Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 876 posts

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#331

Post by goodpoint »

mrow84 wrote: post #62
ninja3925 wrote: post #23

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).

Consider two scenarios: a) Undeveloped land is freely available, and anyone who wants to can go and cultivate it independently from anyone else, making a life entirely for themselves. b) All land is already owned, and making a living must be achieved by exchanging (typically labour) with others. Do you believe that people starting without capital in scenario b) will enter into contracts as freely as those starting wi…

Furthermore:

a) 100% of the world population can relocate globally without any need for visa so they can access the global job market and pick the best location

b) 1% of the world population has access to enough education to become highly skilled and be able to relocate legally. Everybody else has limited choice.

Another example:

a) Everybody has access to UBI and can freely choose to work or study or do volunteering, art etc

b) Unemployed people go hungry, homeless, get sick, get imprisoned

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#332

Post by emodendroket »

simonh wrote: post #326
emodendroket wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to another post you do not owe tax on income below $108k so that’s probably not going to affect most filers, though I’m sure an anomalously high number of HN users are earning six-figure salaries.

Oh well, that's alright then. As long as it's only successful people getting screwed I suppose we're good.

I mean, am I supposed to feel sorry for high-income people because they have to pay tax to continue to benefit from US citizenship and US embassies? I don't really, nor do I consider it getting "screwed." I think it is only fair that well-to-do expats should pay into the system like everybody else. If they don't want to, I welcome them to take the article's lead and give up their citizenship.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#333

Post by i_d_rather_read »

ninja3925 wrote: post #23
amcoastal wrote: post #3

Its 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).

> Creating a company is not exploitative but rather collaborative and mutually beneficial (with workers).

If it's collaborative can we vote a new CEO?

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#334

Post by nxmnxm99 »

ren_engineer wrote: post #39
nxmnxm99 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably pointless to discuss this with someone who insists on generalizing anyone above a certain net worth as being selfish, but - As it turns out, it's no longer the 80s, and there are increasingly multiple other countries were the super-rich can move their activities, wealth and lifestyle to without missing a beat. Hanging around financial circles, I've seen a large exodus of people through the pandemic star…

the point is that generally there is some expectation of loyalty to the country that allowed you to become super-rich in the first place. In finance specifically many of these people participated in outsourcing a huge chunk of the American economy for short term profit and their own gain and are now abandoning ship abandoning your country for lower taxes so you can "live your lifestyle without missing a beat" is disg…

No, "most humans" aren't going to moralize and want to give back to their country in the form of taxes as a thank you when they strike gold.

Being forced to give a large portion of my family's hard earned wealth to a tired, ineffective institution which aims to invest it in initiatives I think will ruin the economy? Why in god's name would I do that if I have the choice not to?

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#335

Post by dathinab »

bmitc wrote: post #134
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…

Edit: My question wasn’t clear, but it’s not important.

> [..] this taxation is in place effectively due to rich people in the first place hiding money in accounts overseas.[..]

I think that was the original intent but:

1. It affects everyone including many people not paying taxes in a amount where it matters.

2. I'm not sure if it works, the really rich people (i.e. the ones you would want to be "captured" by this law the most) have way to many ways to avoid paying taxes and reduce the amount they "in person" have to pay.

It might be reasonable to have a cut blow which you you don't have to bother with this.

I also have frequently considered if it would make sense for the country I live in to have such a law.

But in the end I realized that this is probably not what I would want.

In the end the problem is much more countries which intentionally create tax gaps to benefit from it but directly hurting other countries with that and even potentially undermining their governments independence.

Through without question even if that is solved there is still the fact that even wrt. countries which do not do so their can be huge differences in taxation, but "somehow" "disabling" tax havens would be a much bigger step in the right direction then this regulation IMHO.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#336

Post by opheliate »

ninja3925 wrote: post #281
opheliate wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 centrali…

> I'm just advocating that tax laws exist & are enforced, so as to redistribute wealth, which I don't view as oppressive Laws are strongly enforced in this country (USA). Where is the bar for "oppressive"? I come from a country that thought that 70%+ taxation was acceptable. In the USA, we are now at 60%+ (across federal, state, local). It sure sounds oppressive to me and one way out is to give the choice to people t…

Do you have a source for the 60%+ number?

I think paying 60% tax or higher on income above a certain threshold (e.g: $300,000, just throwing a number out there, so you'd pay 60% tax on $1 if you were earning $300,001, and a lower tax rate for the lower portion) is reasonable.

Regardless, sure, one way is to give the choice to opt out, another is just to lower taxes if it's generally agreed they're too high.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#337

Post by someguydave »

alephnan wrote: post #118

There's this idea floating around in this thread that people get rich, then get richer in and then leave to evade taxes. 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…

The interesting thought experiment is what would happen if the US dropped its worldwide claim to taxes. I suspect there will be a pretty big exit migration of wealthy US citizens to capitol gains tax havens like Singapore.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#338

Post by tech_tuna »

fourthwaveska wrote: post #44

By most western standards my family teeters on the line between middle and upper middle clas. We sold all of our US property last year; and now we are shopping for 4-6 unit buildings within 100km of Barcelona to get our Golden Visas. Our goal is to get citizenship and access to the EU then renouncing my US citizenship. It isnt about money, I am juwt ashamed to have an American passport and know my tax dollars are bei…

Congratulations, I would do the same but I do not have the means to do so.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#339

Post by opheliate »

ninja3925 wrote: post #291
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.

Of course! You can choose: - Not to work - Move to a city/state with better opportunities - Take classes to specialize - Work hard and get promoted - Start your business Aren't these valid options? No "cigar smoking fat cat" force workers to sign the contract under duress.

For many people these are not valid options, no. If you grew up in a low-income household and entered a low-wage job, the likelihood of having sufficient savings to choose not to work, take time off to improve your skills, or move is very low.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#340

Post by dathinab »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #167
bmitc wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: My question wasn’t clear, but it’s not important.

The US is the top tax haven in the world. You read that right. The US is the top place to hide your money if you are a foreigner Yet foreign countries are not rushing to change their laws to tax their citizens living abroad. There is no urgency to tax their expats who havent worked or lived back on foreign home for years, even decades. So if nost countries have reason to complain about us helping hide stuff, they don…

> they dont seem interested in enforcing anything

Or are not able to. Weather it's because of risking more people with money fleeing before changes take into effect, to much influence of wealthy people in politics or being forced by external forced, e.g. in context of not-so-public trade agreements.

Post reply on HN