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I don't even have to click to know what this is about. God damn government wants to tax me despite being overseas. Don't get me wrong here. I love my country but hot damn do I hate our government. HK or UK or Canadian passport would probably be nearly as good but without any of the bullshit.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/top-10-most-powerful-passport...
American citizens have to pay $2,350 to renounce citizenship? What kind of paperwork costs that much? (Or, why not just add more paperwork and charge $100K?) http://www.greenbacktaxservices.com/blog/renouncing-us-citiz... > 1. Consular officers must confirm that the potential renunciant fully understands the consequences of renunciation, including losing the right to reside in the United States without documentation…
This does not solve the other problems with FATCA, but it should eliminate at least one practical and very real annoyance for Americans living in the EU.
[1] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A3...
[2] Technically, the directive is to be transposed by September 18, 2016 at the latest, but some member states may be dragging their feet.
But I think that it is wrong to present this as a taxation issue. I would be fine with paying a percentage of my income in taxes. There are some benefits to being a US citizen, like that the army will rescue you if there is a civil war ;). But the fear uncertainty and doubt that surrounds these new regulations makes it nerve racking to be a citizen. Every expat I know here has nightmares about an audit comming and having all of their assets seized. And it has happened to some of them too! And that legal risk is no longer a form of taxation, because taxes are percentual (the more you earn the more you pay), but when you end up having to pay a fine that is higher than your net worth, that's just robbery.
We used to be a free nation, but thanks to austerity the 'r' had to be removed.
>Her voice cracks and her eyes well up. She is in the process of relinquishing her American nationality. Soon she'll visit the US embassy formally to renounce her citizenship, she says, under duress. >"I'm very proud of being an American. It's what I am when I look in the mirror. >"If it weren't for Fatca [the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act] and the decision by the bank, I'd never be doing this. Never ever. It's…
I live in Singapore and when I was signing up for a stock trading account I asked what would have happened if I had to answer yes in the box that asked if I was liable to pay income tax in the US. The answer was plain: "you wouldn't be allowed to have an account with us".
In his case, after submitting the paperwork and burning his passport on YouTube, he chose to not get another citizenship, which means he's now stateless.
America is one of the few countries that could get away with this, as being American has such a premium. It'd be nice to see them use their clout to force through legislation that stopped companies from playing silly beggars with their offshore profits if they wanted access to US markets.
I don't even have to click to know what this is about. God damn government wants to tax me despite being overseas. Don't get me wrong here. I love my country but hot damn do I hate our government. HK or UK or Canadian passport would probably be nearly as good but without any of the bullshit.
The UK passport is the best in the world in every ranking: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/top-10-most-powerful-passport...
We would like to have them as clients but AFAICT fatca compliance would cost us a non trivial amount of money for the few (but relatively wealthy) potential clients
America is one of the few countries that could get away with this, as being American has such a premium. It'd be nice to see them use their clout to force through legislation that stopped companies from playing silly beggars with their offshore profits if they wanted access to US markets.
What premium is that over say being the holder of passport from the UK, NL, DE, FR, ES, IT, CH, SE, DK, NO, FI, BE or any one of a host of other countries that don't have such crazy tax rules?