives, you mean Native Americans, they have their own sovereignties. Many have do have tribal passports in addition to US passports.
If by natives you mean, John Q Public, then that's just crab-bucket thinking. The majority of Americans have zero passports, leave alone one. By your standard, it should be wrong for people to have one at all since most Americans don't have the legal certification to travel beyond North America and seek asylum as a fall back should the US crap itself.
While not everyone has a similar option for a fallback, everyone has a choice. Nobody is prevented by the US government from attempting to a obtain a second passport. It's a matter of a person's choosing to meet the requirements to obtain one or not.
>California and Texas are in the same country.
Yes, however your argument was one escaping to another jurisdiction with the previous jurisdiction as a fallback. That isn't limited to hopping between states nor should it be. If a state or country can't compete in taxes, services, or culture, I have the right to vote with my feet and to obtain a new residence or nationality however I see fit. Mutatis mutantis, the same goes for everyone else.
> By your standard, it should be wrong for people to have one at all
By "having a passport" I mean eligibility for a passport aka citizenship, not literally whether you've applied for one. Equal opportunity should exist - whether it is taken advantage or not is another matter.
> It's a matter of a person's choosing to meet the requirements to obtain one or not
How does one choose hereditary requirements? Or capital requirements (aka golden pass)?
> your argument was one escaping to another jurisdiction
Maybe there are similar issues between state jurisdictions, but I talked specifically of national/country jurisdictions which aren't really similar; especially wrt tax.
In any case, I think the point is moot since all US citizens are (equally) fairly free to cross state lines. The point isn't that it's unfair to move to another jurisdiction with another as fall-back, but that not all are equally able to do this - which is true of states.
The problem here is that they never raised the amount you must report, because in the past, 150k used to be a lot. Now that should be closer to 500k. But like the minimum wage and tax brackets, they haven't kept it up with inflation. Not in the way they needed to at least.
Unfortunately the main loss from US citizenship loss is voting and potentially travel to the US. But the wealthy influence politics by lobbying not voting.
Now if Citizenship was required to fund lobbying... wooh that would be a big hit for those abandoning the US.
Don't citizens of (almost) every other country in the world have the ability to go live abroad and keep all their benefits, whatever they are? I'm not following where Americans can actually get away with anything special.
aren’t those benefits just the travel-ability of their passport and the right to return?
I can only guess the US is such a great country you need to pay fir the right to return?
There's a heavy to push to make this available to anyone regardless of citizenship, claiming that providing proof of identity will be burdensome. This is the same group that touted election fraud, russian interference and other false narratives for 4 years after the prior candidate lost.
If the concept of citizenship has no meaning to you beyond personal convenience, sure. If citizenship and the responsibilities inherent in it is something you take seriously, it makes a little more sense. Why should an expat who's not interested in living in and participating in the future of their former nation even be allowed to remain a citizen at all?
I've personally filled out the forms several times, for multiple periods (full and partial). However I do agree with you: sure it would be nice not to pay that fee, isn't that true of every expense in general?
It seems you either have a complicated personal situation or are in a jurisdiction that's purposefully set up to benefit/interact with the US in a tax advantagous way (aka a tax shelter, though that's going away - see general harmonization trends in EU, etc). Without delving into your personal situation, your personal tax situation should not impact your employment. Your citizenship might in certain highly regulated industries maybe. In the US you are not asked if you file joint or single on your tax return as part of the interview.
You are correct on renounciation. And worse, let's assume the renounciation fee is 1/3rd of the wealth, should your net worth be concentrated and iliquid (you own nothing but a paid off home) you now need to generate a transaction which you might not want to otherwise do (sentimental, bad timing, poor market prices for the asset or low liquidity).
If you have a complicated personal situation, you also hire professional help even if you reside purely domestically. Not fair to pin it all on the foreign taxation code.
Unlike in America, where there are accountants lurking around every corner, the tax code here is very "simple" (the vast majority of people probably never fill out a tax return in their lives). This means accountants charge like you're some sort of multi-millionaire business owner (since that's who their clients typically are). My last quote to get US & domestic taxes filed here when I was a grad student was $6,000 on a total income of <$50k. My situation wasn't that complicated - I had 2 part time jobs, won a competition prize for $20,000 and sold some stock.
I just did my best to file on my own. I probably got something wrong since it's crazy confusing. Prizes are tax-free here, but taxable in the US and not typically "earned income" but are maybe covered by the foreign income exemption or a dual taxation agreement (since I did have to report it to the taxman here, the tax rate was just zero). I literally couldn't afford to figure out how much tax I owed and to who - nevermind the taxes themselves!
Hopefully the IRS doesn't care enough to seize me the next time I visit my family. I tried my best, but that doesn't necessarily mean much in court. I think a lot of the problem is with the American tax code in general, but American accountants know nothing about the tax code here so I can't just ring up H&R Block and ask them to file over zoom (I've tried). Meanwhile, the only accountants who know about American taxes over here are specialist catering to the millionaire expat market. An hour of their time costs more than I earn in a week.
Off-topic but: this always seemed like the most bizarre thing to me. What's the rationale? Why do governments want to incentivize people winning "prizes" over "honest work"?
(My HN engineer brain also wants to know what the distinction is that prevents companies from calling any payment for a one-time contract a "prize" for completing the work, but I'm sure there's some unsatisfying "you know it when you see it" or "laws are people not code" type answer.)
A surprising number of tax benefits are possible this way - even the income tax deduction on charitable giving is done by getting the charity to do the paperwork instead of the individual taxpayer.
So when it comes to taxing something that isn't going to be a significant tax stream and would require people to fill in declarations, the solution is-- just don't tax it.
And the answer to your second question is, the payment would be "income" (defined as payment for completing work) and would fall under income tax. There's no exception in income tax for prizes because prizes aren't even income at all, as you don't work for them. But if you still tried it, it would fall under the General Anti-Abuse Rule.
> And the answer to your second question is, the payment would be "income" (defined as payment for completing work) and would fall under income tax. There's no exception in income tax for prizes because prizes aren't even income at all, as you don't work for them.
Is it really so clear cut? I'm thinking of things like programming competitions -- in a sense you "work" to win a prize at one of those, don't you? So then what stops my employer calling all of my work as a programmer a programming competition? You could say "the competition organizers can't profit off of the work", but is that always true? Netflix could've legally profited off of the entries in the Netflix competition (even though they didn't), right? Similar for Kaggle contests. Would prizes from those count as taxable income? And even on something like a game show, they're profiting (or hoping to) from your participation/appearance.
For example
Control/Command + F = "Ireland"
See « harmonisation of law » on the wiki.
At some point, depending on how much time you spent overseas and how many assets you own, the benefits of giving up US citizenship start to outweigh the cons. And it's better to do this soon than later because exit tax is a thing.
To me this makes sense it is like you paying your final taxes before leaving as such I don't see how it is anything additional but I could very well be mistaken.
> "There are probably 20,000 or 30,000 people who want to [renounce citizenship], but they can’t get the appointment," Lesperance said. "There’s not a peak demand — the system’s capacity has peaked."
Also, it seems you need to pay a non trivial sum to do it, which is a real problem for US citizens abroad who are not rich.
"Free to give that up" does not apply, unfortunately.
The problem is that those rules are punishing regular people.
I know one person who wasn't allowed to open bank accounts because of her citizenship. Another who yearly gets stressad out because filing US taxes is such a grueling process compared to the local process where you're done within ten minutes. Another wants to renounce citizenship because he doesn't want to deal with the bureaucracy, but he cannot afford it.
They all live in Sweden, which I doubt anyone sane would consider a tax haven.
If Eritrea is the only other country in the world that implements similar draconian tax laws, maybe there's something wrong with those laws?
However, as you point out, that doesn't seem to apply to dividends and capital gains and other types of income [1].
I wonder why it doesn't apply to those other incomes and if it did, whether that would alleviate many of the problems for most Americans overseas. In other words, why not just have a threshold below which all foreign income is not taxed and then tax above it?
I'm curious to learn more about the history of that act and why it developed as it did.
[1]: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/fore...
1) filing, which is enormously complicated, and 2) severe restrictions on what financial services you can access.
States with income tax will tax you whether you work in the state, or you are resident in the state.
This would apply to people relocating to countries with a lower tax base. In that case you have to renounce.
If I tried to actually but her as a shared account user the bank told me they will terminate the relationship.
Why do they want to maintain their citizenship if it doesn’t give them anything?
Also, if you give up your citizenship, does that have any implications for traveling back to the US? You might very well have friends and family you would like to visit occasionally.
So why conflate being American with federal taxes and bureaucracy?
Maybe America should think about the benefits we expats provide to it while living and representing our culture and values abroad. We usually make a good impression on our country’s behalf, but everyone abroad is shocked to hear about the potential draconian penalties and compliance headaches our government forces on us.
