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.
Well, wehther it's alright or not, whether it is accurately characterized as 'getting screwed' or not, at least it's only the ones who can most afford it.
Pretty cool that the guys the US government bends over to service and on whose behalf the army fights to open new markets basically see themselves as above the other Americans.
This can backfire horribly no matter which citizenship you are renouncing. Conrad Black renounced his Canadian citizenship so that he could take a seat in the British House of Lords. Then he was convicted of fraud charges in the USA.
He had a hell of a time getting back into Canada after that!
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…
I read, some German citizens travel all the time without paying taxes, because of some loop hole that only requires you to pay income tax when you stay longer than three months in a country.
In my case as an accidental American I was not born in the US, I have never lived in the US, I have never worked in the US, I receive no benefits from the US, I was ineligible for the covid stimulus, I am unable to vote in US elections. It's comical to categorize my refusal to participate in this scam as tax evasion. I don't live in the US, I live in a supposedly sovereign nation. Just as Americans pointed out the ab…
I agree that you are ethically in the right, but it is still legally "tax evasion", and therefore probably not the best advice to be given to others. I say this as someone who has personal experience with the "accidental American" status. Depending on where you are, the IRS may discover your "American" status, and the penalties could be worse. For example, Canadian banks share information with the IRS under FATCA. ht…
If North Korea passes a law tomorrow saying that every person on the planet owes it $1000 in taxes, if you ignore it are you committing a crime?
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…
Is it possible to operate using a business account in other countries? It's pretty cheap and easy to do in the USA.
Unfortunately if you have equity in the business, you'll get taxed. However, if you are only an employee, you get an exemption on something like $150,000 of income, housing, and other expenses. So as a US citizen, you can avoid taxes only by living outside the US, and being an employee of a non-US company. If anyone knows otherwise, please correct me as I'd greatly benefit!
Unless there are more than 20 million millionaires, you're talking about the top 6 percent of the wealth distribution. I wouldn't call that particular percentile "barely middle class". That term probably should be reserved for the 60th percentile, no? Middle being 60 to 40? 70 to 30? Edit: fixed my percentile thanks to child comment!
> "barely middle class". Inflation. Being a millionaire or having a six figure salaries used to have much more weight during the 80s. Pretty much any senior level engineer at FANG can be a millionaire if they saved, but they can barely afford a standalone home in San Francisco. What does the term 'middle class' even mean if they can't afford a home? Only 20% of millionaires surveyed feel they're rich. https://www.cnb…
Senior-level engineers at a FAANGs are already a pretty rare and prestigious class of people. I'm a reasonably intelligent person and I've failed to pass the hiring bar at every FAANG.
And of course they don't "feel" rich. Lifestyle inflation is a thing. Trade the Civic for a Tesla; send the kids to private school; buy organic groceries; take international vacations every year or so; yet still find the means to save more money each year than the average household in the USA earns. Feeling is a state of mind, not a state of being.
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…
As a former American who lived abroad for about 11 years before renouncing, “cartoonishly cruel” is a pretty accurate description of the system. It’s even worse an American entrepreneur abroad because that makes things even more complicated. I gave up jumping through the hoops in 2018 and the self-torture and renounced. I shared my story in case anyone is interested: https://larrysalibra.com/goodbye-usa/
I sort of wish I did this when I was younger. But I have kids, family, and extended family (on both sides) all in California. It makes it difficult to leave the state much less the country.