Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship • Hacker News Board

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#471

Post by e12e » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

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.

Since the US has preformed drone strikes on its own citizens, I think it's pretty clear that "some citizens are more equal than others" ?

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#472

Post by emodendroket » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

ElFitz wrote: post #441

emodendroket wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

From what I’ve read, the US is possibly one of the worst countries to have to file taxes with, paperwork-wise. And that’s for the simple scenario of someone actually living in the US. But is also is another issue altogether. How US citizens can bear with this and the lobbying that spawned it is beyond me.

The people who have complicated taxes also usually have complex income sources and generally higher incomes. If you just get your wage the tax forms are relatively straightforward. Being international complicates things but you'll notice people are talking about the headaches associated with running their businesses, capital gains, etc.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#473

Post by rsstack » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

aarchi wrote: post #454

fmajid wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some are "accidental Americans" like UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, born in the US, who discovered as a US citizen he had to pay capital gains taxes when he sold his London apartment. Australia requires its parliamentarians to have only Australian citizenship and some discovered for the same reason they were not eligible. Furthermore, the burden of FATCA is sufficiently onerous that many banks etc. just refuse to d…

Well Germany also requires that you surrender other citizenships when you get a German citizenship, unless you are a German dual citizen through ancestry.

Imprecise but not incorrect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nationality_law#Dual_(o...

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#474

Post by mjevans » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

Dracophoenix wrote: post #427

cortesoft wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, is it right to be able to leave the country indefinitely, not contribute to the country at all, but still expect to have all the benefits of citizenship forever?

What benefits does one have when living in a foreign country as a US citizen? There is no legal representation. There is no access to US government services. What exactly would an overseas US citizen be paying for?

All of the benefits that taxes provide. I don't even know them all offhand, let alone have enough space to enumerate them fully.

Some of the major benefits that come to mind: Protect by a world superpower military and diplomacy, welfare and social security, a stable place to return to in the case of trouble, a country that ensures development of vaccines and provides them for it's population in the case of pandemics.

I would really like us to add to that list: medicare (or similar) for all as well as some other social benefits that make sense to enable more risk free pursuit of happiness and simplify employment.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#475

Post by Tostino » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

trasz wrote: post #410

Retric wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a reciprocal relationship with rights and obligations on both sides not ownership. For example the FBI doesn’t invoice victims or their families when it gets involved in kidnapping cases. Capital gains are deferred without interest until an asset it sold, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t an obligation for those years.

> FBI doesn’t invoice victims what

For investigating a crime the victim was involved with. At least that's how I interpreted GP's comment.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#476

Post by emodendroket » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

w0mbat wrote: post #418

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.

As multiple people have explained, preparing the required paperwork each year is a major expense and hassle, even if you do not owe any tax. Also, if you are technical enough to frequent this web site and you think $108K is a lot of money, you are being underpaid.

I just ran a search and found the median US personal income is around $35k. $108k may be low for a tech job but most people don't have high paying tech jobs.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#477

Post by revolvingocelot » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

ninja3925 wrote: post #298

yardie wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wage theft is the #1 fraud[0] in the US. So while the voluntary contract can be a win-win for a quite a few Americans it is still exploitative. [0] https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-fro...

While true and something that needs fixing immediately, this is uncommon and therefore, cannot be used to describe the relationship as "exploitative".

If you read the link, you'd learn that in the 10 most populous US states, 2.4 million minimum wage workers are victims of wage theft annually. This loss averages $3,300 per (full time, year round) worker per year, and just under $8 billion in total per year.

And that's only minimum wage workers, in a subset of the US.

Was there a particular reason you were under the impression that wage theft was uncommon?

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#478

Post by ska » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

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.

Many citizenship's include extraterritorial benefits, but few of them are as aggressive with foreign income.

It's a fair question which countries approaches are the most effective, but this is hardly unique.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#479

Post by Retric » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

trasz wrote: post #469

Retric wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t charge money to investigate crimes.

Just like every other civilized country. The fact that it was even mentioned suggests that for Americans it might not always be the case in some situations, which is quite frightening.

It’s not an issue in American. Thing is we are talking about renouncing citizenship so the comparison is to other countries.

Looking deeply at the social counteracts of other countries is really interesting because of how many different things we take for granted aren’t universal. Free speech in the US is more limited than I would like, but it gets much worse even in countries that look civilized in other ways.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#480

Post by trutannus » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

depressedpanda wrote: post #444

trutannus wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a complete misrepresentation of my point. I never tried to 'paint "authoritarianism" as "lefty"'. I specified there's an issue with lefties who are also authoritarians . If you don't think that can exist and if you think it's not that big of a deal, I suggest you take a look at the latter-half of the 20th century. It's pretty uncharitable to paint my argument as being afraid of a student on a campus who's rea…

> Both kill just as many people Let's be honest here, lefty authoritarianism has historically killed way more people in total. Fortunately, righty authoritarianism was stopped; unfortunately lefty authoritarianism wasn't.

You're correct. And the reasoning behind having not stopped lefty authoritarianism is actually very interesting and complex. At least one American general got ousted from his position after suggesting the USSR be subjugated after the Second World War.