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Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

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Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#111

Post by Flimm »

forgetsusername wrote: post #102
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?

Every country in the world bar the US and Eritrea don't tax their citizens who live abroad for so long. So it's certainly the norm not to do this, whether you want to call it the government's right or not.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#112

Post by forgetsusername »

jacquesm wrote: post #12
peteretep wrote: post #3

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?

>What premium is that over say being the holder of passport...

You tell me; there's a whole article written here about how hard it is to give up the US passport. Here we have a woman who doesn't live in the country and doesn't want to pay taxes to the country, yet is torn up about not being "American". I don't get it.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#113

Post by michaelhoffman »

arto wrote: post #26

For those looking to renounce their U.S. citizenship, Mike Gogulski has chronicled and documented the whole paperwork-heavy process on his blog: http://www.nostate.com/about/ 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.

Huh, I thought the U.S. wouldn't allow renunciation unless you had some other nationality already. Apparently they will.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#114

Post by mike_hearn »

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…

> There are some benefits to being a US citizen, like that the army will rescue you if there is a civil war

This is a common myth. If you don't intend to return to the USA there are no benefits to US citizenship, only downsides. The US may or may not rescue you if there's a civil war (see the fate of people in Yemen), but if they do, they will charge you for it at military rates you almost certainly cannot afford:

https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/emergencies/cr...

See "Will the US government pay for my travel? What will it cost?" which says, essentially, that no, it won't. This is unlike other countries which DO evacuate citizens for free and DO NOT charge taxes on non-residents.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#115

Post by mike_hearn »

rbehrends wrote: post #23

For what it's worth, at least part of the problem should be fixed when the EU's Payment Accounts Directive [1] comes into effect [2]. It prohibits both discrimination on the basis of nationality (as long as the customer is legally resident) in article 15 and enshrines the right to a basic bank account in article 16. This does not solve the other problems with FATCA, but it should eliminate at least one practical and…

It just represents total capitulation by the EU - all banks will be legally required to have a relationship with the IRS and do their bidding, as turning away US persons will not be possible any more. As that's extremely expensive, in turn, those costs will get passed on to all the non-Americans. So everyone else ends up paying through higher bank charges for the costs of IRS compliance.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#116

Post by mike_hearn »

forgetsusername wrote: post #102
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?

If you believe "might makes right" then sure, they have the right.

If you ask what moral legitimacy it has, then the answer is none - they have no right.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#117

Post by rayiner »

mike_hearn wrote: post #114
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…

> There are some benefits to being a US citizen, like that the army will rescue you if there is a civil war This is a common myth. If you don't intend to return to the USA there are no benefits to US citizenship, only downsides. The US may or may not rescue you if there's a civil war (see the fate of people in Yemen), but if they do, they will charge you for it at military rates you almost certainly cannot afford: ht…

My dad was evacuated from Yemen by the military when the civil war there broke out. That blue passport was his ticket out of a country that was rapidly disintegrating. He was not charged anything for that. So they don't always charge you (indeed I've never heard of it).

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#118

Post by Ensorceled »

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.

My ex and I used to use the same accountant to file our taxes. As a Canadian citizen, our accountant charged me $100CDN, my ex who had joint US/Canadian Citizen was charged $500-$2000CDN depending on the year and the amount of work that needed to be done.

So, yeah, there are qualified tax advisors who can help but it's painful.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#119

Post by mike_hearn »

chrisseaton wrote: post #98
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?

Does your girlfriend have access to services as a US citizen? Such as embassies, entrance to the US without a visa, or evacuation in case of war? Who should pay for those services if your girlfriend doesn't want to?

The USA charges people it evacuates from war zones, and may or may not do so at all. It is not obligated to do so.

Additionally, if she has dual citizenship, she would get it for free from the UK anyway even if she lives in Spain.

People with British passports also have 90-day visa free access under the Visa waiver program. Unless she intends to move there, there aren't really any benefits to being a US citizen, and certainly nothing that can justify extra-territorial taxation. She gets no services from the US government.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#120

Post by oscardelben »

magicGLASSman wrote: post #99
maxerize wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I constantly have to remind myself that people who browse HN learn strongly libertarian and are mostly well-off white males. Otherwise, saying that the US quality of life exceeds that of the UK, Germany or Switzerland is just blatantly false.

saying "blatantly false" does not make something factual. Please provide and argument with evidence instead of blanket racist remarks.

Healthcare.
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