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Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

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Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#171

Interesting facts about renouncing American citizenship: - There is renunciation fee that has to be paid and currently stands at $2,350 (the highest in the world).[1] - A final tax return will sill need to be filed. [1] - An Expatriation tax is payable if [..] Your net worth is $2 million or more on the date of your expatriation. you will be treated as having disposed of your assets the day before your expatriation a…

Can a citizenship be exchanged? For example you get my Australian passport, I get your American? Neither country loses a taxpayer this way.. ;)

I always wanted to start a "couchsurfing for passports" , or even airbnb. If one is a citizen, they can vet for an exchange citizen, sounds democratic to me.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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).

This is a fantasy. Voluntary contracts imply that workers have the option of not working for starvation wages, which in many cases is simply not true. If your options are to work a dead-end minwage job or, well, die on the street, is it really a voluntary contract that you're entering? I would say not.

There is only 1 company you can work for, and no way to work independently or start a company? Seems strange to me.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#173
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article is about wealthy people. We all know they are paying relatively no taxes or doing their best to. Yes, Americans who moved to Europe and are happily making a living there are also giving up US citizenship but end up paying taxes in 2 places or deal with a lot of hassle they’d rather not

No one's moving the Europe for the lower taxes.

If you're software engineer in Poland and spend some time architecting your contract, you can pay only 5% income tax (+ irrelevant amount for social security) as "R&D tax relief for commercializing IP rights".

Point you're making applies to countries like Belgium or France.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#174

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…

It's also problematic in other way, my friends moved to US for a job for few years and had kids there. US gives you citizenship by place of birth so the kids have US citizenship. Now that they are back they are in a bit of a pickle not knowing what to do, the kids might be screwed and own money to the US for nothing when they grow up but renouncing it now for them also doesn't make sense (if even possible) because they might want to have it, who knows.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cyprus gives you access to the EU while being a tax haven. https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/11/9/21547055/eric-schmidt-g...

It's no different than ireland (same % taxation), are they both tax havens? Cyprus is not on the OECD tax havens list for years, and in fact are considered a rather safe choice, hence the rise in popularity of their residence/citizenship programs (and their fees)

> It's no different than ireland (same % taxation), are they both tax havens?

Any country can be a tax haven if you're not already living there and rich enough to negotiate special terms.

Greece and Cyprus offers citizenship-by-investment, and there are many ways wealthy people can 'invest' in the same way they do 'philanthropy'.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#176

it's not just about taxes. US Citizens who live overseas can't invest in what are effectively foreign mutual funds (PFIC in IRS parlance). While retirement plans are generally exempted if there's a tax treaty, that doesn't help other forms of money one might get. Your local government gives your child a grant of money each month to be invested in a choice of funds? You're a US citizen? sorry, you're out of luck, this…

Conversely, you can't buy US funds as a European resident due to PRIIPs requirements: https://www.justetf.com/ch/news/etf/us-domiciled-etfs.html

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#177
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article is about wealthy people. We all know they are paying relatively no taxes or doing their best to. Yes, Americans who moved to Europe and are happily making a living there are also giving up US citizenship but end up paying taxes in 2 places or deal with a lot of hassle they’d rather not

No one's moving the Europe for the lower taxes.

I am executing a residency change to Bulgaria at the moment, in no small part for the taxes

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: Nato, fair point. There is still a difference between being bullied into submission to American hegemony and being part of the us empire. I really, really detest cold weather and drunk people, both of which Russia has in abundance. Russia and China are just as offensive to my own moral compass as the USA. Once we attain citizenship I’m going to try to convince my family to move to Esbjerg, at least for a few year…

The city on the west coast of Denmark? Is that a typo?

Yes, I love it there. My two closest friends moved there to study marine archaeology and within 3 years another 7 had moved there. We were married in Fanø. I’m old, I like the quiet.

Ideally we would spend our winters somewhere warm and the rest of the time in Denmark.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#179
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America has one of the most progressive tax system of any country. https://taxfoundation.org/summary-of-the-latest-federal-inco... >The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (38.5 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (29.9 percent). IMO, this is one of this is why the American government seems so bad at spending money. It's not their money, so there's little incentive to care if it's m…

What percent of wealth does the top 1% possess vs the bottom 90 percent combined? Wikipedia says the top 1% possesses precisely 38.5% of the country's wealth, so it's more than reasonable that they shoulder at least 38.5% of the taxes. [1] This stat is also from 2016. That divide has grown immensely these past few years. The stat the Tax Foundation presents is made to make us sympathetic towards people who control ba…

Income and this income taxes are first derivatives of wealth. It doesn't make sense to directly compare the two. The wealthy spend relatively little of their wealth on discretionary spending.
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