Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 411 posts

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#101

Post by robk »

timthelion wrote: post #24

I am an American living in Prague and will be among those to give up their citizenship. The new FBAR requirements and the recently pushed through changes that require foreign banks to report are really a huge burden. It is a significant legal risk to be an American overseas. The fines are insane for failiure to report, even if you owe no taxes! You can easilly land yourself with a $20 000 - $80 000 fine for having a…

Have you come across anyone who has been fined under this law? I have not and know many people who are rubbish at filing on time or even in the same year. I've not seen any enforcement commensurate with $20k fines willy nilly. Not that I like the law, I've just not seen it enforced.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#102

Post by forgetsusername »

youngbullind wrote: post #4

This affects my girlfriend. She has a dual passport but only lived in the US to the age of six months. We are are British but live in Spain which already makes for complex tax arrangements, and this on top of things is just crazy. How the hell does the US think it has the right to tax people who haven't lived there for over 30 years?

>How the hell does the US think it has the right to tax people who haven't lived there for over 30 years?

As long as you maintain a passport and citizenship, how do they not have such a right?

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#103

Post by dogma1138 »

Ovid wrote: post #60
rtpg wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my knowledge there's treaties with the vast majority of countries to avoid double taxation if you're not making more than a very large amount of money ( filed taxes last year and ended up with a giant goose egg)

Actually, no. The US has tax treaties with roughly 1/3rd of the countries in the world (source: https://www.irs.gov/Businesses/International-Businesses/Unit... ). If you're not in one of those countries, too bad. Further, these tax treaties differ from country to country and don't always offer the same protections. Here, read the 42 page US/France tax treaty ( https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-trty/france.pdf ) and try to…

As an expat myself I always had the ability to get these services from my employer, in some cases I have even insisted that this will be part of the employment contract just like any relocation package.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#104

Post by dalke »

Ovid wrote: post #60
rtpg wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my knowledge there's treaties with the vast majority of countries to avoid double taxation if you're not making more than a very large amount of money ( filed taxes last year and ended up with a giant goose egg)

Actually, no. The US has tax treaties with roughly 1/3rd of the countries in the world (source: https://www.irs.gov/Businesses/International-Businesses/Unit... ). If you're not in one of those countries, too bad. Further, these tax treaties differ from country to country and don't always offer the same protections. Here, read the 42 page US/France tax treaty ( https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-trty/france.pdf ) and try to…

That's only one type of tax treaty. There are also Totalization Agreements. Quoting https://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Tota... :

> The United States has entered into agreements, called Totalization Agreements, with several nations for the purpose of avoiding double taxation of income with respect to social security taxes. These agreements must be taken into account when determining whether any alien is subject to the U.S. Social Security/Medicare tax, or whether any U.S. citizen or resident alien is subject to the social security taxes of a foreign country.

You'll notice that's a much smaller list of counties.

(When I went to the local Swedish tax office to request a copy of the declaration that I needed to include in my US tax forms, to say I was covered under the Totalization Agreement, they didn't know at first what I was talking about. Asking for the form also must have triggered something, because a month or so later I got a phone call from the Swedish tax office asking for why I needed that information, and asking for a copy of my most recent US tax forms.)

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#105

Post by grimman »

toni wrote: post #31
masklinn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't citizenship-based taxation, it's an odd concept but it's been there for a very long time, there's a relatively high standard deduction and IIRC your local income tax is also deductible. Expats have dealt with that for more than a century. As the article points out, the problem is FATCA which doesn't come close to fixing the issue it's supposed to fix (income tax evasion) and completely breaks expats…

Let's say I am an American citizen living in France. Why US government doesn't close a tax treaty with French and demand 20% of the total amount I pay for all the taxes annually in France?

Why would France ever pay for the "privilege" of having US citizens living in France?

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#106

Post by XorNot »

madaxe_again wrote: post #17

So, I know a us born billionaire who rescinded his citizenship last year to avoid fatca. He has successfully evaded both the US and UK tax authorities to the tune of half a billion or so, he tells me. The guy gives crazy amounts to philanthropic causes instead. He doesn't want his hard earned wealth pissed away by clueless bureaucrats. So. Anyone who tells you fatca has been a success is full of it. It penalises "nor…

Also the classic way people go down for tax fraud is migrating countries, earning income, but then paying no tax to either.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#107

Post by masklinn »

jacquesm wrote: post #44
arto wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/top-10-most-powerful-passport...

And many countries have collaboration efforts going where one countries consular services will aid the citizens of another (usually neighbouring) country if they have no representation themselves. For instance many EU countries embassies will give aid to the members of other EU states that do not have local representation. One of the most important things embassies do is to give aid to citizens of their countries cha…

> For instance many EU countries embassies will give aid to the members of other EU states that do not have local representation.

That's actually part of EU law. As an EU citizen, if you have no national diplomatic or consular representation in the country you're in you're entitled to help from any other EU member's embassy or consulate.

So let's say you're a Slovakian citizen in Sierra Leone, the EU consular protection site will direct you towards the British High Commission in Freetown: http://ec.europa.eu/consularprotection/representations_en?f%...

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#108

Post by khgvljhkb »

orbifold wrote: post #59
timthelion wrote: post #24

I am an American living in Prague and will be among those to give up their citizenship. The new FBAR requirements and the recently pushed through changes that require foreign banks to report are really a huge burden. It is a significant legal risk to be an American overseas. The fines are insane for failiure to report, even if you owe no taxes! You can easilly land yourself with a $20 000 - $80 000 fine for having a…

It seems rather strange to rescind citizenship because of tax issues, aren't there qualified tax advisors that can handle all of that for you? At least here in Germany they are quite affordable and usually pay for themselves because of the tax savings you get due to their advice. If you consult one you can also be rather confident that you don't accidentally forget about some new regulation.

In Germany they are commonplace because the German system is the most intricate snake nest of paperwork and bureaucracy. Love the country, but jesus christ how could the system ever be navigated by one person, let alone a foreigner?

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#109

Post by roddux »

timthelion wrote: post #24

I am an American living in Prague and will be among those to give up their citizenship. The new FBAR requirements and the recently pushed through changes that require foreign banks to report are really a huge burden. It is a significant legal risk to be an American overseas. The fines are insane for failiure to report, even if you owe no taxes! You can easilly land yourself with a $20 000 - $80 000 fine for having a…

Out of curiosity, do you now have a citizenship in Prague? I am unaware how it works for Americans living in the EU.
Post reply on HN