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Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

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Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#381

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

DennisP wrote: post #237
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.

> get insanely wealthy off the backs of Americans I find it a bit startling to see this sentiment on HN, a site that used to be mostly full of people building startups, attempting to get wealthy by building something useful that people are happy to pay for.

A couple of days ago, I learned about an audio processing plugin that apparently (I haven't verified it yet) earned its creator US$1M in 4 months. This is a little blob of code that you load into your DAW and it makes or changes the sounds, and you tweak knobs till it's doing what you want.

If you don't see the difference between that and, say, Amazon, then I don't know what to say.

The fact that you can trace a line between a scrappy startup in a converted garage somewhere and a behemoth doesn't mean that they are both the same thing.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#382

Post by dbetteridge »

BelenusMordred wrote: post #311
dbetteridge wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not too bad really for us overseas Australians. If you took out a HECS (0% interest, indexed to inflation) loan for university study you still need to file taxes when resident overseas and continue making payments if you earn over the threshold. If you are resident in Australia more then 6mths of the year you must complete an Australian tax return, but for most people that involves logging in around september and che…

They only just changed the laws a month ago to make it so opaque and vague about who qualifies as a tax-resident or not. It's basically a "if we want we will tax you" situation. The 183 day rule means little if you have even something as innocuous as a bank account back home now. It's a ridiculously stricter change that is entirely open to interpretation by the ATO. https://www.mondaq.com/australia/income-tax/1070880…

Ugh, thats a headache of a read.

Sounds like they're just 'recommended' for now but won't take effect till next tax year at least.

Also sounds like its intended to catch people working 0% tax contracts in the middle east or digital nomading around east-asia till they need medical care. (still not a good reason to complicate things)

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#383

Post by ricksunny »

dantheman wrote: post #356
emodendroket wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a hassle but it seems hyperbolic to call it absurdly cruel and the other things people here are saying.

It is awful - I'm glad you never had to deal with. It provides little revenue and causes a huge amount of hassle and makes living overseas way more difficult.

American expat here - agreed with the other expats - it’s the filing that really, really sucks. Like really. Breaking the difficulty down in terms of priority.

1 - just trying to work through what all might possibly be owed and not owed to US as well as the country(ies) one operates in.

2 - Identifying through which paperwork to declare it, while also ensuring income / business reporting is copacetic with the tax regime of the country that same is actually earned in. As a business owner, (many operating overseas are looking after a business) I have to complete corporate accounts (which costs $$$$ and takes forever) before I can file American income tax for the same accounting year.

3 - the value of the tax liability itself is a distant third in terms of hassle than any of the above. (I’ll include in this bucket the fact that Americans are taxed on income earned abroad, putting us at enormous disadvantage for work opportunities vis—a-vis peer expats who come from other countries)

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#384

Post by gniv »

hnbalsamicw wrote: post #373

As a permanent resident living in the US I find myself wondering if it thusly makes sense to never take US Citizenship. It seems like I can easily abandon my residency the moment I want to retire and leave the US. Am I missing something ?

It's more complicated than that. If you've had the green card more than (I think) 8 years you will be treated like a citizen should you want to give up the residency. So you have to pay the exit taxes (mentioned somewhere else in this thread).

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#385

Post by emodendroket »

dantheman wrote: post #356
emodendroket wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a hassle but it seems hyperbolic to call it absurdly cruel and the other things people here are saying.

It is awful - I'm glad you never had to deal with. It provides little revenue and causes a huge amount of hassle and makes living overseas way more difficult.

Perhaps the revenue is not very great but if there were a blanket exception I think you’d suddenly find a lot more people gaming then system to not technically be US residents and thereby escape large amounts of liability.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#386

Post by fantod »

emodendroket wrote: post #332
simonh wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The thing is, many of these expats aren't even "paying into the system" anyway. I have to file US taxes but can deduct what I pay in taxes in my country of residency, which is higher than I'd pay in the US; as a result, I don't actually owe any US taxes. But, like another commenter said, I have to pay thousands to someone to figure out how to even file all this stuff. In other words, some local accountant is making bank, not the IRS.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#387

Post by adolph »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #302
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What circumstances are those? If there is an act of war or natural disaster, the U.S. is good at extracting its citizens. There is also a decent precedent of negotiating to release people taken hostage or held prisoner by unfriendly regimes. (Or causing a fuss when Americans are harmed in a friendly country.) That, in turn, has a deterrent effect. For Americans with access to legal counsel and the State Department,…

For example, Israel goes to extremely great lengths extracting its citizens in trouble (search Operation Entebbe), and no, they don't charge you any taxes if you reside permanently abroad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Entebbe

Such a gruesome story: Kenyan sources supported Israel, and in the aftermath of the operation, Idi Amin issued orders to retaliate and slaughter several hundred Kenyans then present in Uganda. There were 245 Kenyans in Uganda killed and 3,000 fled.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idi_Amin

Amin first escaped to Libya, where he stayed until 1980, and ultimately settled in Saudi Arabia, where the Saudi royal family allowed him sanctuary and paid him a generous subsidy in return for staying out of politics.[18] Amin lived for a number of years on the top two floors of the Novotel Hotel on Palestine Road in Jeddah.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455590/

Movie The Last King of Scotland is Based on the events of the brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin's regime as seen by his personal physician during the 1970s.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#388

Post by mljoe »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #302
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What circumstances are those? If there is an act of war or natural disaster, the U.S. is good at extracting its citizens. There is also a decent precedent of negotiating to release people taken hostage or held prisoner by unfriendly regimes. (Or causing a fuss when Americans are harmed in a friendly country.) That, in turn, has a deterrent effect. For Americans with access to legal counsel and the State Department,…

For example, Israel goes to extremely great lengths extracting its citizens in trouble (search Operation Entebbe), and no, they don't charge you any taxes if you reside permanently abroad.

You don't have to go that far back. See the recent Surfside tragedy. Israel sent an elite rescue team and set up relief centers to assist displaced persons, regardless if they were Israeli or not.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#389

Post by goodpoint »

oblio wrote: post #277
nivenkos wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll still get like 10% of a US salary though.

10% is a gross exaggeration, though. Romania has lower salaries than Poland, as far as I know, and in Romania as a senior engineer in a decent company you can get a total > compensation of €3.5k - €4k per month, that would be ~$4k - $4.8k per month, so ~$48k - ~58k. Again, net. And probably more since there are companies that give you RSUs/ESPPs, so you can go along for the ride. Not as many as in the US, obviously,…

10% is a gross exaggeration but "the average ratio would be closer to 2-3x" sounds equally exaggerated in the other direction.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#390

Post by emodendroket »

petre wrote: post #375
rs999gti wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US may or may not have paid $2M to get Warmbier our of North Korea https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/north-kore...

He died, so it didn't do much help.

What difference does that make? Is the ambulance worthless because not everybody it picks up lives?
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