Some of the major benefits that come to mind: Protect by a world superpower military and diplomacy, welfare and social security, a stable place to return to in the case of trouble, a country that ensures development of vaccines and provides them for it's population in the case of pandemics.
I would really like us to add to that list: medicare (or similar) for all as well as some other social benefits that make sense to enable more risk free pursuit of happiness and simplify employment.
That's the argument the British crown once made for taxation without representation. It wasn't very well-received.
A country is obligated to protect its own borders and demand commensurate payment. I don't see a reason to pay for American military expansionism if I'm kept safe enough by my country of residence. Anything beyond that is wasted tax dollars or adventurism with the US government's own motives in mind. I shouldn't have to subsidize either one.
>>welfare and social security,
EBT, food stamps, COBRA, etc. aren't recognized outside of the United States. Social security is not a benefit. It's a Ponzi-scheme with a gun to your head taking money that was already earned and delaying it until you have strong chance of dying from a heart attack.
>>a stable place to return to in the case of trouble,
That's an argument that can be made for most overseas citizen of many countries. Yet these other countries have not fallen to shambles on the basis of lacking global taxation. There's no reason for me to pay for a "stability" I'm not in a longitude and latitude to benefit from.
On the contrary, there is a case to be made that United States is quite unstable itself as it has failed to contain a disease within its own borders and has also chosen to violate property rights under its unconstitutional eviction moratorium without providing just compensation. Even pre-COVID, some areas like Chicago and Los Angeles have had crime ratings high enough to compete with entire countries.
>>a country that ensures development of vaccines and provides them for it's population in the case of pandemics.
So can India, China, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Australia, etc. Why should I pay the United States if I received my vaccine from these countries' labs and and medical resources instead?
>>medicare (or similar) for all as well as some other social benefits that make sense to enable more risk free pursuit of happiness and simplify employment.
An American citizen can't use medicare in a foreign country. Just like how a British citizen can't use NHS services in the United States. The pursuit of happiness is a negative right, not a subsidized one.
>>That's the argument the British crown once made for taxation without representation. ...
IIRC Those living outside of the US still have the right to cast votes for President, and are not compelled to pay non-federal taxes. An argument might be made for non-state citizens to at least have a single representative and senator they can vote for.
>>>> (social programs)
>> ... Ponzi-scheme ...
I agree about the problems with the funding and fulfillment structure. However the reality still exists even if the current implementation is unfair for those of us not yet seeing the benefits. If you're also a US citizen, please vote to get this fixed.
-- The next set of points contradict my historically long viewed claim of stability. Generally both viewpoints are correct; though I would like to compare the current issues with the virus and unrest in the US to the latest 6 WEEKS lockdown in portions of Australia. Stability is __relative__.
-- The last point was my hopeful view for benefits I'd prefer all US taxpayers to receive in the future. If your opinion differs from mine, you could share what other befits you'd like to see instead.
Where/how can US citizens vote to modify the social security system?
Reality: some states make it easy and will even let you vote in state and local elections, others make it inconvenient if you’re not with the military (have to request ballots every year, have to diligently watch for registration purges), and some make it practically impossible for non-military.
If you’re an American abroad having trouble registering and/or getting your ballots, your local Democrats Abroad chapter has someone who will help you out. Even if you’re a Republican ;)
I want as many US citizens abroad as possible to vote on a regular basis, even if they’re voting differently from me: our representatives will pay more attention to us if they see that we vote in larger numbers.
If you Are living in high tax regimes like Switzerland you don’t have double tax on the first $xx,xxx in income, it used to be close to 90k.
The only reason why I do not renounce my American citizenship is because the very rare disease that I have was discovered on NIH grant funds in the 2000s and ultimately saved my life.
I am not sentimental about being American, except for that.
It's immune-mediated autonomic neuropathy and causes autonomic nervous system failure. I am in pharmaceutical remission now.
It essentially creates a system of taxation without representation; ironically something the country has a deep history fighting against. The number of US expats is enormous, and if they were a state of their own they'd be the 11th most populated state (just ahead of New Jersey). If we're going to tax expats overseas, at the very least they should be provided with senators that are dedicated to fighting for their cause.
FATCA is annoying. I don’t mind taxes. I want the process to be fair, predictable, and not exceptional. It’s a travesty the United States has been most of my adult life a failed state, which makes the tax treatment insult to injury.
- American Abroad (on the pathway to naturalization in a new home)
I would say it has 3 of those 4 bullet points.
> Likewise, when a nation weakens and its standard of living declines, it introduces the possibility of total governmental collapse.
Standard of living
https://usafacts.org/state-of-the-union/standard-living/
So yeah, I personally don't call it a failed state, but I don't blame others that do if they're in those categories.
People also argued in January 2020 that it would be ridiculous to worry about this coronavirus it's just as deadly as the flu. Literally told to me by a democratic doctor that works at an extremely prestigious medical institution. (Different take now).
I'm not saying the US is on the precipice of failure in 1 year and 7 months, but people don't realize the stilts things are on sometimes.
Again, do words even have meaning anymore? Just because someone feels like America is a "failed state" doesn't make it so.
And finally, "failed state" is using the past tense. I can acknowledge that something is on stilts without claiming that it already fell down.
1. a right pain in the ass, because you have to fill US taxes even when you don't reside in the US, work with the US, and haven't set foot there in years.
2. a right pain in the ass because you have to declare local welfare as income to the US government
3. a right pain in the ass because taxes being so much simpler in most other countries means accountants is a much rarer career very much specialised for extremely high income, far beyond your means, and most of them don't know and can't help with US taxes anyway
4. a right pain in the ass because things like FATCA means most financial institution have decided it's just not worth interacting with US citizens and will refuse to deal with them — this can make it very difficult to function at any sort of level especially as countries progressively increase their cashlessness
5. a right pain in the ass because even if you decide you've had enough and decide to renounce it's expensive and complicated
I'm sure I'm missing a bunch as I'm not a US citizen let alone a US expat.
Some other countries do that as well. Norway for limited time period. Some others have exit fees etc.
It is not about where you are born, it is about where you have citizenship (and possibly also residency).
As long as you maintain your US citizenship you are morally obligated to contribute to the well being of the country, the biggest and easiest to understand of course is national defense.
Likewise, if you own a property in another state that you only use a portion of the year you are not off the hook for paying taxes that contribute to, for example, road maintenance and local schools.
Where I do have sympathy is that they make it extremely difficult for expats to file as well as maintain investment accounts.
Not that is the issue. Residency is the norm, the US is both residency and citizenship.
Only country in the world that charges taxes on money that they have no business over.
Also are you referring to FATCA when you talk about investment firms? My understanding is that FATCA doesn't really become an issue until you have more than a certain amount of assets in the country you are living in.
FBAR does have to always be reported for all accounts but is a separate issue.
EDIT: I think I misread. I was wondering if you were having problems with investment firms in the USA not wanting to work with you. Are you saying that you are trying to invest using companies located in your current country of residence?
Sorry for your troubles. Do you know about https://www.interactivebrokers.com? They are an ultra-low cost international brokerage. It seems they specialise in handling complex regulations! They can open brokerage accounts for local residents in an incredible number of countries -- all legally. Even India, which very difficult! Normally, they have a tiny office in each location to handle local financial regulatory requires (KYC, AML). FYI: The head office is in the United States, which is great for strong securities regulations. I strongly recommend it. And they aren't some start-up. They have been around for a long time. Their product range is similar to a large investment bank. You can trade everything under the sun that is listed on an exchange.
Save the best for last: They recently scrapped their minimum monthly fees for low balance accounts.
(Re-reading this post, sorry if I sound like a 'shill'. Everything I wrote above can be independently verified with some Google searching!)
It's quite possible that the Democrats will, if they modify the tax system, undo that change. That might be why investment firms hesitate to have you as a client. Although, unless you are using tax-advantaged accounts, it shouldn't be that much extra paperwork for them.
As for rich people gaming the system - I can imagine Bezos et al. would not mind living in the Caymans for a year while he sold all his stock to pay no taxes. If you can determine when you pay taxes, that's a huge benefit.
My wife was brought over to Belgium by what was then a subsidiary of JP Morgan, and they paid for all the additional expenses, including the tax services of some very talented people at Earnest & Young. They also paid for all the paperwork to get her a Belgian work permit. We weren’t actually married at the time, just engaged. But JPM agreed to treat us like a married couple. The only thing they didn’t pay for was the work permit for me.
It took a lot of effort for me to find work over there, a lot more than I expected, given my career and experience. And those companies did have to deal with the hassle of getting a work permit for me, as well as complications with US taxes. I didn’t end up working at Belgacom Skynet for long, but that cratered more because the parent company wanted to re-absorb the ISP arm back in-house, and so all the technical people with a clue bailed like rats from that sinking ship, and I was just one of the last to leave.
But hoo boy, every year, that poor team of accountants at E&Y had their work cut out for them, when it came time to file our taxes.
