101–110 of 459 posts
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The other countries that tax worldwide income: Libya, North Korea, Eritrea and the Philippines. Great company to be in. You could call it ridiculous because it’s so unusual. But the reason most countries don’t do it is that taxes are a supposed to be a deal - the government forces you to hand over money and pays for services you use in return. Expats - they aren’t using those services. And your point about tax evader…
> taxing global income only hurts law abiding expats If you want to maintain your citizenship and have a safe-haven to run to if SHTF, then you should contribute to the tax system. I truly don't understand why this is controversial. An American passport is powerful. Edit: I suppose I shouldn't be shocked that the tax avoiding leeches in Silicon Valley don't feel obligated to contribute to the societies from which the…
If S* is hitting the fan, aren't you assuming said expat lives in, to use El Jefe's words, a "S* country"? By conservation of mass, the S* comes from somewhere. Instead, most expats live in W. Europe, Canada, or Japan/Korea. Pretty safe.
" tax avoiding leeches in Silicon Valley don't feel obligated to contribute to the societies from which they extract their wealth"
Well, no. Ppl aren't complaining about paying taxes to the sovereign of where they live, even on their global income. That's another discussion. It's about paying taxes, usually mostly locally earned income, to an entity far away that has no jurisdiction and that provides nothing in return.
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So does Australia whilst not taxing on worldwide income.
And Canada, Italy, Germany, Norway, New Zealand, France, UK, etc... etc.... do as well without the silly system the US has in place.
Perhaps you're forgetting about the evacuation of Lebanese Canadians in 2006, "Citizens of Convenience" and the associated changes in Canadian citizenship laws. It's not without controversy.
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Yeah, it is a bit annoying, and I can imagine it is beyond a bit annoying if you are making income somewhere that doesn't have a treaty with the U.S. I thankfully don't get double-taxed here in Canada, but I'm pretty sure it's possible to have a marginal tax rate greater than 100% between U.S. Federal income taxes and some other systems.
> I thankfully don't get double-taxed here in Canada I bet many of your fellow Canadian taxpayers (of which I am one) are not so thankful for this arrangement. Then again, I fall strictly in the "citizenship is a privilege, not a right" camp.
I'm going to 'recycle' an older comment of mine, pertaining to the comments about the book. The original comment can be found here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20583363 I was annoyed that someone called Ed Snowden a 'Traitor'. Hopefully it gets a bit more recognition in this thread __________________________________ For me he made the Great Game of Privacy a lot fairer. You should read the excellent entry on…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> taxing global income only hurts law abiding expats If you want to maintain your citizenship and have a safe-haven to run to if SHTF, then you should contribute to the tax system. I truly don't understand why this is controversial. An American passport is powerful. Edit: I suppose I shouldn't be shocked that the tax avoiding leeches in Silicon Valley don't feel obligated to contribute to the societies from which the…
" safe-haven to run to if SHTF" If S * is hitting the fan, aren't you assuming said expat lives in, to use El Jefe's words, a "S * country"? By conservation of mass, the S * comes from somewhere. Instead, most expats live in W. Europe, Canada, or Japan/Korea. Pretty safe. " tax avoiding leeches in Silicon Valley don't feel obligated to contribute to the societies from which they extract their wealth" Well, no. Ppl ar…
As others have mentioned, your American passport does provide you with services. But if you truly believe it's worthless, why maintain citizenship? To save the fee to renounce citizenship, even though it will save potentially tens of thousands of dollars annually? Doesn't make sense to me.
No, it's a safety measure. And I think people are lucky to have it, at the low cost of some of your tax dollars.
I can't speak for the US but this man has shifted so much of the political debate in my country and I think also in the EU in general. If you talked about the massive surveillance from governments people tossed you aside as a paranoid lunatic. After Snowden no one could ignore you anymore and privacy is an aspect in any public debate.
That's great to hear. Unfortunately, his actions haven't really done anything in the US. I wish I could say otherwise, but I haven't seen a single thing change. Privacy still isn't an issue that's on most people's radar. The government still does what it did before and likely a lot more. I have a ton of respect for Snowden, but he severely overestimated how much Americans care about privacy, spying, surveillance, or…
I can't speak for the US but this man has shifted so much of the political debate in my country and I think also in the EU in general. If you talked about the massive surveillance from governments people tossed you aside as a paranoid lunatic. After Snowden no one could ignore you anymore and privacy is an aspect in any public debate.
Is that the case for both govt and private corporate surveillance? How widespread is the use of Alexa in your area?
We were called "paranoid lunatics" even when we started speaking about ECHELON in the '90ies. Same with the clipper chip. Same with TPM/DRM/ME. Same with Internet centralization. It's worth asking why the general public keeps trusting authorities and distrusts techies, even those among us with a career in security.