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Comment by RexRollman | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand why corporations don't have to pay taxes on overseas earnings when US citizens living abroad do.

With Citizens United, corporations are now "people", so they should be taxed just like ordinary people.

Corporations do have to pay taxes on overseas earnings if they want to bring those earnings back to the US. As far as I'm aware, it's the same for US human citizens. (It's certainly the case for Australian citizens.)

No, US citizens have to pay taxes while abroad whether or not they are returning to the US with it. In fact, some US citizens who have never lived in the US bur have citizenship through inheritance are having a hard time understanding why they are being taxed by a country they have never lived in.

Does that mean that some people are paying taxes twice, once in the country they're living in and once in the US?

You kind of pay the maximum of the US and domestic tax rates, after some possible deduction, though not exactly the case given how it gets calculated. But yes, all income worldwide is taxed for US citizens. If you're curious, see:

http://www.irs.gov/publications/p54/index.html

You pay after the first $92.5k. you pay the difference between what you would be taxed in the US minus what you are taxed in your current country. This only becomes a problem if you are living in a country with no or low taxes; ie, HK, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, the Caymans, etc. If you live in Western Europe you are being taxed higher than in the US.

Switzerland is a difficult subject because they don't identify you when they report your taxes so the IRS has to trust the Swiss gov't is telling the truth. I believe they have reached an agreement that favors the US and have a lot of Swiss account holders pissed off.

Ouch, your country sucks.

US corporations have wholly owned subsidiaries outside of the US.

Its as if you moved to Ireland, and had Irish children. These children wouldn't have to pay taxes to the US even though they're all supporting the same family.

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