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Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

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Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#251

Post by eplanit »

academia_hack wrote: post #42

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…

Other nations reject our wealthy, while we prioritize herding the impoverished into the US. The future does not look so bright.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#252

Post by amilios »

koonsolo wrote: post #172
amilios wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If all the companies that are willing to hire you equally treat you like crap, you aren't really given much choice. In terms of entrepreneurship, it carries a ton of risk. People living paycheck-to-paycheck typically aren't able to carry such a risk with no safety net (family, etc.).

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#253

Post by opheliate »

roenxi wrote: post #154
opheliate wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the ship "sinking/floating" analogy is far too simplistic for this discussion. Everyone has a different idea of what the ship "floating" looks like: If you're someone with a lot of wealth, the current state of things might look completely reasonable. If you're very poor, the fact that 0.1% of people control 25% of the world's wealth might look a lot less like society is functioning correctly. Society could easily…

If you're worried about people being oppressed, moving away from basic principles of freedom and liberty is probably not the path you want to take. If libertarianism would result in a great many oppressed people, any sort of centralisation of power will result in even more oppressed people. Beefing up government power is no solution to oppression; the worst oppressors are invariably governments. The worst of the grea…

> The worst of the great catastrophes and oppression of the last century were perpetrated by strong centralised governments.

Absolutely. It's a good thing I'm not calling for massively beefing up government then, I'm just advocating that tax laws exist & are enforced, so as to redistribute wealth, which I don't view as oppressive.

> If libertarianism would result in a great many oppressed people, any sort of centralisation of power will result in even more oppressed people.

I disagree with the implied premise that there is not a "centralisation of power" under libertarianism. While there isn't a state to have a monopoly on violence, there can certainly be a centralisation of economic power. And when we rely on money to pay rent, afford food, pay for healthcare etc, economic power is functionally equivalent to power in general.

> the worst oppressors are invariably governments

I wouldn't say invariably. Consider the United Fruit Company for example, or the current prevalence of child labour in tech company supply chains (e.g: Glencore, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt).

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#254

Post by JumpCrisscross »

dlisboa wrote: post #247
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only because of US laws. I have two citizenships, but one residency. U.S. citizenship carries extraterritorial benefits. For example, we're pretty good at getting our people out of thorny situations, even at great national expense. If someone isn't paying to support that, it makes sense to force a revocation decision.

That’s only relevant to a tiny percentage of American immigrants who travel/work in conflict zones and unfriendly countries. It could even be said Americans are more at risk in those countries for being American and no other reason. So for people outside of that there won’t be any benefit.

> only relevant to a tiny percentage of American immigrants who travel/work in conflict zones and unfriendly countries

I know a (thankfully small) handful of cases in which Americans' kids were arrested in a friendly country. The State Department provided invaluable support. (Recommendations on legal counsel, prudent next steps, relevant authorities' phone numbers...nothing nefarious, just context and support.)

I am under no illusion that I, with my resources, would get that sort of access. But it exists, and probably benefits U.S. international business concerns. Since this article concerns itself with rich overseas Americans, I think it's relevant.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#255

Post by fourthwaveska »

geomark wrote: post #130
fourthwaveska wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Imagine being an expat in the middle of a pandemic, the U.S. donating millions of vaccine dosages to the country you live in, vaccines that your tax dollars helped pay for, and you can't get vaccinated because the U.S. won't stipulate that some of those millions of doses should go to the approximately 30,000 U.S. expats in the country .

Yeah that kind of pissed me off too. Luckily most countries treated everybody the same and we got out jabs with our age groups without a fuss.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#256

Post by mmmeff »

RufusJacksons wrote: post #84
academia_hack wrote: post #42

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…

Couldn't agree more, sounds like you're in Australia too - I've been here 9 years and am yet to file tax... Interested how bad they will fuck me when I do...

Fake your death while you still can

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#257

Post by [deleted] »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #94
academia_hack wrote: post #42

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 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. This is exactly why these people are renouncing US citizenship: They’re living overseas as citizens of another country and, like anyone rich or poor, don’t want to be paying taxes to a country they aren’t living in.…

[deleted]

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#259

Post by papito »

trutannus wrote: post #148
alephnan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> The best thing to do is forbid them re-entry into the country Given the track-record lefty authoritarianism has, I'm always a little nauseated to see people pull out the truncheon and jack-boots to enforce "economic justice". That and suggestions like this don't even make any sense, and rarely ever do. It always looks to me like retribution is the aim here, rather than effective economic policy.

Well, now, let's not paint "authoritarianism" as "lefty". Some Marx-reading student on campus is not exactly a threat, is it?

The ultra-left sentiment is, indeed, anti-liberal at its core, but it is still an irrelevant fringe.

The actual, viable threat of authoritarianism is coming from the opposite side, which is a spit away from holding absolute power, here in the States, at least. And then, it's on.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#260

Post by dustinmoris »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #184
mgbmtl wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> surrendering US citizenship is a logical choice Only because of US laws. I have two citizenships, but one residency. In most Western countries, being a resident is associated with healthcare and pension, so having one residency is logical.

> Only because of US laws. I have two citizenships, but one residency. U.S. citizenship carries extraterritorial benefits. For example, we're pretty good at getting our people out of thorny situations, even at great national expense. If someone isn't paying to support that, it makes sense to force a revocation decision.

> U.S. citizenship carries extraterritorial benefits.

Not sure about actual benefits. The US passports is one of the worst when it comes to travel. Many countries have stricter entry rules only for US citizen, or require at least a higher Visa fee in comparison to other Western nations or outright don't allow US citizens entry at all. I found my Austrian passport to be actually extremely beneficial. Most powerful passport is still from Singapore when it comes to extraterritorial benefits.

In terms of getting people out of thorny situations, countries which don't have citizenship based tax laws are also pretty good at that, if not even better, because the US has in fact a lot of scarred relations with other nations whereas other Western nations have it easier to get a country pull some strings in order to get their people out.

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