Note that the US is one of only two countries that taxes non-resident citizens.
The other example being Eritrea.
The other example being Eritrea.
Yet I therefore still have to navigate the nightmare that is their paper based (and "refund/allowance" obsessed) tax system, despite not having resided in the US since the age of 3.
For example, it's not enough for me to simply earn less than the "foreign income tax allowance".
Instead I need to calculate the tax I would owe on one form, calculate the deduction to that tax on a different form, then write the sum from one form on to the other form (god help if you make an error transcribing that number).
The US tax form is full of things like "Add the numbers in 11a through 11g together and deduct this number from the number in 13 and write it down in 15".
It feels utterly hostile, as if it's trying to catch the person out, instead of guiding them to the accurate number.
You're gaining something by not renouncing it. The minimal cost of some trivial paperwork that you could if you wanted to offload to someone for a nominal fee is a really odd complaint.
> god help if you make an error transcribing that number
Why do people have such fear of taxes? No, it's not God. When you make an error the IRS helps you. They compute your taxes anyway and they send you a letter with your error and the updated number.
> When you make an error the IRS helps you. They compute your taxes anyway and they send you a letter with your error and the updated number.
You make this sound so simple. And yet, speaking from experience, it drags out for months and ends up costing 5-figures in penalties. If they can so easily compute the correct number anyway why continue with the whole charade of making us answer a whole bunch of barely decipherable questions?
You should look up what Intuit and H&R Block lobby for. They spend massive amounts of money to stop the IRS from just sending you a prefilled out form for you to verify. It's called return-free filling. There have been countless bills to introduce this but they always die. The IRS could technically do it easily, but it isn't authorized to by Congress.
This is one of those stories that breaks every year or two in major newspapers and people are outraged but it never gets better.
It's also unusual in having a tax system where the admin for the average person is a massive pain.
The summary is that if you have a full time job outside the UK or have spent less than 46 days in the UK (less if you were previously a UK resident) then you are never classed as a resident.
If that doesn't apply then working full time in the UK, spending at least half the year in the UK, or only having a home in the UK and using it for more than 30 days will automatically make the a resident.
If those don't apply, then there's a test to say if you have "significant ties" . The details for that are in the link and are applied on a sliding scale based on the number of days you spent in the UK.
To me, it looks pretty fair. You have a spend most of the year in the UK, have lots of "ties" here (property, family, etc), and not have a job elsewhere to be classed as a UK resident for tax purposes.
The definition of full time work is explicitly linked to actual hours worked (not contracted), so the admin involved in proving this is painful.
For friends who've left the UK for work, the only way to qualify without massive hassle has been to spend less than 16 days a year in the UK for the first 3 tax years (and thereafter less than 46 days).
Exiting Germany is similar, except they don’t tax stock of public companies when exiting, and they also allow ppl who only moved to Germany some years (up to seven?) ago to exit unscathed.
One would hope that the book value of your assets in the new country matches the exit value when leaving, otherwise you may get double taxed.
Most places have tax systems based on residence though.
And others if I start looking at their tax code. Americans just like to complain about their taxes.
* https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/interna...
Further, to prevent double taxation, if you reside in a country that Canada has a tax treaty with, you may be deemed a non-resident of Canada:
* https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/interna...
And the US has tax treaties with other countries as well, so if you pay taxes in say Japan or Canada you do not pay taxes in America as well. Unless you make over 150k a year, then you only pay the marginal difference.
No it doesn't stand.It's different from the american system. Tax residency is a concept that many countries have, independantly from your citizenship.
The US taxes you regardless of (tax) residency. There is no such thing as a non-tax-resident in the US: if you're a citizen, you pay.
With Canada, you can be continue to be a citizen but (potentially) not pay. There is "potentially" with the US.
That isn't by tax treaty, which is usually related to payroll taxes. You can always deduct taxes you pay to any foreign government, with a couple of exceptions (Cuba maybe?), even if they lack a tax treaty with the USA.
The vast, vast majority pay $0.