In the end, the reason we left was that my wife’s employer (now spun off from JPM) wanted to pay her as a Belgian native, and we had been in the country long enough to get Belgian passports. But that would have been a massive pay cut for her, and did not make financial sense to us. They were very surprised when she told them that she was not going to be accepting that offer, and so they had to negotiate to pay her as an ex-pay for one more year while she worked to help find a replacement and train her office to handle that transition. Part of that negotiation involved getting them to agree to move us to whatever country we wanted — including moving back to the US.
So, yeah — I can understand why some people might choose to go the other direction, and renounce their US citizenship.
OTOH, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for the ultra-wealthy people who have all decided to set up shop in New Zealand. Yes, visiting NZ is on my bucket list. But I’m not interested in giving up my US citizenship and moving there permanently.
- There is renunciation fee that has to be paid and currently stands at $2,350 (the highest in the world).[1]
- A final tax return will sill need to be filed. [1]
- An Expatriation tax is payable if [..] Your net worth is $2 million or more on the date of your expatriation. you will be treated as having disposed of your assets the day before your expatriation and will be subject to capital gains tax.
- The highest capital gains tax bracket in the USA is 20% [2]
Now there will be ways this is avoided but it would seem that the IRS is trying very hard make this process unappealing
[1] https://www.expatnetwork.com/how-to-renounce-us-citizenship-...
[2] https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/capital-gains-tax-r...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renunciation_of_citizenship#St...
On the up side you can apparently still qualify for Social Security benefits.
If you've already done those things, does the IRS pay you?
The personal benefit from the obligation to serve on juries is the option of being tried by a jury of your peers.
Why would a jury of peers be a benefit, unless you assume positive bias? It’s an option, you don’t need to be tried by your peers so you would only pick it if it’s better than being judged by a judge. That doesn’t mean it’s a positive bias, you might assume judges have a negative bias.
How does that work with the draft? Look at all the countries that have been invaded, compare them to countries that haven’t been. That’s the benefit of a strong military and the existence of the draft is part of that.
but you no longer benefit from the military and other services abroad?
> It’s an option, you don’t need to be tried by your peers
but you are obligated to jury duty, to the extent you have to pay to leave?
> Look at all the countries that have been invaded
all all the ones that haven't? Doesn't seem like a draft is needed.
Capital gains are deferred without interest until an asset it sold, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t an obligation for those years.
what
Looking deeply at the social counteracts of other countries is really interesting because of how many different things we take for granted aren’t universal. Free speech in the US is more limited than I would like, but it gets much worse even in countries that look civilized in other ways.
Free speech in US is poorer than in most Western countries, as it fails to protect you from anything other than most government institutions. For example in US it’s fine for your employer to fire you because they don’t like what you say in your private time. Other countries provide better protection.
My question is still unanswered: why would anyone in US even think about their law enforcement invoicing the victims?
The FBI may get involved for citizens outside the US. The international situation is complex but being or not being a US citizen can very much change FBI involvement.
PS: My question is still unanswered: why would anyone in US even think about their law enforcement invoicing the victims? It’s a concern if your considering renouncing citizenship and moving to a country where it’s a concern just as free speech should be a concern if your moving to a country without it.
Depends on the state. The US isn't as simple as you're making it out to be.
I would say consequences of infringement are much worse for individual citizens than for the government.
If the government confiscates some of your money through "civil forfeiture", you then have to sue the government and prove the money was gained legally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...
On the other hand, try not filing your taxes. What happened to John McAfee might happen to you.
https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/getting-a-visa/visa-li...
It's a huge rip-off like everything in this country.
The $2350 seem to be cheaper than fees for filing annual tax returns for the next 50 years :)
https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/citizenship/give-up-citizens...
IANAL, but I believe that all the unpleasantries which you note were decided by the U.S. Congress. (Most probably with the President's sign-off.) Making the IRS out to be the Real Villain(tm) here only helps a bunch of self-serving politicians to evade responsibility.
Good for Congress for trying to prevent this.
Why else would Eric Schmidt want to become a citizen of Cyprus, which then also allows him to live elsewhere in the EU? It’s certainly isn’t to end up laying more in taxes than he would in the US.
Unfortunately, it sounds like the vast majority of targets bear no resemblance to your stereotype. And the system has no interest in discriminating between the few filthy rich town-skippers and the vast majority who are just easy victims.
Targeting all members of large group - because a small minority of them are "bad" in some emotional-button-pushing way - has a very long and disreputable history.
Money put into Social Security is just lost to you unless you are renouncing your money after retirement.
The SS tax is to pay current retirees. There's a formula that states how much you'll get when you retire, but the money you're putting in now is not being saved/invested for your benefit in the future.
The short version: Money you put into SS is not your money.
Furthermore, if you renounce your citizenship, it is you who are choosing not to get this benefit. It is a defined benefit for citizens, and you are choosing not to be one.
As for similarity to pensions: Far from it. When the government has an excess (i.e. total SS taxes collected is greater than payouts for a given year), they are not allowed to hold it or invest it. Pensions are/were always invested, or at least held.
Individuals who renounce their US citizenship (or were never citizens) are still eligible to receive SS benefits; SS actually has very little to do with citizenship.
https://www.aarp.org/retirement/social-security/questions-an...
Short term gains are taxed at your normal tax rate.
Not really, because they can arbitrarily change it and backdate the change at any time, and they are currently planning to raise it to 43% and backdate the change.
In truth, the US does not have a fixed capital gains rate.
If you're making income in America, you owe US tax taxes.
If you are a permanent resident of the United States, you owe US taxes.
Whether the IRS is using mafia tactics or not, what you are describing is tax evasion. There are legal ways to minimize your tax burden, but this is horrible advise.
> U.S. law also states that a child born outside of the U.S to a U.S. citizen parent who previously spent sufficient time in the U.S. is a U.S. citizen at birth, regardless of whether the child also has the citizenship of the country of birth or another citizenship. U.S. citizens married to fellow U.S. citizens can transmit U.S. citizenship to their children if either parent has ever had a residence in the United States (without any minimum time limitation on how long they held that residence.) However, for U.S. citizens married to non-U.S. citizens, the required period of residence is longer; under the Nationality Act of 1940 and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, the required period of residence was set to ten years, five of which had to be after the age of 14. The Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1986 reduced this to five years, two of which had to be after the age of 14.
So you're automatically a citizen if you're born in the USA, if both of your parents are citizens (and at least one has resided in the USA), or if either of your parents is a citizen and lived in the USA for 5 years (2 of which after the age of 14).
Also, at least from a tax perspective, if you plan on remaining a US citizen, you might benefit from getting SSNs for your kids so you can claim the child tax credit and stimulus payments for 2021.
And if they don't want to be citizens, renouncing citizenship in the 6 months immediately after they turn 18 can avoid tax complications.
After trying to get citizenship without leaving the country for about a year, I went to the post office and applied for a passport again, with every document that could possibly be relevant. The post office person looked through my pile of documents, declared my mother's passport good enough, stuffed it in the envelope, and a passport came in the mail for me. I think you may have explained to me how that worked out.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/fatca-tax-deal-forces-canad...
In the case of the US, they have the capacity to make legitimate threats against me regardless of where I live, with zero defense provided by my sovereign nation. So what's the right move?
> if you don't disclose your US citizenship to foreign banks then that information is not going to make its way back to the IRS
I would not assume this to be true. Certainly not without researching into any specific case more.
Ergo, they can't call Interpol to get you for not filing.
(correct me if you're a tax accountant, but I'm 99.999% positive on that first statement and 80% confident on the second)
Now, chances are they don't find out, or if they do you can play innocent and pay a fine. Personally, if I were in this situation I would either file, renounce, or never set foot on US soil.
People who renounce their American citizenship do so with the funds to overcome this or because they’re committed to living somewhere else.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-08-31/why-th...
https://theconversation.com/americans-are-renouncing-us-citi...
And one fun quote:
"Still, all American expats – even those who’ve lived abroad for decades, earn no income in the U.S., and hold no U.S. assets – must submit an annual tax return to the Internal Revenue Service. Now, ever since Congress strengthened anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financial reporting requirements, many have had to hire costly international accounting firms to do their taxes.
The consequences of noncompliance are severe: forfeiting up to 50% of all undeclared assets held overseas."
There may be some "ultra-wealthy" people doing this, but I suspect that they are not the bulk of it by a long way.
FATCA made this even worse. Now many companies and financial institutions abroad will refuse to do business with you if you hold US citizenship /even/ if you are a dual citizen and primary resident of the country they are based in. It's absolutely absurd how the US government treats American expats, and is in stark contrast to how British, Australian, and German expats are treated (of which there are many all over the world).
I agree - many banks did not want to let me open an account, and when BNP Paribas said they work with Americans it was a huge ordeal to open the account.
However, as a salaried employee, I did not struggle with the taxes. The IRS form was very straightforward and after deductions I didnt owe any US taxes (I made just over the equivalent of $100k USD).
