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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

#191

Post by dalke »

m_mueller wrote: post #174
briandear wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Army coming to rescue? Nope. Here's a story about the US specifically NOT going to rescue Americans in Yemen: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-04-22/americans-t... Have a look at this evacuation application: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/211837.pdf Here's the key wording: "3. I understand that: (a) I will be billed for the cost of my/our transportation no greater than the amount of a full-fare…

Blows my mind that you people can't even vote when living abroad. As a Swiss, the embassy registers me in either my home canton or my last residential canton for votes (i.e. all the people referendums) and elections. They send me the voting letters to my Japanese home address. Free of charge. Things like this and the Flint water scandal make me want to never work in the US, even if it's just a year. Dealing with your…

I'm a US citizen living in Sweden. I still vote in the US, as if I were a resident from where I used to be. In fact, I have a ballot for two municipal offices on my desk right now. (This is the second ballot I've gotten this year. The first was for a school bond. The US has a lot of elections.)

In reference to briandear's comment "It is illegal to register to vote in a state in which you aren't resident", that simply isn't correct.

However, I don't know what happens with Americans who were born overseas and are citizens because their parents were citizens, but who have never been resident in the US. Ahh, https://www.fvap.gov/citizen-voter/reside gives details.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#192

Post by xtracto »

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?

> 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

My wife has those! guess what we don't pay a dime because we are citizens of... the rest of the world.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#193

Post by popmystack »

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.

Nothing he said was racist.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#194

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#195

Post by cbennett »

Upset about this issue and want to make a positive difference rather than debating technicalities or simply waiting for the other shoe to drop?

It may be no surprise that FATCA and FBAR present several consitutitional issues. Chief among them are the following:

-As the IRS can unilaterally sign unauthorized pseudo-treaties with foreign governments, the Senate’s role in ratifying treaties is bypassed

-Fourth amendment: Private financial data is collected indiscriminately

-Eighth Amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment, as well as excessive fines, may be leveraged when compliance is not perfect, and without Rule of Law provisions to ensure any protection for the accused. (My recapitulation of points in [1] )

Thankfully, several large scale legal challenges on exactly these grounds are now underway- by Sen Rand Paul and 6 other expats [2] , and perhaps even more promisingly, by super lawyer Jim Bopp (who took down Mc-Cain Feingold [3]).

You can also donate a small amount to support the latter case: https://fatcalegalaction.com/contribute/ Thanks for reading, lets not give up hope, and remain fired up to the correctness of this cause because, in the words of Bopp - “The U.S. Constitution protects every citizen’s liberty and freedom, while FATCA undermines both,”

We deserve better!

Signed, An American living in Paris

[1] http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/18253...

[2] http://www.taxanalysts.com/www/features.nsf/Features/9D07FB4...

[3] http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/5/superlawyer-j...

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#196

Post by xtracto »

khgvljhkb wrote: post #27
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's the premium of having a US passport? Canadian, UK, Scandinavian, Dutch, HK, Japanese, really whatever developed nations passport seems to be a better deal.

> What's the premium of having a US passport? Canadian, UK, Scandinavian, Dutch, HK, Japanese, really whatever developed nations passport seems to be a better deal.

Exactly! I would be so happy to have a EU passport, that way I would have free travel/work access to the whole Euro zone and easier access to the UK.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#197

Post by patio11 »

m_mueller wrote: post #174
briandear wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Army coming to rescue? Nope. Here's a story about the US specifically NOT going to rescue Americans in Yemen: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-04-22/americans-t... Have a look at this evacuation application: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/211837.pdf Here's the key wording: "3. I understand that: (a) I will be billed for the cost of my/our transportation no greater than the amount of a full-fare…

Blows my mind that you people can't even vote when living abroad. As a Swiss, the embassy registers me in either my home canton or my last residential canton for votes (i.e. all the people referendums) and elections. They send me the voting letters to my Japanese home address. Free of charge. Things like this and the Flint water scandal make me want to never work in the US, even if it's just a year. Dealing with your…

They send me the voting letters to my Japanese home address. Free of charge.

I get letters like that, too, also addressed to Japan but bearing a conspicuous bald eagle. An American citizen is a resident of the last state one had legal residence in for voting purposes even if one has no particular intent to return to it. One's friendly local State Department employee will happily confirm this:

http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/abroad/legal-ma...

For voting purposes, your state of legal residence is generally the state wherein you resided immediately before leaving the United States, even if you no longer own or rent property or intend to return there in the future. Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia specifically allow U.S. citizens who have never resided in the United States to register where a parent would be eligible to vote.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#198

Post by gutnor »

masklinn wrote: post #56
toni wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because that makes no sense? Why would the french state give part of its (perfectly normal and standard) income tax back to the US for no reason?

It makes sense if it is bilateral ( US giving money to France for French people working there ) and common enough that both countries don't want to deal with the hassle.

The real problem is that the US is the odd one here. Every other country save 1 or 2 tax people income based on residence . So there is a legal clash that probably prevent any kind of sane and simple bilateral agreement like the one most of the first world countries have between themselves.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#199

Post by smazero »

The use of the term "expat" rather than "immigrant" is interesting. I read a piece in the guardian the other day which framed that distinction in terms of white vs non-white (http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-...), but it's obviously a bit more complicated than that. I don't think the two terms are synonyms, but they are very close, and once you try to pick apart the differences, I think the distinction does start to unravel.

Thought experiment: think about how the article would have felt had it been titled: "Why American immigrants are giving up their passports". I think it would have felt different, and I wonder whether an American reader might have felt slightly insulted by that change.

I'd be interested to know whether other languages/cultures draw that same subtle distinction between "immigrants" and "expats", or whether it's just some vestigial remnant of the UK's colonial past.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#200

Post by spiralpolitik »

klunger wrote: post #147
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…

I am an American in Norway... I thought you only had to file FATCA for bank accounts that had more than $10,000 USD in them at some point in the past year. Not a few hundred. Are you sure about that? (if so, oh sh*t)

FBAR requires you to report an account held overseas in excess of $10,000. This is separate from the reporting you do on your tax return and separate from the reporting institutions are required to do for FATCA.

FBAR is more insidious for the individual because any US taxpayer (not just citizens) is required to file an FBAR and $10,000 is a stupidly low number. Worse even if the money overseas isn't yours (in the case you have say signature authority over an account because of power of attorney) you still have to file. Even worse once one account tops $10,000 you have to report all of them even if they have zero balance. It's also not clear what constitutes an account. Example does a PayPal account count ?

The only conclusion I can come up with is that FBAR is basically there to make it easy for the Feds to do a Martha Stewart and get you for lying, because proving tax evasion is a bit hard.

(Disclaimer: Not an accountant. Consult an accountant for tax related advice)

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