Next, the Supreme Court Decides How to Punish US Expats
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
I don't understand where this idea has come from that the court ought to be the provider of novel 'fair' legislation (as opposed to the mean legislation proposed by Congress) or the decider of punishments.
This law is set by elected members of Congress. It is their duty to provide proper punishments for it or to scrap it altogether.
It is up to the president to show mercy when someone faces a trial like this through his power of clemency.
Contrary to this article placing the blame solely with the judiciary, a case like this starts with the federal government starting a case. They don't have to.
The executive is the real one punishing us expats.
Stop making the court out to be some dictator.
If the Supreme Court slowly disallows this, then Congress will eventually be forced to vote on controversial issues again.
Cause the legislative branch in US is in shambles, "can't" get anything done, at least that's the perception, as the country is divided to a point that both camps consider the other "the enemy", so everybody now relies on either the judiciary or the executive branch to makes laws. This is essentially a constitutional and political crisis, that has been going for the last 20 years in USA.
In practice the relative power and authority of different branches of government changes over time. The US constitution is now the oldest still operable founding document, and was constructed at a time when the king held extensive influence over British governance.
If we say that no branch of government is allowed to be rational, then we’ll need a constitutional convention sooner rather than later.
"rational" in this case meaning "unilaterally countermand the decisions of the other branches"
A “results” oriented society is a regression from a “rules” oriented society. We have that in Bangladesh—courts that do what they think is “right” instead of following the rules. It’s better than courts where judges take bribes or act in their personal self interest, but not as good as courts that rationally apply the rules. It doesn’t promote respect for the rule of law because people disagree on what’s just and right. But mostly they can agree on the rules and reconcile themselves to the results if they feel the rules were followed.
What a shamefully misleading article title! I’m shocked to see so many well educated Americans, who should know better, embrace such thinking. What I admire most about Americans is that they’ll jump off a bridge if a court tells them to and the paperwork is in order. That’s how you build a marvelous civilization.
Applying the rules is great when the rules seem mostly fair and reasonable.
When the rules, applied to a situation, produce a seemingly very harsh outcome – especially when there is no evidence their original authors would have actually wanted that outcome in this particular case – judges often look for ways to "bend" them.
Rather than something limited to countries such as Bangladesh – it is something which has happened time and time again in the history of common law tradition. If a judge feels that mechanical application of the law produces an unconscionable outcome, they will find a way to reinterpret the law, so it doesn't actually mean what it says on its face.
This especially happens when the judge views the aggrieved party sympathetically – far more likely for a well-respected businessperson who has received a seemingly disproportionate penalty for unintentional violations of the law, than a career criminal on death row.
The original authors of what? The original authors of the bills to tax expats actually did want these outcomes.
I actually disagree with the law, but the claim that the writers didn't intend for this is quite the stretch, as the law is extremely clear in the punishments, and if you read into the history, it's quite clear they wanted to punish people.
What may be a remedy by the court is if they believe the punishment is cruel or unusual or the fine excess. They may find that and strike down the entire law, but the law is certainly intended to do exactly this.
Appealing to the age of the constitution to defend the courts arrogating power which that constitution did not grant is complete nonsense. If you want the courts to have that power, pass an amendment. If you don't want to do that but still want the courts to be able to create law, then bringing up the constitution is pointless. You have already tossed it in the waste bin.
American government gets its power from the people. If the people, via their representatives, act irrationally, then the government is irrational. no government is going to be perfectly rational. That's kind of the entire point of our constitution. I would highly recommend reading the commentary written by its writers.
On a side note, another draconian US expat tax law, the US will tax US citizens on capital gains over the US limit on the sale of your foreign principal residence. Crazy right. Don’t live the US, maybe never have, but if you have US citizenship, accidentally or not, or a green card, they can tax you on the sale of a principle residence located outside US jurisdiction.
The US/Canada tax treaty is good in the sense I rarely pay double tax, except for some special circumstances (stock options), but it is a ton of paperwork, information, and stress that I didn’t mess something up. I worked in Germany for a couple of years, and when I wasn’t a Canadian tax resident (I am also a Canadian citizen) the Canadian Revenue Agency didn’t care about my German income and I didn’t have to file any information for it. It was bliss. But of course the US IRS cared. This tax filing years were nightmares.
They've now come up with an even better solution, which is to force you to go to an in person appointment, but also to ban you from doing so due to covid. Problem solved!
It's worth noting that this is the 96th percentile for net worth in the United States. Maybe by "super wealthy" we only mean the 97th, 98th, and 99th percentiles?
Source: https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-net-worth-percentiles/
If you're lucky enough to be in the second group, it means you need to file your foreign taxes before the US ones to end up knowing how much you pay. The fun twist: many countries in Europe have a tax system that doesn't assume everyone pays TurboTax, so actually filing is somewhat unusual, and basically impossible to do before 15 April. To find a European tax professional isn't always easy, and if you tell them you're an American they often back off, knowing your case is nightmarishly difficult. And if you do pay some US taxes still (e.g. capital gains on stocks still in a US account) then you're required to at least declare it on your European tax statement -- which itself must be submitted before you know how much US taxes you pay.
The pool of recursion-ready tax advisors is unfortunately very small, and US citizens living abroad suffer for it. As a US citizen living abroad, I think it's still preferable though.
Would this work?
File in the US for an extension on filing. That gives you until October 15 to file. That doesn't give you an extension on paying, so by April 15th make an advanced payment of either what your US taxes would be without the foreign tax credit, or if you can reasonably make a conservative estimate your foreign taxes what you US taxes would be with that as your foreign tax.
After you know for sure your foreign tax you can do your US taxes and get back however much you overpaid with your advanced payment.
I suppose you could also file by April 15th without an advanced payment and without claiming the foreign tax credit, and then file an amended return after you do your foreign taxes to get back the overpayment.
But worse, it hurts American competitiveness abroad. Go to Hong Kong, Dubai, Singapore, etc, and you will find tons of British, Australians, Canadians, etc etc. but only a very small number of Americans relative to the populations.
Jest aside, you pointed out that indeed these expats return.
The argument is they benefited from the US before they left and will benefit when they come back. Why should they pay no taxes and expect to watlz back in whenever they please without having paid something to keep the country running. They also expect the country to send seal team 6 if they get abducted.
There might be some valid points about the level of tax liability, but to think people should pay no tax on foreign earning is absurd.
> They also expect the country to send seal team 6 if they get abducted.
You know, other countries sometimes rescue their citizens overseas-without citizenship-based taxation. In fact, I don’t think any English-speaking countries do a particularly good job of saving their citizens in foreign trouble. If I was ever kidnapped by terrorists, I’d be wishing I was French
> There might be some valid points about the level of tax liability, but to think people should pay no tax on foreign earning is absurd.
Can something really be “absurd” when literally every country in the world does it-except for the US and Eritrea?
Indeed, why should Americans expect the same treatment that literally every other country extends to its citizens.
When I am involved, I shutdown anything that involves the US and can't be solved with a similar partner in Canada or Europe, without all the hassle.
You get what you pay for.
Are you sure about that? I thought expat taxation was instituted during the Civil War.
Source? I think this is a particularly crass view of the world and it’s various governments’ motivations. Not every government is as hostile to its populace’s wellbeing as the US.
Other countries don't seem to have a problem extending consular assistance to their overseas citizens.
I know that a lot of other countries levy fees on their citizens for some services, especially those that are "nice to have" but not all that important.
* https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-tra... https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/16/us/politics/us-evacuation...
That's a disgusting idea.