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Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

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Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#231

Post by howard941 »

tivert wrote: post #215
howard941 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of his preexisting condition. Even if insured, when all of the ACA prohibitions against preexisting condition exclusions are wiped away as the political wind is portending then the OP will be one illness away from a financial wipeout. When I was in my 30s I had a blood test come back with what the doc said was moderately high cholesterol (185?). From that point on all of my policies excluded illnesses, diseas…

> Because of his preexisting condition. Even if insured, when all of the ACA prohibitions against preexisting condition exclusions are wiped away as the political wind is portending then the OP will be one illness away from a financial wipeout. Honest questions: Weren't pre-existing condition exclusions only relevant if the condition was diagnosed when the person was uninsured and only when that person was buying an…

> Weren't pre-existing condition exclusions only relevant if the condition was diagnosed when the person was uninsured and only when that person was buying an individual policy (so you could still get coverage through an employer group policy)?

I can't speak for anyone other than my Floridian self but my hypercholesterol diagnosis was while insured on a group policy and became a pre-existing excludable condition when I set up shop on my own and bought an individual policy.

> so you could still get coverage through an employer group policy

There was no employer to offer me group coverage. It was my way or the highway.

> Also, even if the condition was diagnosed while the person was uninsured, what would happen if they subsequently spent a long period of time insured under a group policy? When the person went back to the individual market, they'd have a long paper trail of being insured from the group policy. Would a new individual insurer really be able to figure out that, years ago, the person was uninsured years ago when they were diagnosed?

I hear you, but really all it takes is a question on the insurance application to find out the info. If I'm asked I answer honestly not only because it's a felony to do otherwise but because false answers on insurance policy questionairres is an easy win for the insurance company that wants to avoid claim payment. If I were to lie though it wouldn't be a walk in the park but finding out the adverse info is definitely do-able and so long as preexisting conditions can be excluded there's a tremendous monetary incentive to find this stuff out. They can tap into the place that tracks health issues for life insurance companies (the Medical Info Bureau) to find out even more or simply write all of my physicians and ask them directly.

My wife is in the same boat. She has a thyroid issue and her policy came with an exclusion for everything associated with hyperthyroid. This is pretty much the entire book of morbid cardiovascular conditions.

At this point I'm job locked: If I leave (or am laid off) the individual market will exclude the hell out of both of us.

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#233

Post by jedmeyers »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #196
umvi wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> combined with recent evidence suggesting that a good chunk, say half, of the population has no interest in progressing Different people have different definitions of "progress". Your definition of progress might not align with mine. That doesn't mean I am not interested in progress, just that I believe we should be progressing in a different (possibly even diametrical) direction than you believe we should be progre…

That's fine to say, but it ignores the problem of minority rule. If we all take a big vote, and most people want Progress(A), you don't have the ethical right to jump up and down or put a gun to the rest of our heads insisting that we instead do Progress(B). Maybe Progress(B) is a lovely thing for you. The rest of us, however, don't like it very much, and didn't vote for it.

If Progress(A) means taking stuff from a minority group, then sorry you don’t have the right for that either, even if your plan is to equally distribute it for the “good of everyone”. For some people who went through the hell of communism it is the opposite of progress.

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#234

Post by MichaelGlass »

tristor wrote: post #140
tcoff91 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression that you only pay taxes to USA while living abroad if you move somewhere with lower income taxation than the USA, in which case you deduct the taxes paid to the other government from US taxes and pay the difference. This means most people don’t have to pay taxes to the USA while abroad because most countries tax you more than USA federal income tax rates.

That is not how it works. No matter where you reside, you MUST file a tax return every year. There is something called the Foreign Earned Income Exemption (FEIE), which is relatively significant but only applies to the first $100,800 USD to earned that year, and does not apply to limits on taxation against foreign owned assets. If you are making a senior engineer salary at a US company but living abroad, you will be…

From your other comments it seems like you're well versed in this stuff, but here there's some missing nuance.

Most countries have double taxation treaties.

1. If the tax rate is lower in your host country, you pay tax on income greater than 100K minus whatever tax you paid in your host country. Let's call the US tax rate 35 and the host country 30%, and your income 110: You pay 5% to the US, e.g. 500 USD (plus, probably a similar amount to a tax advisor)

2. If the tax rate is higher in your host country, you deduct your host countries taxes from your US tax and only pay the tax advisor.

