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Comment by cesarb | Hacker News Reader

> The U.S. government thinks they have very valid reasons they should be able to see the details of the accounts of all U.S. citizens regardless of where those accounts may be. For the most part I agree with the concept, because as an entity responsible for collecting and running off of taxes, [...]

Most of the world doesn't agree with that concept. AFAIK, the only countries which tax citizens instead of just residents are the USA and Eritrea.

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U.S. citizenship comes with benefits (voting, etc) as well as drawbacks (taxation). If you don't need those benefits and you don't want the drawbacks, renounce citizenship.

That said, I was being a little loose when saying citizenship. The U.S. has various laws many of which are regarding taxation of business within its borders, with entities housed in its borders, or citizens abroad. They will seek to enforce those laws. I think that's for the most part that's fairly standard.

There are of course a myriad of ways in which the issue becomes more complicated, and I'm not trying to claim the government can do no wrong and all their actions are justified, I just think it's important to look at the issue holistically. The government should be capable, which appropriate checks and balances, to enforce the laws. People should have the ability to have some expectation of privacy from the government unless there's a specific reason the government seeking otherwise that's valid.

I'm sorry to hear that you don't think I should be a US citizen because I live overseas. Fortunately, I don't give a shit about your opinions.

Here's my opinion, I think the US should do what virtually every other country in the world does - accept that its power is not absolute, and tax its citizens based on residence, not on citizenship.

Do you have skin in this game? If not, get off my back and stop trying to make my life worse. Expats are already screwed by the tax code. We have FATCA and FBAR and we get denied basic financial services when we're outside the US. Many banks in other countries now deny American expats bank accounts because they're terrified of repercussions from the US government if the foreign bank doesn't fill out US tax forms correctly.

We don't need more of this crap you're pushing. Stop screwing up ordinary people's lives. I will make the most charitable interpretation I can here and assume that you want to hurt other Americans and tell them if they don't like it they can stop being American out of ignorance, not out of malice.

Oh come on. That's the least charitable interpretation of what they said.

The US gives expat citizens a huge tax deduction. You only pay taxes if you're a wealthy expat. The paperwork is to enforce it.

Otherwise, wealthy people in the US could just "live" in tax havens and evade US taxes.

Obviously you want the benefits of being a citizen, so nothing I said suggests you should renounce citizenship.

> If not, get off my back and stop trying to make my life worse.

I wasn't aware I had such power. Who knew my random comments on the internet could cause financial law and policy to change?

In all seriousness you and I have the same ability to enact change here, which is to vote and advocate for a position. The point at which you don't, that is if you gave up your citizenship and right to vote, it would no longer effect you.

That's a concrete example of a benefit you get from citizenship, which comes with rights and responsibilities. The fact you don't want to give it up is evidence that you see it as beneficial.

The last thing I'll say is I specifically left opening in my statement so someone could argue that the burden is harder than it needs to be on expats, because my point isn't that they should pay all the costs they currently do, but that some cost for the benefits they get is in my opinion acceptable. Maybe a slightly less knee-jerk reaction to my comment may have made that apparent.

You're obviously entitled to hold any opinion you want, but you're not guaranteed civil discourse when you advocate for denying people their basic rights and needs. The reality in the world right now is that the warrantless, blanket financial surveillance you're advocating is causing ordinary Americans who live overseas to be denied bank accounts and other financial services. I know several people who have been placed in this position, including a charity worker in Thailand and a primary school teacher in rural France. The issue is that as an externality of your policies there are already people who can't cash their paychecks or pay their rent.

If you want to advocate for these policies you have to address the harm that they're doing to people, you don't get to just "leave them an opening." You've advocated for harm. You've made yourself the bad guy here. Do you explicitly support these harms as a cost of governance? Are these individuals sacrifices for the greater good of prosecuting financial criminals? Or are you simply oblivious to this problem? So far you've dodged the issue, lectured us on how the democratic process works, and implied that if anyone doesn't like it they can renounce their citizenship, which is phenomenally condescending, believe me I understand these things very well so spare me those lectures.

> renounce citizenship.

Isn't the US one of the few (the only?) countries which makes this really hard?

Like, if I wanted to get rid of my citizenship (European country) all I need to do is get another one, it is void the second that happens. And even if it wasn't, I do have the right to get rid of the citizenship at any time, no reason or justification needed.

If I remember in the US it is not only expensive but also they for some reason have this system where they can deny you renouncing your citizenship.

Many countries allow dual citizenship, so I'm not sure just getting citizenship somewhere else is enough in every case.

I'm not sure the specifics of when they deny renouncing citizenship, but if you don't have citizenship somewhere else or your visa to that country is as a U.S. citizen, I could see those as being valid cases for rejection until those are resolved (also if you have outstanding warrants or are under investigation for something).

> If you don't need those benefits and you don't want the drawbacks, renounce citizenship.

You can only renounce US citizenship if you have citizenship somewhere else. There are millions of Americans that live outside the US that only have US citizenship and therefore cannot renounce.

And those people are all receiving benefit from that citizenship. If for some reason they were forced to leave, they'd have a place to go. If they had no such place, they'd be refugees.

It's a situation the host country is obviously happy with as well, otherwise they would offer citizenship and the problem would be solved.

> If you don't need those benefits and you don't want the drawbacks, renounce citizenship.

Which is pretty expensive, and you still get taxed for ten years afterwards.

I fully support you not paying those post citizenship taxes if you end up in that situation, for all the good it does you. ;)

To be clear, in case I wasn't enough above, I'm not saying I completely agree with all the specifics of the U.S. current law on what and how much to tax expats, just that on a conceptual level I don't have a problem with some amount of taxation in exchange for representation (among other things), and people that disagree with that entirely should consider what their best choice is.

Citizens have the right to vote though, so they can try to effect change like all the rest of us, and that includes efforts to change how expats are taxed.

I think it would be reasonable to tax one of non-resident citizens or non-citizen residents, but not full taxation of both. And residence is far more of a choice than citizenship is.

I don't see a problem with taxing both, as long as the taxes are not equivalent. I don't think some minimal amount of taxation for the ability to rely on the U.S. and return whenever you want and to vote is too much to ask. That's also how you keep rich people from living outside the U.S. but traveling to it and conducting all business within it to avoid taxes.

> I don't see a problem with taxing both, as long as the taxes are not equivalent. I don't think some minimal amount of taxation for the ability to rely on the U.S. and return whenever you want and to vote is too much to ask.

Some kind of theoretical minimal citizenship taxation might be reasonable. The current US taxation regime certainly isn't.

The USA also has an exit tax of a few grand to renounce, so they basically hold you at gunpoint that even if you leave the US for good and never use any of their services or even consular services you have an 'original sin' that forces you to keep filing or pay up the fee to leave the gang.

.. that's not the exit tax though. That's the fee to process your exit. If you do have a substantial networth there is an actual exit tax on your total net worth

Is there a reason processing an exit takes more than, let's say, the $165 it costs for a first-time passport?

It looks to me like they're both taxes.

Of course, they have to make sure you’re in all the ‘naughty’ databases too (/s)

Use whatever semantics you like.

Not sure what taxation of non-residents has to do with it?

In all developed countries there is an on-going effort to make sure that off-shore assets are identified so they can be taxed appropriately.

Canada requires it.

https://farbertax.com/cra-foreign-assets-and-income/reportin...

Europe at least started to track overseas Europeans' bank accounts.

Edit: s/Europe/The EU.

To check for tax avoidance while you're an EU tax resident, but that's it. The EU doesn't make you pay EU taxes if you're not a tax resident.

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