IIRC the theory is that you determine your tax liability if you had made all your income in the US and you subtract the liability you incurred by your foreign tax residence. You pay the difference but only after you cross some income threshold. If you are living somewhere that 'pays more in taxes' then you wont owe anything to the US.
I can 100% understand why very wealthy people hate this system, but as a software dev making a modest living it was not onerous or unfair or difficult to manage.
Okay, now apply your experience with this system but instead of being a salaried employee you run a <5 person LLC that is incorporated in the US that does the same work but on contract and has a small leased office. It goes from being one form and a simple exercise into a massive nightmare, even though the dollar amounts you are actually making in income aren't any higher (at the time I think my AGI was like $126K USD).
Anything off the path of salaried employee stationary in a foreign tax residence exponentially increases the complexity involved and therefore the expense to file. Most years, my accountancy bill was actually higher than the taxes owed, and it would have saved everyone quite a lot of trouble for little gain to just do away with this archaic and pointless rule which no other civilized nation has.
This is not just a problem for the very wealthy, it's a problem for anyone who does not fall in a very narrow bucket but happens to reside abroad while having US citizenship. Even in your case, where you found the process simple, you must admit it made it difficult to secure accounts and form business relationships abroad because of the tax implications and reporting implications for your possible business partners.
Were you also required to file FBAR or Form 8938?
About how much time did you spend on tax preparation yourself? If you used a paid preparer, how much did that cost you?
The fact that you mentioned "paper file" is a bit worrisome. You were required to file an FBAR if you had foreign accounts (such as bank accounts) totaling more than $10,000, and given your stated income, that seems likely. FBAR must generally be done electronically, and is a separate process from your tax return.
https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...
Normally, I found, when filling out a 1040 and walking through line by line, you are able to discover the forms you need and guide yourself quite easily. In the case of citizens living abroad, there is a publication as well that mentions everything, including all the forms and the FBAR you talk about. I found the process is quite discoverable and linear.
Also - the FBAR did not apply to me based on how I moved my money back to my domestic account, the foreign account was a current account for local bills, its balance never exceeded $5k.
Lets say you are a 0.1%er who happens to live in canada. Invest everything on canadas terms, then move to the USA. receive foodstamps, welfare checks and the likes for XX years. Go back to canadian citizenship and cash out. Darn, looks like tax payers supported the ultra wealthy while they just got richer eh?
It has a $6,000 yearly contribution limit.
Canada, if anything, has an investment tax scheme which favours middle class investors. For someone making millions of dollars Capital gains tax is tied to your income tax bracket in Canada so it is very likely that you would end up paying higher taxes.
Canada also has a tax and income information sharing with the USA, so someone making big bucks in investments in Canada could not benefit from means tested programs in the US.
The scenario you proposed is entirely impossible.
I haven't looked into the exact details of Peter Thiel's IRA, but those have a contribution limit too, and look at all the press recently about him "abusing" [0] that.
[0] I can't claim to know enough of his specific situation and the exact regulations to have an opinion on whether that's a fair characterization.
My point is that he bought private stock, something that is privileged, so it's not entirely accurate to say that all people benefit from a roth IRA equally.
I personally don't think that the average person has the ability to take similar advantage, even though they both have the same limitations on paper.
> move to the USA. receive foodstamps, welfare checks and the likes for XX years
Does this seem like a good use of your time, as a 0.1%er? Collecting foodstamps?
While you can keep a TFSA around you'll end up paying taxes on the gains back to the states as well you need to file additional paperwork come tax time. If your TFSA gains exceed the filing requirements it might still be worth keeping. Historically you needed to file a TFSA as a foreign trust however recently the IRS has deemed them a foreign disregarded entity which reduces the filing requirements thus making it cheaper.
In your situation you could open up a US based fund with that money and Canada won't care so that's likely your best option.
If optimizing for money really was people's intention, it's much more optimal to leave before you become mega rich.
You can move to Singapore once you have $6 million to buy a visa-by-investment. There's no cap gains taxes there, so your money can compound unencumbered.
Then again, not every ex-pat who renounces their citizenship does that, maybe because they don't want to live in Singapore. Some of us ex-patriate to countries with even higher taxes than the states.
Look at the number of people ex-patriating with a grain of salt. It's like the Drake Equation, there are many factors that would allow you to narrow the 'search space', and after all is said and done, there will just be a small amount of people who have outsized influence in the states and also evading taxes.
It is almost as if the US provides some kind of useful, taxpayer funded, environment for becoming mega rich....
Fun fact: the US is becoming a haven for tax avoidance and privacy simply because they're forcing all this disclosure information on other countries and are completely unwilling to reciprocate.
A lot of people concentrate on the super-wealthy renouncing US citizenship. I mean that's going to happen. For people who don't know you get taxed on your holdings at current market rates when you do this. Obviously people still do this because they realize it's going to be cheaper in the long run. I don't really care about that.
What I do care about is removing the political influence of former citizens. They are technically foreigners now and there are restrictions on foreign influence on US elections. So we should be:
- Stopping former citizens from contributing to political campaigns, PACs and politically active charities;
- Companies they control or directly control should likewise be prohibited from contributing; and
- Any such organization that contributed to political candidates directly or indirectly should be forbidden from accepting foreign money or having such foreigners in any leadership or executive position.
We should probably do something about holding US real estate too but that's a whole other discussion.
'People renouncing their citizenship are wealthy'
because I don't think poor people can afford to. That says nothing about whether poor people are more or less interested in doing so.
I live abroad and I'm not rich. I sometimes debate renouncing my US citizenship, but working remote in the US makes me well off here. If I had a local job making piles of money I might be more inclined to. My only complaint is that when I go to visit mom, I get endless grief from the immigration officials.
You don’t like it? Fine. You have a choice and can get out.
Good safety valve. It keeps the populist governments in check.
It's just undeniably true that individual freedoms exist only to the extent that society allows them to. To think that you can opt out of society is fantasy.
It's in everybody's best interest to make sure society works well for everyone, and that kind of thinking pushes you back to the political center.
The core argument is that the government doesn't need to step in to fix society, because the incentives are so strong that society will sort itself out through people realising that if the ship sinks they will drown so they have to keep the water outside the boat of their own initiative.
Given that it is already in everyone's interest that the ship floats, the people loudly claiming "our enemies are trying to sink the ship!" are probably lying and should not be put in charge. However, such people infest government.
If libertarianism would result in a great many oppressed people, any sort of centralisation of power will result in even more oppressed people. Beefing up government power is no solution to oppression; the worst oppressors are invariably governments. The worst of the great catastrophes and oppression of the last century were perpetrated by strong centralised governments.
Absolutely. It's a good thing I'm not calling for massively beefing up government then, I'm just advocating that tax laws exist & are enforced, so as to redistribute wealth, which I don't view as oppressive.
> If libertarianism would result in a great many oppressed people, any sort of centralisation of power will result in even more oppressed people.
I disagree with the implied premise that there is not a "centralisation of power" under libertarianism. While there isn't a state to have a monopoly on violence, there can certainly be a centralisation of economic power. And when we rely on money to pay rent, afford food, pay for healthcare etc, economic power is functionally equivalent to power in general.
> the worst oppressors are invariably governments
I wouldn't say invariably. Consider the United Fruit Company for example, or the current prevalence of child labour in tech company supply chains (e.g: Glencore, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt).
Laws are strongly enforced in this country (USA).
Where is the bar for "oppressive"? I come from a country that thought that 70%+ taxation was acceptable. In the USA, we are now at 60%+ (across federal, state, local). It sure sounds oppressive to me and one way out is to give the choice to people to opt out.
I think paying 60% tax or higher on income above a certain threshold (e.g: $300,000, just throwing a number out there, so you'd pay 60% tax on $1 if you were earning $300,001, and a lower tax rate for the lower portion) is reasonable.
Regardless, sure, one way is to give the choice to opt out, another is just to lower taxes if it's generally agreed they're too high.
What country ever taxes at 70% overall? The US used to have federal income upper marginal rates in the 90% range, but that doesn't mean that you pay 90% of your income as tax.
There is almost nowhere on earth that does wealth redistribution. Most taxes are based on income. Wealth distribution has traditionally failed so hard that there aren't even serious attempts any more.
> I disagree with the implied premise that there is not a "centralisation of power" under libertarianism.
That is impossible so it isn't a premise of anything. Libertarianism is trying to minimise the centralisation of power.
> ... consider the United Fruit Company for example ...
I'll admit to not having researched the UFC particularly closely, but wasn't its mode of operation quite close to getting the government to do a lot of its dirty work? I'd assume typically it was co-opting taxes.
> ...or the current prevalence of child labour in tech company supply chains (e.g: Glencore, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt)...
Look, if you have child labour in your mine you've mucked up and you're probably leaving a lot of money on the table. Children aren't good workers, by and large. Mining tends to favour experienced workers driving large, expensive, well maintained machines. If you put a kid in one of those they'll wreck it.