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#235

Post by MichaelGlass »

muzz wrote: post #207
tristor wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly. The FEIE limit is $100,800 USD, but you still MUST file a tax return every year, no matter what, and no matter where you reside. It is extremely expensive to file that return and you pretty much must retain an accountant who understands the tax laws of the US for non-residents and your resident country's tax laws. FEIE only covers situations in which you can prove non-residence, and only makes you whole…

If you are working in a high-tax country, like any of the European ones, aren't you paying so much tax to that country that your US tax liability is essentially zero? Due to credit for foreign income taxes paid, separate from FEIE? I.e. if an American moved to Netherlands and made 100k of which 40k went to Dutch taxes, wouldn't they effectively pay $0 in US because the credit for 40k paid to the foreign govt would wi…

Yes and no, but in the simple case: that's right, in a higher-than-us-tax country, you will likely only pay a tax advisor, the host country's tax, but not any US tax.

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#236

Post by MichaelGlass »

tristor wrote: post #228
muzz wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are working in a high-tax country, like any of the European ones, aren't you paying so much tax to that country that your US tax liability is essentially zero? Due to credit for foreign income taxes paid, separate from FEIE? I.e. if an American moved to Netherlands and made 100k of which 40k went to Dutch taxes, wouldn't they effectively pay $0 in US because the credit for 40k paid to the foreign govt would wi…

Yes and no. It's actually really complicated. For instance, you can be taxed on earnings against foreign-owned assets, such as stocks, bonds, ETFs, futures, commodities, and ownership in investment real property, which is not excluded from taxation in FEIE. FEIE only affects income tax, not capital gains tax or other forms of taxation. It also does not exempt you from FICA (Medicare, Social Security, et al). So you'r…

I don't think it's so terrible. E.g. if you buy real estate and live in it, then you can deduct 250K gains for a single person or 500K gains for a couple. To that end, you'll only be paying capital gains if you did very well.

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#237

Post by village-idiot »

azinman2 wrote: post #224
village-idiot wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.... Have you not been paying attention? A lot of women are pissed .

Which is very different from nearly half the population wanting to permanently emigrate.

Yes, but if you’re saying “I don’t see any other evidence of dissatisfaction from that cohort” then that’s because you didn’t notice it, not because it isn’t there.

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#238

Post by greesil »

muzz wrote: post #208
skh wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t the CIA, NSA, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Coast Guard (which is not part of the Pentagon), etc. all part of national defense? You can look up the public portion of their budgets online. The VA should be counted too since it’s a cost of national defense.

Also things like interest on the amount of debt used to fight wars

Probably dwarfed by borrowing required for the tax cut now.

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#239

Post by eli_gottlieb »

jedmeyers wrote: post #233
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine to say, but it ignores the problem of minority rule. If we all take a big vote, and most people want Progress(A), you don't have the ethical right to jump up and down or put a gun to the rest of our heads insisting that we instead do Progress(B). Maybe Progress(B) is a lovely thing for you. The rest of us, however, don't like it very much, and didn't vote for it.

If Progress(A) means taking stuff from a minority group, then sorry you don’t have the right for that either, even if your plan is to equally distribute it for the “good of everyone”. For some people who went through the hell of communism it is the opposite of progress.

>If Progress(A) means taking stuff from a minority group, then sorry you don’t have the right for that either,

Hold on, let me check something...

"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."

I rather think we do have that right. Human rights for minorities are indeed a thing, but they aren't a thing that gives you (or anyone else) a fully general right to rule over the majority, nor a fully general right to treat the government as illegitimate when it uses its constitutionally enumerated powers to go against your ideas.

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#240

Post by muzz »

smoothyface wrote: post #80

I have a genuine question for people who want to leave the US because of Trump: Is your life actually any different since he's been elected (minus constant media coverage)? I have to say, mine isn't at all. He's barely accomplished anything that's had an impact on our lives yet people are still so upset about him becoming president that they want to move to another country. Can anyone give concrete examples of his po…

My German wife's grandparents probably personally experienced no noticeable negative impact on their lives in the 1930s.
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