Once when young, I used to dream of living and working in the US, how naive I was!
Where are you now? What do taxes cost you?
Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship
21–30 of 876 posts
Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship
#22They’ve been allowed for decades to avoid paying for the infrastructure and management of the country while simultaneously holding most of the influence. “Renouncing citizenship” means they’ll give up none of the influence, lose the taxes, live how and wherever they want. The best thing to do is forbid them re-entry into the country nor to hold controlling interest in any company in the US. Faced with actual conseque…
You seem to be making a lot of assumptions about who is giving up citizenship here. Obviously there are some high profile people who are still highly involved with the US, but I'd imagine a lot of folks doing this are those who don't live in America and don't want to deal with the hassle and cost of filing US tax returns every year when they earn no money in the US.
Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship
#23Its really a great system we have here --- get insanely wealthy off the backs of Americans who pay tons more for basic services and then when it's time to pay back run off and keep your change. No wonder America is doing so well.
“Off the back” sounds like the wealthy took advantage of folks when, in fact, they entered voluntary contracts in a win-win scenario. Creating a company is not exploitative but rather collaborative and mutually beneficial (with workers).
Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship
#24It is good that we have such process for people to push back against their government greed. Usually, the citizenry is at the mercy of it and can’t do anything about it. You don’t like it? Fine. You have a choice and can get out. Good safety valve. It keeps the populist governments in check.
Ah, yes, those greedy populist governments. They set up and facilitate extreme winner-take-all systems on the promise that they are better for everyone. How dare they ask the winners to make good on the "better for everyone" part! Such greed.
Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship
#25Without getting into the moral debate of taxing US Citizens globally... how could the US government stop this from happening? Surely these ex-citizens hold a lot of assets in the US, and most probably spend a lot of time in the country. Could the gov't effectively banish them or ban them from holding assets in US assets? What would be the side effects of such a law?
Perhaps a tax could be introduced for those who renounce their citizenship and which could work somewhat like the estate tax. Meaning it would only affect people who have considerable wealth.
Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship
#26Without getting into the moral debate of taxing US Citizens globally... how could the US government stop this from happening? Surely these ex-citizens hold a lot of assets in the US, and most probably spend a lot of time in the country. Could the gov't effectively banish them or ban them from holding assets in US assets? What would be the side effects of such a law?
There's no reason to stop it. Their assets are still paying taxes.
Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship
#27Pretty crazy with people like Eric Schmitt applying for Cyrus citizenship. The guy is worth $20+ billion. You'd think at that point you hate tax like the rest of us but recognise it makes zero difference to your own quality of life and this is what funds great nations.
US and other countries need to come down hard on wealth movement in general. Biden's global tax minimums are a good start but government will need to start limiting physical, financial and business access bloc nations to make this effective.
Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship
#28Good, the cocksucking statists in the comments should get cancer an die.
Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship
#29They’ve been allowed for decades to avoid paying for the infrastructure and management of the country while simultaneously holding most of the influence. “Renouncing citizenship” means they’ll give up none of the influence, lose the taxes, live how and wherever they want. The best thing to do is forbid them re-entry into the country nor to hold controlling interest in any company in the US. Faced with actual conseque…
If a person has no income or capital gains from the U.S. and doesn’t live in the U.S. shouldn’t they be exempt from paying U.S. taxes? Also, shouldn’t foreign financial institutions be exempt from reporting to the U.S. about financial activities of U.S. citizens when they are outside the U.S.? I think the answer to both questions ought to be yes.
EDIT: I’m aware of the rules regarding income taxes for Americans based on their citizenship and not on where the income was earned. My questions address this and by saying ‘yes’ to them I’m indicating that these rules are dumb in my opinion.
Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship
#30They’ve been allowed for decades to avoid paying for the infrastructure and management of the country while simultaneously holding most of the influence. “Renouncing citizenship” means they’ll give up none of the influence, lose the taxes, live how and wherever they want. The best thing to do is forbid them re-entry into the country nor to hold controlling interest in any company in the US. Faced with actual conseque…
> while simultaneously holding most of the influence. There are 20 million millionaires in the states. This is not even 10,000 people year over year with assets, not even net worth, over $2 million. This is a tiny fraction of the population, most of whom are contrarian or pursue an alternative lifestyle, given that they are living abroad. I would hardly call someone with $2 million as having outsized influenced, they…
$2 million is the minimum to be listed - it is not the median, let alone the mean. Eric Schmidt alone has wealth equivalent to 10,000 people with a “mere” $2 million.