Particularly I doubt Glencore is seriously using child labour because they run their mines to make a profit. They'd be trying to keep them out. Not to mention the political backlash.
It seems to me that the wealthy who leave the country and renounce their citizenship are effectively opting out of society. It's not a fantasy for the wealthy. We live in a competitive world where people have freedom of movement. The wealthy will tend to go where they are treated best. I think society works well for everyone when the government keeps the tax rates reasonable. Over time, a government kleptocracy causes horrific suffering for the vast majority of people.
No: they get to choose which society to live in and which legal system gives them less trouble.
Everybody else has little choice.
Your local government gives your child a grant of money each month to be invested in a choice of funds? You're a US citizen? sorry, you're out of luck, this makes doing taxes effectively very very difficult.
But being a Canadian and knowing many Americans who have come here to work -- making prosperous but not insane professional class incomes -- and still having to file with the IRS, often having to pay into the IRS (without receiving services back in the US) and having their Canadian retirement funds messed with by the IRS, I find this whole thing baffling. No other western nation does this, and it's unjust. why would this forum -- full of people in the tech industry making a good living -- try to justify this?
Put this another way: should you cross the border into Canada and take up residency here (for a job, or because your spouse lives here, or because you like it here) you will now be effectively double-taxed for the rest of your time here.
This from a country that supposedly started its war of independence over the issue of taxation without representation?
Like I said, preposterous. Glad my mother and myself never applied for the dual citizenship we could in theory be entitled to. What a curse that would be.
Yes, make the seriously wealthy pay their share. But most of the people suffering from this situation (and often trying to renounce their citizenships in many cases not able to) are your peers in your industry.
However I've heard some people say it is worth the hassle so that you can save your passport everywhere saying "I'm American " and getting some sort of special treatment. Or that your embassy saves you from some crazy scenario you could get into as an expat.
Remember that you need not ever even have been to America to be a citizen. Second, America can decide who is a citizen according to their own laws, which is a bit of a conflict of interest.
So currently children of Americans are American, but there's no reason they couldn't arbitrarily decide that grand children, or great grandchildren are as well. Or if you want to be really silly, in theory they could grant citizenship to anyone if they amended the laws to do so.
So ive been given a status at birth by a foreign country that I have no wish for. They then grant me the privilege of paying them to renounce the status that they declared me to have!
Why thank you land of the free!
The real question here is what the context and amounts of money involved are. % figures in small numbers are useless, a few billion dollars means nothing to America. It isn't even clear to me that this is evidence the "people will stay, even if taxes rise!" crowd have to admit a mistake.
And the US has declared a War Against American Citizens Investing in Foreign Countries. The restrictions Americans face on opening a foreign bank account are quite stunning from what rumours I've heard.
Cypriot.
Cyprous.
Rouge state that is using its economic might (and implied brute force) to bend foreign banks to their nefarious will
For one thing they are cornering the market on industrial scale money laundering. Making American states the last place standing where unattributable companies can be formed.
End of empire - a dangerous time.
This is such lazy reporting. Is there any data showing the connection to tech? Is there any indication that Eric Schmidt would renounce his American citizenship if he becomes Cypriot? What is a zillionaires?
Good: 1. When I first got here, super cheap drinks put on by the marines at the US embassy. People would get wasted and it was an obvious security threat so those parties don’t happen anymore.
Bad: 1. No access to covid vaccine despite paying taxes and not having vaccine access in local country for a while. This was a hot topic in many US expat communities. Globally, Embassy and consulate staff were all vaccinated but it was “bad optics” for overseas citizens to have vax access. 2. Brother (also citizen) was on a trip to Kilimanjaro as covid was kicking off. The Europe travel ban was announced so I tried calling the embassy for travel advice, not even a return call. 3. While I haven’t personally needed it, if the doo-doo hits the fan, you’re on your own. You pay for the cost of your own evac, even if it’s a Govt flight. 4. The annual pain and cost of tax filing and bank account reporting. 5. The ongoing pain of trying to get financial services as an overseas US citizen. Banks, stock brokers, etc don’t want you.
It’s my understanding that in French government, they have a specific representative for overseas citizens. In the US, our voices are scattered across 50 states (and homelanders don’t care about us) so we always get shaft.
All that being said, I have no plans to renounce.
Countries were not vaccinating permanent residents? I had no problem getting a vaccine as a foreigner in Turkey. I thought all countries would be like that.
I wonder if these mega rich are leaving to avoid paying taxes to a what they view as a mismanaged governmental system because they think they can do a better job of distributing their money and making the world a better place.
He had a hell of a time getting back into Canada after that!
“Renouncing citizenship” means they’ll give up none of the influence, lose the taxes, live how and wherever they want.
The best thing to do is forbid them re-entry into the country nor to hold controlling interest in any company in the US.
Faced with actual consequences and true separation from the actual thing they care about (their source of wealth, not the country) they will reconsider. I’m not sure if this is a net plus, as they are a selfish lot.
There are 20 million millionaires in the states. This is not even 10,000 people year over year with assets, not even net worth, over $2 million. This is a tiny fraction of the population, most of whom are contrarian or pursue an alternative lifestyle, given that they are living abroad.
I would hardly call someone with $2 million as having outsized influenced, they're barely upper middle class or be able to afford a house in San Francisco. If we assume this distribution obey a power-law, there are a small percentage of individuals here there who are ultra ultra wealthy to have that influence.
There are ideological reasons to renounce citizenship, and maybe having a small amount of wealth enables to pursue this option as it involves legal fees and also affordance of living off investment income. There are likely many poor people who would like to leave to, but don't have the financial means to. The data set will be biased towards those who can afford the process.
Furthermore, renouncement of citizenship involves exit taxes, on which people have already paid taxes.
> The best thing to do is forbid them re-entry into the country
On what legal grounds? They can't enter on a tourist visa? To visit a dying friend or family member one last time?
> nor to hold controlling interest in any company in the US.
Then we should stop all foreign investments and investors.
There are still hundreds of billionaires in the states, and they can still access tax havens regardless of renouncing citizenship.
Take the logarithm of the number of people who renounce citizenship and you will have the number of people with outsized influence.
Edit: fixed my percentile thanks to child comment!
6 percent
And if anyone is interested in the household wealth distribution (as of 1Q21):
Top 1%: $41.5 trillion | 90%-99%: $48.8 trillion | 50-90%: $36.5 trillion | bottom 50%: $2.6 trillion
$129.5 trillion total household assets.
There are around 128 million households in the US. The average American household is now worth a million dollars (the median is obviously far lower).
That top 1% of US households - 1.28 million households - holds an average of roughly $32 million in assets.
Inflation. Being a millionaire or having a six figure salaries used to have much more weight during the 80s.
Pretty much any senior level engineer at FANG can be a millionaire if they saved, but they can barely afford a standalone home in San Francisco. What does the term 'middle class' even mean if they can't afford a home?
Only 20% of millionaires surveyed feel they're rich.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/12/net-worth-to-be-considered-w...
And of course they don't "feel" rich. Lifestyle inflation is a thing. Trade the Civic for a Tesla; send the kids to private school; buy organic groceries; take international vacations every year or so; yet still find the means to save more money each year than the average household in the USA earns. Feeling is a state of mind, not a state of being.
Given the track-record lefty authoritarianism has, I'm always a little nauseated to see people pull out the truncheon and jack-boots to enforce "economic justice". That and suggestions like this don't even make any sense, and rarely ever do. It always looks to me like retribution is the aim here, rather than effective economic policy.
The ultra-left sentiment is, indeed, anti-liberal at its core, but it is still an irrelevant fringe.
The actual, viable threat of authoritarianism is coming from the opposite side, which is a spit away from holding absolute power, here in the States, at least. And then, it's on.
> viable threat of authoritarianism is coming from the opposite side
This is nothing more than whataboutism. There's authoritarians on both sides. They're both just as dangerous in the end-game. In Canada, it's the left mainly. In the US, there's highly vocal, and influential to public opinion, left wing authoritarians. In Canada lefty authoritarianism isn't just a fringe, it's mainstream. This is true in a lot of places too. I'm not sure why some folks insist on downplaying the risk of authoritarianism when it comes from the left as opposed to the right. Both kill just as many people, one just uses gas where the other uses starvation.
Is there an effort by these "loud" individuals to drive a focused disinformation campaign targeted at nullifying legitimate votes? One third of the United States is entirely sold on it. That is quite "influential", I would say, and presents clear and present danger.
You've addressed nothing I've said and launched a demand for sources on cherry-picked words from the point I made. I don't want to, and won't, argue with ideology and party lines.
You've made nearly identical points to me just about the right for some reason, despite the fact that I'm not even talking about them. I've used the word 'right' once in any other comment until this one. Not sure why you're trying to turn this into a right-left partisan shit-slinging match. Not every discussion of the left necessitates a discussion about the right's negative traits, and vice-versa. If you truly believe this, I suggest you get your head out of American partisan ideology.
