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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

#291

Post by BuckRogers »

sklivvz1971 wrote: post #85
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So, I know a us born billionaire who rescinded his citizenship last year to avoid fatca.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…

Billions are never "hard earned". Do the math :-)

Yeah those must be some very long nights in the office. Makes me wonder where my billions went the many days I worked 9AM-3:30AM launching websites. Lost my sanity and health, but didn't even receive my million.

Can't imagine how hard a billionaire worked.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#292

Post by glass55 »

cpursley wrote: post #64
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So, I know a us born billionaire who rescinded his citizenship last year to avoid fatca.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…

> The guy gives crazy amounts to philanthropic causes instead. This. As a someone who leans libertarian, folks give me the "you must be greedy" look when I mention that I have an issue with income taxation. Not at all - like your friend, I'm rather selective about where I donate my money - to causes that matter to me. I'm a generous person and consider the coercion of the state to be neither altruistic nor efficient.

The problem is often how the money has been made at first place. Bill Gates might be the biggest philanthropist in the world he didn't think about ethics that much when he ran Microsoft like the mob.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#293

Post by knowaveragejoe »

77pt77 wrote: post #277
xenihn wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't know about that situation with US citizens in Yemen, one of the comments posted in response to the LA Times article says Russia ended up evacuating them? Is that true, or just propaganda? The only source is RT..

> LA Times article says Russia ended up evacuating them? This would be irony overload. For someone who still remembers the cold war this is almost unthinkable.

How so? The US and RU have a history of helping each other in situations like this.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#294

Post by endtime »

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…

Can you explain what you mean by austerity and how it is responsible for new taxes?

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#295

Post by gcb0 »

Ensorceled wrote: post #118
orbifold wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

and even after that $2k is gone every year, you're still not sure you can't be fined.

I've had to fix my taxes every year that i had paid Ernest & young to prepare them for me. had i trusted them blindly as most people do, I'd be subject to a couple $20k fines. of course, those depends on you being big/of interest enough to be bothered by the irs. but i like to have clean books and not count on luck.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#296

Post by rbehrends »

mike_hearn wrote: post #115
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.

It's not being done for the benefits of US citizens, that's just a side effect. The goal of the Payment Accounts Directive is to ensure that every EU resident has access to banking services.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#297

Post by nigelk »

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)

At least part of the complication is that overseas equivalents of 401k funds that may be mandatory to contribute to are often considered to be bank accounts by the IRS.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#298

Post by [deleted] »

nvarsj wrote: post #129
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'm also an expat, living in the UK. The FBAR isn't too bad at all, it takes 30 minutes to file electronically if your records are in order. The real burden is filing my annual taxes. I'm a contractor with a limited liability company, common setup in the UK. However in the US, this is treated as me having financial interest in a foreign C-Corp, which has an extremely complicated tax return. Fortunately I have a famil…

[deleted]

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#299

Post by jacquesm »

splintercell wrote: post #212
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.

There was a time when Germany used to be the leading country in the world where almost all major thoughts and works were produced. Whether it was Literature, Art, Philosophy, Cinema, political thinking, Germany was the place to go (and because of close interactions, Austria). Before that, it was Arab World, before that Ancient Rome, before than Ancient Greece. Today that status belongs to America. If you want to prod…

Just so I get this straight, you are claiming that America currently is the go to place for literature, art, philosophy, cinema and political thinking?

I'd accept such a claim for web scale technology and some other fields but for all of the above definitely not so much.

Re: Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

#300

Post by vecinu »

wlesieutre wrote: post #207
nvarsj wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also an expat, living in the UK. The FBAR isn't too bad at all, it takes 30 minutes to file electronically if your records are in order. The real burden is filing my annual taxes. I'm a contractor with a limited liability company, common setup in the UK. However in the US, this is treated as me having financial interest in a foreign C-Corp, which has an extremely complicated tax return. Fortunately I have a famil…

I've heard elsewhere that foreign banks were closing down accounts of American expats because the customers aren't worth the FATCA paperwork. Have you encountered any trouble with that?

This was literally in the article.
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