Huh?? Just because you are a US citizen, you have to pay taxes to the US wherever you live? Is any other country in the world having such policies?
If they ever did that, I can tell you a number of French citizens living abroad would just drop their French passport without hesitation.
Just because something has the backing of a government doesn't change the definition of words.
You can argue who is the owner of the money being taxed, but you can't say something is or isn't because it's lawful.
Taxes are not theft, but a membership fee. Its perks are roads, fire department, schools, laws and law enforcement, protection from foreign armies and basically keeping the society together.
Complete highway robbery.
I do agree that the idea of taxation is not theft, but at what point does it become so? If you look at all those aspects that you point out, would you say that the taxes are well spent? The other issue here is that the people in question don't even live in the US, and thus don't make use of those services (and probably don't want their money to be used on foreign wars, as well. Just an educated guess).
In addition, about 50% of the federal budget these days is Social Security+Medicare+Medicaid. Most of the things you listed are paid from local/state taxes, which are much smaller. Two thirds of the federal budget goes to pensions, welfare and military expenses. Roads, laws and law enforcement aren't where the bulk of taxes goes.
For some words, the government defines what they mean. This includes legal terms, such as murder or rape or theft -- all or which mean what the laws (written by the government) say what they mean.
It would be lawful if I agreed to all of it. I do agree we need taxes, but in many cases, it's excessive and against my will (you can go to jail if you don't pay it).
The other problem is that there is no accountability.
I'm assuming you live in China though, since you said there is no accountability, and you can't vote out public officials whose tax policies you don't like.
/FlawedLogic.
Whenever I hear Americans complain about taxes, I play a sad song on a very tiny (invisible) violin in my hand.
One of the Facebook founders similarly renounced his U.S. citizenship prior to its IPO.
I get extra pain when I go on business trips to the states, which the US doesn't count as being foreign work. So every year I have to fill in a spreadsheet of all the days I worked in each country, and subtract the US days from my tax treaty credits. I have to do the same thing in reverse for the HMRC in the UK. My least favorite part of being an expat :)
[1] http://www.rumbaklaw.com/resources-and-tools/us-federal-tax-...
It's been like that for a long time already, pretty rediculous of you ask me!
Is there a penalty just for not filing? penalties can cripple you.
I could walk into the British consulate in San Francisco tomorrow and expect help, and I haven't paid taxes in the UK for 5 years now.
I think you are under the impression US embassies are a country club that expats just go to and have a cocktail from time to time.