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Earlier quoted context omitted.
so where are they all going?
New Zealand it seems. An island country of 5 million with some of the most expensive real estate and highest suicide rates of the developed world.
They’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…
Edit: fixed my percentile thanks to child comment!
They’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…
That seems unnecessarily vengeful considering that foreigners (that weren't originally US citizens) weren't subject to the same restrictions.
From the bottom of my heart, fuck off . If you get blackmailed, abducted, squeezed or raided in any way, the U.S. will have the privilege of not caring. These tools accumulated massive wealth by corrupting the U.S. political system, gutting the IRS, and bringing their effective tax rate lower than most other citizens' - and it is still not enough. I guess it's a tall order to ask to keep your grubby paws away and not…
> From the bottom of my heart, fuck off. If you get blackmailed, abducted, squeezed or raided in any way, the U.S. will have the privilege of not caring. Guess you have never lived abroad? If you think the US doesnt care about you when you’re in country, you dont even exist when you’re out of it. Imagine being in the middle of a coup, calling up your consulate for guidance only to find out that they all left the coun…
No wonder that many renounce citizenship.
It's so irritating to be an American that has moved overseas. Basically the only country in the world that charges taxes on money you make and spend somewhere else, just because of where you were born. Thanks to IRS regulations, 90% of investment firms will just reject me outright rather than deal with the paperwork. Getting someone to help file my inordinately complex taxes costs thousands of dollars more than I act…
> Basically the only country in the world that charges taxes on money you make and spend somewhere else I believe Eritrea does this, too. They don't have as much political power as the US though, so they resort to torturing your remaining family members in the country to get you to comply.
They're basically the North Korea of Africa. This is a massive understatement.
If optimizing for money really was people's intention, it's much more optimal to leave before you become mega rich.
You can move to Singapore once you have $6 million to buy a visa-by-investment. There's no cap gains taxes there, so your money can compound unencumbered.
Then again, not every ex-pat who renounces their citizenship does that, maybe because they don't want to live in Singapore. Some of us ex-patriate to countries with even higher taxes than the states.
Look at the number of people ex-patriating with a grain of salt. It's like the Drake Equation, there are many factors that would allow you to narrow the 'search space', and after all is said and done, there will just be a small amount of people who have outsized influence in the states and also evading taxes.
Good: 1. When I first got here, super cheap drinks put on by the marines at the US embassy. People would get wasted and it was an obvious security threat so those parties don’t happen anymore.
Bad: 1. No access to covid vaccine despite paying taxes and not having vaccine access in local country for a while. This was a hot topic in many US expat communities. Globally, Embassy and consulate staff were all vaccinated but it was “bad optics” for overseas citizens to have vax access. 2. Brother (also citizen) was on a trip to Kilimanjaro as covid was kicking off. The Europe travel ban was announced so I tried calling the embassy for travel advice, not even a return call. 3. While I haven’t personally needed it, if the doo-doo hits the fan, you’re on your own. You pay for the cost of your own evac, even if it’s a Govt flight. 4. The annual pain and cost of tax filing and bank account reporting. 5. The ongoing pain of trying to get financial services as an overseas US citizen. Banks, stock brokers, etc don’t want you.
It’s my understanding that in French government, they have a specific representative for overseas citizens. In the US, our voices are scattered across 50 states (and homelanders don’t care about us) so we always get shaft.
All that being said, I have no plans to renounce.
It 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.
This is classic libertarian thinking, and I used to subscribe to it, at least to some extent. The more you think about it, though, the more it doesn't hold up. It's just undeniably true that individual freedoms exist only to the extent that society allows them to. To think that you can opt out of society is fantasy. It's in everybody's best interest to make sure society works well for everyone, and that kind of think…
It seems to me that the wealthy who leave the country and renounce their citizenship are effectively opting out of society. It's not a fantasy for the wealthy. We live in a competitive world where people have freedom of movement. The wealthy will tend to go where they are treated best. I think society works well for everyone when the government keeps the tax rates reasonable. Over time, a government kleptocracy causes horrific suffering for the vast majority of people.