Let's be honest here, lefty authoritarianism has historically killed way more people in total.
Fortunately, righty authoritarianism was stopped; unfortunately lefty authoritarianism wasn't.
I just find it fascinating and a bit sad that authoritarianism is often seen as somehow better, if it comes from the left.
If people truly value democracy and freedom, authoritarianism should be opposed regardless of its underlying political color.
This is exactly the train of thought I had thrown at me by another commenter who was insistent on bringing up the fact that the right wing is "worse" somehow. You're right, it is very disappointing to see.
As it turns out, it's no longer the 80s, and there are increasingly multiple other countries were the super-rich can move their activities, wealth and lifestyle to without missing a beat.
Hanging around financial circles, I've seen a large exodus of people through the pandemic star the process of moving pieces towards places like Dubai and Singapore.
abandoning your country for lower taxes so you can "live your lifestyle without missing a beat" is disgusting to most humans. The wealthy have abandoned any sense of duty to their fellow citizens and are somehow shocked people are angry about the situation
The wealthy are only wealthy because the non-wealthy people who vastly outnumber the wealthy, allow them to keep their capital. I think massive wealth inequality is making a significant number of people rethink this generous position.
But it has yet to be taxed as income. Even if it doesn't devalue, you can't use it until you dispose of it, incurring additional tax.
> The wealthy are only wealthy because the non-wealthy people who vastly outnumber the wealthy, allow them to keep their capital.
The wealthy can afford better weaponry than you. Are you alive only because they allow you to live?
> rethink this generous position
Do you think you are entitled to something just because you could (forcibly) take it?
But it's never enough. taxes already work on a scale such that the rich pay more (% wise), and they still owe more?
Almost every aspect of participating in the economy is taxed, e.g paying business-related taxes - those that participate more therefore pay more of these taxes too.
It seems "what is owed" is never clearly stated so you can always be hit up for more.
Being forced to give a large portion of my family's hard earned wealth to a tired, ineffective institution which aims to invest it in initiatives I think will ruin the economy? Why in god's name would I do that if I have the choice not to?
EDIT: I’m aware of the rules regarding income taxes for Americans based on their citizenship and not on where the income was earned. My questions address this and by saying ‘yes’ to them I’m indicating that these rules are dumb in my opinion.
There's no loophole here, a large majority of countries work this way, and OECD countries certainly do (although some have different treatments for short term residents). Usually the logic is: if you don't pay taxes in country A, you'll pay in country B anyways. And you'll pay an exit tax when you go from country A to B in many cases, so country A gets their cut.
I think you're underestimating the legal maneuvers these people can afford to find that have got then to where they are.
The billionaires can just dock their yachts in international waters.
Maybe you didn't know this but Americans living overseas still have to file and pay US taxes, often getting double-taxed buy two different countries - and often by a higher tax country than the US.
In fact, the US is one of only two countries in the world with this arrangement. I'm an American living overseas and it's a bit of a logical nightmare dealing with all the requirements. Even opening a simple checking account is difficult now for Americans overseas.
Americans who haven't lived overseas or haven't traveled much often have difficulty empathizing. But when we were living in the US, I would have found it very strange if not absurd if my non-US born wife had to file and pay taxes to her country of birth.
However, when you relinquish your citizenship you pay an exit tax which is more or less equivalent to what you'd pay if you sold all your assets and paid gains taxes, so I'm not sure how this move really helps billionaires, except that they don't have to pay taxes on future gains.
I am sure they never, ever, ever lie about their assets.
If there's a tax treaty between the two countries, they're not going to be double taxed. They will simply pay tax at the higher-country-rate, and owe nothing to the other.
If there's no tax treaty ... I'm not familiar with how that works. The US has tax treaties with many countries around the world, especially the OECD nations.
> Between the lines: While the numbers are down this year, that's probably because many U.S. embassies and consulates remain closed for COVID-19, and taking this grave step requires taking an oath in front of a State Department officer.
So it seems these are American passport holders who already live in foreign countries, so contributing to American infrastructure, etc, but not benefiting of those things. Obviously having embassies you can go to for help anywhere around the world is useful, but if these are dual-passport holders they probably have the second embassy, for example any EU embassy would help any EU citizen [1].
But well, 2020 saw the worst of Trump saying "Everything is under control!" while ICUs (and morgues) overfilled, so maybe that's a reason for the renouncements. Or maybe was there some new law which was going to come to effect in 2021?
Anyway, I find "forbidding re-entry" is extreme and tinpot-dictatorship-esque.
[1] https://ec.europa.eu/info/policies/justice-and-fundamental-r...
If I ever move back to Australia, I'll have to file US taxes and other reports such as FBAR for the rest of my life. If you get it wrong, they can and have seized up to 50% of your wealth. Not because it's owed, but just as a penalty.
And many Australian financial institutions won't let me open an account because of the reporting requirements.
This isn't just about the rich avoiding taxes. It's about the US overreaching and creating headaches for lots of people.
Do we forbid foreigners from holding US stocks, assets, etc?
Who do you think is financing the profligate lifestyle we live, compared to our true earnings?
Globalized labor and environmental exploitation, of which the wealthy are gaining the most.
Maybe people no longer want to live in US and it is wealthy that have it easier to actually go through with this?
Or maybe they actually live somewhere else and don't like paying their taxes TWICE. Almost every country in the world (except US) requires taxes based on residency, not citizenship.
For example, being Pole, if I spend more than 180 days in Sweden, I now owe taxes in Sweden but no longer owe them in Poland. That is because Poland recognizes that, while I am Polish citizen, I actually was Swedish resident during that tax year. And have an agreement with Sweden so that it is clear where I have to pay my taxes.
The US doesn't want to play nice and will only provide you with a little bit of credit for the tax you had to pay in another country. But if you earned a lot, you now have to pay it twice.
I actually know 2 or 3 people that work here in Poland that resigned their US citizenship for exactly this reason. Because IRS will hunt you down and demand your taxes even if you don't set foot in US for decades. It has been a topic in our newspapers couple of years ago when we still looked up to US as better place to live and people would need explanation for why somebody in right mind would want to resign US citizenship in favor of Polish.
I have even heard of a person that had to US citizens as parents but never set foot on US soil, that was hunted by IRS to pay taxes.
It is not like people don't have to pay taxes in other countries, though some have smaller rates. To get better picture you would have to look at where they actually went.
The US has similar arrangements with many countries, and you are not doubly-taxed. You simply pay taxes at the highest rate of the two (US and <other country>).
Likewise, if you move to the US from a higher-tax country, and the US has a tax treaty with that country, in your first year in the US (assuming you move mid-year), you will owe taxes to both countries, but will only pay the US rate overall. My first year in the US, the US government paid me US$600 because in their eyes, I had paid the UK too much in taxes for the 5 months I had worked there.
The hassle is that you still have to file with the IRS, even if your actual tax liability to the US is zero.
But do you see how punitive that is to US expats? It means that they never benefit from tax mitigation efforts in their resident country if the US has higher taxes on that. That, tax-wise, they are perpetually worse off than US residents and their local neighbors.
Think about the effect of this on small businesses (which are hardly alone in their troubles). Small businesses owned by US expats are at a perpetual disadvantage relative to local businesses because they can’t operate purely within the local tax environment. If the US introduces some poorly thought out regulation, like the GILTI tax, they are hit completely independently of the local competition through no fault of their own.
Besides, if the resident country decides to mitigate some local issue by lowering taxes, what business is that to the US? It’s criminal that it uses its own citizens to siphon off another country’s wealth.
My dispute was only with the term "doubly-taxed", which for countries with a tax treaty is simply false.
Nevertheless, you are correct that as a US citizen, you are destined to pay max (USTax (income), OtherTax (income)). I don't agree with this, but it's not called "double taxation".
That seems unnecessarily vengeful considering that foreigners (that weren't originally US citizens) weren't subject to the same restrictions.
In fact, countries that have high standard of living usually have equal or higher taxes than the states.
Contrary to what you may assume, especially people who have sought an alternative lifestyle abroad value value having a high standard of living, and not going to move to some shithole just because it has lower taxes.
I'm honestly still trying to figure this out but that's what I understand so far. Another interesting consequence is that calculating long term investment cost basis's sounds like a f'ing nightmare. Maybe that's why the step up rule exists?
They're effectively the only country that believes they're entitled to non-citizen and non-resident income, but we're the "selfish lot" for relieving ourselves of a double tax burden to a country we don't reside in? No thanks you can have it back.
This is so wrong at so many levels. Im not from the USA, yet I own Disney stock and visit the USA every year for tourism. Should i be blocked as well?
The premise here is dead wrong. The top 1% pay ~40% of taxes; the top 5% pay ~60%. So not only do these people create the wonderful consumer goods that enrich your life; they also provide the roads, police, fire fighters, etc. Show some gratitude!
