The Land of the Free Won’t Leave Me Alone | Hacker News Reader

The Land of the Free Won’t Leave Me Alone

wsj.com

12 pointsscarface7413 comments

Everybody born a US citizen is an "accidental" citizen, as they didn't elect to be born that way. The only difference between them and this guy is that he left early and never looked back.

You would figure a decent French accountant would have told him which US tax laws apply to him. So it seems he's parlaying his bad accounting advice into a complaint about US tax law.

But point taken about the difficulty of renouncing your citizenship. Nobody should have to travel potentially hundreds of miles to a consulate and pay $450 (or more) to renounce their citizenship.

Having recently been in a US consulate, the going rate (according to the wall chart at the cashier) is north of 2K.

Everyone born is an “accidental” citizen of some country - I don’t believe it’s possible to be born entirely stateless (and in the narrow circumstances in which it has occurred, by all accounts it is a tremendous headache and complication for anyone so afflicted).

Out of curiosity, I looked up the process to renounce French citizenship. There’s an application to the central government (it is France, of course) which seems to be non-ministerial in whether it is granted or denied, coordination and communication with the nearest consulate or embassy (not clear whether a physical visit is required), filing of tax returns and payment of exit taxes if applicable and a fee to renounce. So, it would seem, possibly more complicated to renounce French citizenship if possibly less expensive in some circumstances. Seems like the sole difference here is the extraterritorial application of US federal income tax.

But what a shocker that the WSJ might use a process that’s directionally similar worldwide and turn it into an attack on the US tax system specifically. So weird; almost like they had some sort of covert agenda.

Generally yes, but I think the US is still the only one where you become a citizen just by being born on the territory?

Most countries are "by blood" so just being born somewhere doesn't mean anything if neither parent is a citizen.

Obviously you probably already knew that but just for clarification...

I don't think that's remotely true. Nearly all of the Americas seem to be that way[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli

Oh that's interesting, thanks, I thought most places were not doing that anymore, or had restrictions (ie former countries that split in two or similar where if before X date you can have both or choose)

There is several other countries like that. France where the author is from is similar.

You become French by having a French parent or being born on French soil.

Overall it’s a more of a « new world » thing. But I would say a handful of other place in Europe have similar laws.

Ah I wasn't aware of that, as pretty much all of Europe is by blood, although from Wikipedia in the French case it's not entirely automatic like say the US

Yeah I remember looking at the differences a while back. It’s less automatic indeed. And some paper work has to be done to obtain definitive citizenship ( as opposed to a ad hoc visa )

That being said it’s still enough to be problematic in the comore / mayote area where people from the comore boat to nearby mayote to deliver kids on French soil.

While I used to live with a French guy with US citizenship because he was accidentally born earlier there. ( he did not speak good English, never set a foot on US soil after his first month )

Governments don’t own their citizens, it’s the other way around.

I read the un-paywalled paragraph, and have a simple solution: renounce your US citizenship. Easy peasy. Now I shall read the rest of the article, no doubt about how jackbooted IRS thugs are kicking down doors in Toulon or something, but this seems like a problem with a trivial solution…

Edit: I don’t really feel like my off-the-cuff reaction was wrong or unwarranted. Someone makes it to 29 years of age without ever questioning the ramifications of the country of his birth? That seems … remarkably incurious.

The US also doesn’t “fully tax” non-resident citizens - there’s a $100k+ deduction of income earned abroad. And the author himself refers to foreign tax credits, so….

“Even so, anyone seeking to renounce U.S. citizenship still has to travel to a city with a U.S. consulate.” Oh my. The horror.

I’m still not totally convinced why the USG is supposed to be bending over backwards to accommodate its citizens who are, uh, in the process of renouncing their citizenship?

You appear to have misspelled “chattel”.

What does livestock have to do with this?

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