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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

#231

Post by lhopki01 »

gotchange wrote: post #214
saiya-jin wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, movies like Tears of the sun. considering the number of US citizens, they are all over planet and it's a rather unreasonable expectation. generally US citizenship meant much more in the past than it means now since there are more interesting places to live (albeit in long term US might still prove as best spot... or not).

When the most recent war broke out in Yemen, the Indian govt managed to evacuate its citizens from Yemen using their navy and if you take into account the size of the Indian diaspora in the Arabian Peninsula including Yemen, it wasn't an easy feat and I can't imagine that the USG wouldn't be capable of carrying out a similar evacuation plan or doing what it could to get their citizens out of harm's way abroad.

I highly doubt there are many Indians in Yemen. It's a poor country and doesn't have many migrant labourers like the UAE or Bahrain do.

Also the Americans I knew seemed to expect helicopters to come pick them up and all that. Saying to your citizens they need to get out and we've got a navy ship in port that you can get on if you want isn't really evacuating your citizens.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#232

Post by mark_l_watson »

This story hits close to home. My wife and I had wanted to buy a home in Central America (I really enjoy that area of the world) and live there about 2/3 of the time, but also maintaining a modest residence in Arizona.

We gave up that dream when FACTA became a law. The US government is basically making it as nasty as possible for citizens to live abroad.

Why is the government doing this? I think it is simple economics. Americans spending their social security checks, and savings, in other countries slightly weakens our economy.

We also love living in Arizona, so life is good, but the FACTA laws are nasty shit.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#233

Post by Symbiote »

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?

I'm British, and I left the UK last summer.

In January, I got a tax refund from the British government, since I'd been paying tax on my income at a rate that expected me to earn that amount for the whole year. Claiming that was the first tax return I'd ever completed, i.e. the first time my taxes weren't correct automatically.

My only remaining "asset" in the UK is my student loan, and some money in an account to make the payments. I do not expect to communicate with the British tax office ever again.

This situation is typical of most countries.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#234

Post by rbcgerard »

In addition to excessive paperwork, potentially higher taxes, loss of privacy, inability to obtain financial services (bank accounts, mortgages), Americans living abroad also deal with punitive treatment of pensions earned while abroad if they have also earned u.s. pensions and poor political representation...

I'd also suggest those of you living abroad to check out https://www.americansabroad.org/ a political advocacy group (i have no affiliation)

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#235

Post by dalke »

return0 wrote: post #201
smazero wrote: post #199

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 t…

There are rich arab or chinese expats in the west, are they called immigrants? I think expats refers to the temporary/revocable/definitely-not-forced status of the immigrant. In my greek native, expat and immigrant are used interchangably (ομογενής /μετανάστης) That said, "expat" is the wrong term for someone who renounced his original citizenship. I guess they should be called "pats" now.

In the US context, Mexicans who come to the US for work, with plans to return to Mexico after 5-10 years, are called immigrants. Thus, "immigrant workers" not "expat worker" and "undocumented immigrants" not "undocumented expats".

The same is true in Europe. The places in town where North Africans, or Iraq, or Ethiopia live are often called "immigrant communities", not "expat communities." Even when the population has no plans to return, or are even native born.

While on the other hand there are many British people who retire and live the expat life overseas where it's warm and cheap, and don't plan to return to the UK. Or Arthur C. Clark, a British expat in Sri Lanka who had no plans to leave. The Sri Lankan government created the category of resident guest status in 1975 so he could stay.

This strongly suggests that 1) your understanding isn't correct, and 2) there is a social class distinction between "immigrant" and "expat".

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#236

Post by rbcgerard »

dalke wrote: post #9

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…

That does not include your tax bill for expatriation either!

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#238

Post by sydneysider »

dalke wrote: post #9

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…

I'm pretty sure I remember reading an article about what happens when you renounce your US citizenship, something along the lines of you being taxed for any assets you have (in the US) as if you had sold all of it on the day you give up your citizeship, please someone correct me if I am wrong, I will try find a source.

"To recap, if upon giving up US citizenship you own assets with unrealized gains of less than $626,000, you will not owe exit tax, no matter how wealthy you are. If you are required to pay tax it's less tax than you would have paid if you'd stayed in the U.S. and sold the assets. Plus, if any asset you pay exit tax on continues to rise in value post-renunication, all those additional gains are yours." [1]

heres a source (number 2)

[1]: http://www.expatinfodesk.com/expat-guide/relinquishing-citiz...

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#239

Post by dalke »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #230
dalke wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For FBAR? There's an amnesty program in place which was introduced during the summer of 2014, which is better than then fines possible under the voluntary disclosure program. See http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2014/06/18/irs-announ... . That reduced the outrage some. Before then, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-taxes-foreign-idUSTRE7... reports that after 26 months of work, and at one time with a likely…

How does the US enforce this? What happens if someone with no plans to visit the US and no income from the US that could be garnished says "So - come and get it if you want it"?

Well, obviously they can't. This is especially so for American citizens who are citizen by blood, have never set foot in the US, and have no family to visit.

But notice how they've been working on new rules like FATCA that go after the citizen's bank, assuming the bank does any sort of business in the US?

For all I know, in 10 years the IRS will force the bank to extract penalties directly from someone's account.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#240

Post by anothermouse »

crdoconnor wrote: post #13

>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…

You are, seemingly deliberately, failing to understand that this isn't a 1% problem. The 1% have tax advisors and CPAs paid to take care of this for them.

This is affecting expats and accidental americans in their daily lives, even if they have no income. I am not the first to suggest it, but reread the article, and image that you earn $30K and live in france, and for some reason you're account is being closed, and you need to spend 1K post tax a year filing for a country you don't live in.

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