I could potentially wait until my US citizenship is a thing of the past before I even build anything, let alone create a new legal entity. But ideally I would find a way to start this now.
You can renew a DAFT visa as much as you want, but after 5-7 years, you can get a Dutch passport as long as you stay in the country enough.
Due to tax treaties, you get a 30% tax cut in the NL (30% ruling) for five years, and you only pay the difference on US taxes after paying NL taxes (virtually impossible because NL taxes are generally higher than US taxes).
Funny thing is if you are living nomad life you are still required to pay tax somewhere, which I'm not sure makes much sense. My country surely not going to pay my medical expenses abroad, so why should I contribute?
And the reason to stop it is obvious-- to procure other taxes from those people. For example, many jurisdictions don't have an inheritance tax, and the US Gov't would likely want that cut upon the (ex?)-citizen's death.
Lots of simple solutions if we look at other countries that restrict emigration. USSR and North Korea had models that worked pretty well. High boarder security, labor camps, family punishment, and asset seizure.
These could all keep people working and generating tax revenue in the US when they want to leave.
On a practical level, I think the idea of coercing people to stay in the USA would be unpopular, especially when contrasted with the current wealth tax on exit.
By taxing based on residency, not citizenship, like pretty much all other countries on Earth.
People have the right to lower their tax liability within the law, they have the right to move, and they have the right to renounce citizenship (if they have another one). We're not going to prevent any of that from happening. The only thing the US can do is to remove the incentive to renounce citizenship if they think that this is a problem.
Or, would it be possible to renounce US citizenship without foreign citizenship, perhaps while maintaining citizenship in one's state of origin in one of the seven states—Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming—which levy no state income tax, or in one of the two others, New Hampshire and Tennessee, which don't tax earned wages? In other words, could one reside overseas but maintain a tie with a particular state within the USA without any relationship to the federal government?
So, indeed you could renounce US citizenship without having any other one... But that would make you stateless, without passport, etc. which does not sound like a good idea.
Is it true? To my knowledge, if one's home and the resident country have double taxation avoidance agreement, the citizen end up paying the maximum of the tax rate amongst the two.
Is it the case that the US doesn't have DTAA at all, or do US citizens always get taxed twice?
- there’s an exit tax, might be millions $ for the top-tier. You might give your money to family members or a trust before planning to pay it.
- there’s capital gains tax. This means your income is not from personal services and instead from just being wealthy. Looks to me like a lot of the comments here are defending the rights of people with that lifestyle. Those people do not need DTAA.
- reported income from personal services (labor) is what you’re talking about. The bad experiences in this thread are real, but DTAA is meant to make life easier for professors and touring musicians, etc.
- unreported income is indistinguishable from money laundering. The underworld is a very libertarian place, a sore spot for some in this thread.
Back in the day, Elvis Presley was asked by his accountant if he wanted to shelter his income. Elvis told him "No. If I get low on money, I'll schedule more concerts. I pay my taxes."
That's one reason why he was The King.
Patriotism is for fools. Civil spirit starts with not rejecting citizenship for tax reasons.
I don't hate America or its people, I'm just not that into them.
Patriotic people love to tell others "If you don't love America, leave it". Well, as my patriotic act to those great patriotic Americans .. I left.
But enjoy singing some bad national anthem and crying while waving a flag or maybe killing someone who disrespects your flag, or whatever it is the patriotic kids do today.
We really have no country or stable home right now. Once we get to Spain we will love being there, but we will still hold no sense of patriotism.
I'm not willing to fight, murder, or die for a nation. Some people are wired that way, violent ideation of being a hero, dying for god and country or whatever, but it ain't me.
You think the dominant narrative is that America is a racist hellscape? No, no; America is the greatest country on the planet. I heard it on the news. Surely the increasingly consolidated media, owned by the emotionally-fragile rich, could address the dominance of that narrative? Failure to come together to address such a horrifying distortion of reality, after all, would be extremely dangerous to our democracy[0].
In seriousness, I think that your conclusion that the rich are leaving because of culture-war issues is unsupported by the assertion that the dominant narrative is that Murica sucks. The dominant narrative is that America is the land of the free, dude. Unpleasant realities like Trump profiting from the Secret Service having to stay at his hotels, or the dynastic nature of Presidential politics, or how the IRS goes after the poor for lack of the funding that hitting the big-time cheats would require, or how three of the most recent dynasties had ties to an infamous pedophile, or how that pedophile "killed himself" while in high-profile protective custody -- it's all unimportant. Propaganda both subtle and gross smooths things over. The Pledge of Allegiance seems very, very strange to many other cultures, especially Western ones.
I think it's far more likely that they're striking out, as their ancestors once did, to seek a better life. If I were in the habit of cluttering my environment with effluent ponds of various negative externalities, I too would probably want to up and move somewhere with more of a pleasant aspect. Especially if I got to keep all the proceeds of my previous exploitations.
I think what you're complaining about is that the historical propaganda (not to mention historical material abundance for the plebes) which smoothed over the bad stuff doesn't work as well in the modern age. There's cellphone cameras, whistleblowers, shrinkflation, and planned obsolescence these days. What investment and fellow-feeling should the little people feel for The System?
Turning a $20 million donation into a $500 million tax break is both enriching oneself and starving everyone else. My "indictment" is a mere recognizance of what's in front of me. What does this look like to you?
Also if you notice the number spiked in 2016, meaning that it was more to do with Trump than anything else.
What are these protections and privileges, specifically, that are not afforded by any other nation?
For almost any other country, if a wealth person moves abroad, they no longer pay tax in their original country.
So this just levels the field.
Is he going to pay an exit tax, or has he found a way around this too?
Sounds like we need to start taxing based on residency.
It's been going downhill since The Tea Party.
No wonder that many renounce citizenship.
We sold all of our US property last year; and now we are shopping for 4-6 unit buildings within 100km of Barcelona to get our Golden Visas. Our goal is to get citizenship and access to the EU then renouncing my US citizenship.
It isnt about money, I am juwt ashamed to have an American passport and know my tax dollars are being spent on war and murder in the name of christ and oil profits.
I was born an American and would prefer not to die that way.
My preference is actually Denmark, but it is an order of magnitude more difficult to move there, and my wife hates the language :(
It also reminds me of how mind-blowing it is that a country whose land-area is 1/5 of California managed to conquer almost 1/2 of South America!
We almost bought a flat in the Exarchia neighborhood of Athens! Politically/Energetically It’s what Berkeley was like in the early/mid-90s.
The day Trump was elected we were in Barcelona, and decided never to go back to the USA, flipped a coin between Spain and Greece. I always lose coin flips!
If you oppose US wars and hegemony you should have followed Edward Snowden and moved to a country that actually oppose American influence in the world.
Which doesn't mean much. NATO is not some alliance, it's the US calling the shots and others doing as told, or else (insert diplomatic, economic, etc. pressure).
I really, really detest cold weather and drunk people, both of which Russia has in abundance. Russia and China are just as offensive to my own moral compass as the USA.
Once we attain citizenship I’m going to try to convince my family to move to Esbjerg, at least for a few years.
Ideally we would spend our winters somewhere warm and the rest of the time in Denmark.
I'm not sure this is what upper middle, much less middle, class is.
A family that can pay several millions for houses abroad just to get a visa to change citizenship is way above middle class, or even upper middle class for that matter.
Pew Research defines middle class: $53,413 - $106,827 year, and upper-middle class: $106,827 - $373,894.
Maybe we’re sort of upper midde-class then. We gross about $200k consulting. Not rich, not poor.
We live in the developing world now so here we are definitely upper middle class/rich, and do not have millions in assets.
The middle class American dream is a house in the suburbs with a white picket fence, 2 cars, and a dog.
You're talking about buying a half million dollar house in Spain because of a moral concern about global geopolitics. You're not middle class.
But yeah, when the median US household income is about $68k, early $200k a year puts you far outside the middle class, even if it doesn't feel that way. [ yes, cost of living in NYC or SF has some impact on this, but not much, given the median household income in those cities not actually being much above the national figure ]
[1] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/sanfranciscocit...
[2] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-27...
Today I'm rich. Tomorrow I could be living in a van for 6 months like I did after the 2001 bubble burst.
I know plenty of people with upper class hobbies. I couldn't say for sure if they are rich, but they certainly don't live a lifestyle that I was ever familiar with growing up.
Even taking a year off to de-stress... Someone without financial means couldn't make those choices.
And I've known bipolar people too. They worked when they could, and went on disability when they couldn't. They were never rich. Even when they worked, they were always struggling.
I'd never met anyone taking about buying a house in the Spanish hills until becoming a techie.
I'm still not sure that's the differentiating factor here. OP made clear their moral objections, and sketched out part of a picture in which what makes this possible is not so much "typical tech money", but possibly "having owned a home in the US for long enough".
I have extremely non-tech but upper-middle class friends who in the past have discussed buying entire villages in Spain and Italy (they can be had for as little as $2-300k on the low end. These are not people who ever made "a lot of money", but they have owned homes for long enough that if they sold their house, they'd have capital to put into such a move.
Not everywhere is the bay area, where you'll struggle to find this for under $1.5M. But $500k is not that much for a house these days in a lot of the markets where huge percentages of the population live (from the tri-state area, to Boston, to Seattle, LA, Austin, etc.) and lots of middle class people live in houses valued at more than this.
You know Bush isn't president anymore, right? That hasn't been a a popular (and I would say erroneous, even when it was popular) talking point for more than a decade.
I do find it interesting that expatriation trends seem to pivot in years with presidential elections, according to that chart.
The US performed military operations in eight different countries just during the Obama administration, some of the conflicts where not inherited, like the war in Syria and Yemen.
Those wars were payed by the US citizens regardless of whether they agreed with the war or not.
Creating a belt of failed states in Central Asia has been a long-standing policy, if Wesley Clark is to be believed. I can only speculate what the real goals are, but "because Jesus" or "because Bush is dumb" was always fodder for the low-info crowd who watched the Daily Show.
Citation needed.
When you're the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, your decisions outlast your position.
War and, I guess, the weather, are convenient narratives for these highly unpopular policies.
Would you like to? I ask in all seriousness. The UN has several programs which are basically refugee tourism.
Like missionary work but without forcing them to get baptized for their supper.
I did it in Turkey 6 years ago. Imagine 5 miles of tents in any direction. Most people who were there then are still there now.
Weird statement. Don't worry, I wouldn't take your uncertainty about your own feelings personally.
However, I do understand you, and this is something we've struggled with. My wife is a Turk, and at first when we realized "hey, if we sell my house in Mendocino, we can live like princes in Istanbul, or kings on the Aegean", and once that novelty wore off, we decided that we weren't those people.
The argument itself can apply to anywhere. In San Francisco, I spent 10 years living in illegal punk warehouses where I was not a gentrifier, but then I spent 10 years living in Oakland, where I was a gentrifier, even though I'm from California.
Where does the line get drawn? Is it OK to have the $$ to buy a nicer place anywhere in my own country? What about my home state?
We still struggle with this question a lot.
Now what if about 1/3 of that income came from my wife who is from a poorer country than Spain?
"Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Biblically speaking, its not whether one is rich or not, but whether one loves (or worships) riches and the associated power, or whether one uses his or her riches to serve God and love one's neighbor. Thus Paul wrote of learning to be content in plenty or in want, and James warns of not showing favoritism to the rich (echoing perhaps the Old Testament command to not pervert justice in favor of the poor or of the rich).
Trying to tie this thread back into the topic.... I guess it was good that when Abram emigrated from Ur in his home country, the Chaldeans Revenue Service didn't have the steep exit tax that the US imposes on rich emigrants.
If I am not mistaken most of those suicides are among the Maori people not the white people of NZ.
New Zealand as it is rumoured although i don't believe it - for someone not rich enough to own a private jet where you can properly sleep, it is TOO far away from... just about anywhere.
Singapore. Some of the Southern and Eastern Europe for those not rich enough.
UBI is not the only solution. Islamic countries have for over 1400 years had the Zakat system, which provides for the poor and needy.
Personally I think everyone deserves a certain level of dignity, especially when they're going through hard times. But I've also seen plenty of examples of people who "work the system", which makes it harder to get funding for social welfare programs.
And it always strikes me as weird how willing people are to waste money and create inefficient systems only to keep some freeloaders from enjoying their life but balk at hunting down rich people for tax evasion, imposing proportional fines for offenses like they do in Finland or closing tax loop holes. I mean I think I understand why but I find it weird.
Creating a company _should_ be collaborative, but our current capitalist system has actually become more exploitative.
a) Undeveloped land is freely available, and anyone who wants to can go and cultivate it independently from anyone else, making a life entirely for themselves.
b) All land is already owned, and making a living must be achieved by exchanging (typically labour) with others.
Do you believe that people starting without capital in scenario b) will enter into contracts as freely as those starting without capital in scenario a)?
a) 100% of the world population can relocate globally without any need for visa so they can access the global job market and pick the best location
b) 1% of the world population has access to enough education to become highly skilled and be able to relocate legally. Everybody else has limited choice.
Another example:
a) Everybody has access to UBI and can freely choose to work or study or do volunteering, art etc
b) Unemployed people go hungry, homeless, get sick, get imprisoned
In a market with multiple suppliers and buyers, the price will sort itself out.
That you don't like that price has nothing to do with either side being "evil".
Aren't these valid options? No "cigar smoking fat cat" force workers to sign the contract under duress.
[0] https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-fro...
And that's only minimum wage workers, in a subset of the US.
Was there a particular reason you were under the impression that wage theft was uncommon?
If it's collaborative can we vote a new CEO?
Collaboration doesn't mean forcing others to work with you.
Instead, collaborative is about voluntary choice.
If you want to work somewhere else, under different rules, that would be your choice. Forcing others to do what you want isn't collaboration.
> why can't we vote for it
Co-ops exist. If that is what you prefer then go work for a co-op.
Take Jeff Bezos' commentary after his ride into space for example:
> I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all this. So, to every Amazon customer out there and every Amazon employee thank you from the bottom of my heart.
https://twitter.com/EoinHiggins_/status/1417515577275453440
I get it that we, the consumers paid for this trip. But his employees? What do they have to do with this? Isn't it supposed to be a "collaborative and mutually beneficial" relationship, which would imply that Bezos is not making money from his employees, but exclusively through them, and paying them what they deserve? Yet he claims that they paid for it, which implies that he is not paying them what they deserve, since it is the customer who is supposed to pay his salary, not the exploitation of his employees.
https://taxfoundation.org/summary-of-the-latest-federal-inco...
>The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (38.5 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (29.9 percent).
IMO, this is one of this is why the American government seems so bad at spending money. It's not their money, so there's little incentive to care if it's misappropriated.
Wikipedia says the top 1% possesses precisely 38.5% of the country's wealth, so it's more than reasonable that they shoulder at least 38.5% of the taxes. [1] This stat is also from 2016. That divide has grown immensely these past few years.
The stat the Tax Foundation presents is made to make us sympathetic towards people who control basically the entire nation's wealth and pay, frankly, very little. There's a reason they're not putting their wealth in the EU or developed Asian countries--they'd be paying more.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_Unite...
So they have unnecessary wealth just sitting around that they don't need.
You US folks have created this monstrosity yourselves, too. You let lobbyists (who work for the companies that the richest own) influence politicians, you allow companies to have personhood and other such nonsense.
Even the politicians you get to vote on are placed there by said lobbyists and thus the companies that pay for them.
Institutionalised, legal, and widely stimulated and motivated corruption is what causes all of this to happen. The rich make the rules, you not liking it can't be fixed because the rich decide what "fixes" are available for you to vote on.
(also americans overall are rich compared to the rest of the world at this time)
I find it a bit startling to see this sentiment on HN, a site that used to be mostly full of people building startups, attempting to get wealthy by building something useful that people are happy to pay for.
If you don't see the difference between that and, say, Amazon, then I don't know what to say.
The fact that you can trace a line between a scrappy startup in a converted garage somewhere and a behemoth doesn't mean that they are both the same thing.
Better cuisine is a big driver for me too - hello Italy or France.
You could just as well argue America gets insanely wealthy off the backs of globalist foreign labor. But in that case, no "duty" is owed it's just "fair" trade.
US and other countries need to come down hard on wealth movement in general. Biden's global tax minimums are a good start but government will need to start limiting physical, financial and business access bloc nations to make this effective.
And in other threads, I think people are expecting wealth to become hypermobile. Maybe even to the point that theft is so hard to reverse that digital money is only valuable given the protections of being a citizen of a certain kind of state.
People here have negative opinions about know-your-customer obstructions to personal banking, even though we are all hurt by money laundering.
Is the US a greater nation than Cyprus?
It's at a good level but my political belief is that this should be higher.
Throwing away US citizenship for mere extra dollars in ones bank account… What is the state of your life? Have you no family or community? Are you really willing to uproot yourself and your entire lifestyle for mere wealth?
The HN libertarians love to comment on articles like this and point fingers at progressives like they are ruining the US. As someone who would actually feel a significant impact from this, I can tell you I cannot relate to that position at all. Even should there be a wealth tax, or whatever, it would take Jan 6 levels of violent upheaval on the regular before id ever consider giving away my citizenship.
Maybe the minuscule number of people who do this don’t have all that much to tell us—except that avarice knows no limits?
What's wrong with comparing benefits between service providers? Yes the US will try to save you if you get kidnapped by extremists, but they won't go out of their way to get you vaccinated against covid unlike the Chinese government who sent sinovac supplies abroad to vaccinate their citizens.
One word: draft.
Would you die for your service provider?