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Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

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Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#771

Post by Chris2048 »

Dracophoenix wrote: post #428
Chris2048 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's unfair isn't this practise per-say, but the fact that it's not equal. I think keeping hold of foreign citizenship represents an unfair advantage to some degree, as a kind of "fallback" - e.g. if things go to shit you always have the option of returning home. but other nationalities generally don't need to pay to remain citizens while they are abroad, so Americans are treated unusually.

How is it unfair to have fallback option? Is it unfair to California when someone decides to move Texas for lower taxes?

> How is it unfair to have fallback option?

because natives with just one passport don't have that option.

> Is it unfair to California..

California and Texas are in the same country

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#772

Post by gautamdivgi »

jleyank wrote: post #634
gautamdivgi wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it be because you're eligible for social security even if you don't reside in the US? I'm not sure about medicare or unemployment benefits.

My understanding is that US-ian expats can collect Social Security while outside the country (not sure if it can be deposited, as we're not doing that). Medicare has no meaning outside the US but we're eligible. Non- (and I assuming renounced) citizens can't get Social Security unless they live in the US, I think. And don't forget there's also a foreign tax credit as well as the Earned Income exclusion.

Non-citizens are not eligible for any public benefit. As regards medicare you're probably eligible the moment you enter the country. So technically you could head back if you 're having issues - ymmv.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#773

Post by londons_explore »

sunshineforever wrote: post #740
noodlesUK wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it is in theory, but even small businesses incorporated abroad with US persons involved in them put huge reporting burdens on the US person. Form 5471 and friends make this stuff look straightforward. Most of the time I find my frustration isn’t about how much money I am paying in taxes, but just how much dull and confusing paperwork I have to understand. Even trained professionals who spend their whole lives d…

I've always wondered of it was possible to move to the UK by starting a business that required a UK presence and using that as a reason for an indefinate residence permit?

Yes. The UK has pretty open borders for anyone willing to put effort in.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#774

Post by boulos »

pitaj wrote: post #413
boulos wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you clarify how you are an accidental American? E.g., were you born on a US base in another country?

Wikipedia says [1]: > U.S. law also states that a child born outside of the U.S to a U.S. citizen parent who previously spent sufficient time in the U.S. is a U.S. citizen at birth, regardless of whether the child also has the citizenship of the country of birth or another citizenship. U.S. citizens married to fellow U.S. citizens can transmit U.S. citizenship to their children if either parent has ever had a residen…

Oh sorry, I meant this person specifically (they seemed really angry about it and/or surprised). I don’t find any of the rules surprising, so I’m genuinely curious which one is so offensive!

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#775

Post by wolverine876 »

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.…

> This article just happens to have drawn an arbitrary line in the wealth of people who renounce US citizenship and made a headline out of the wealthier subset. The wealthy are also more like to have dual-citizenship but relocate to another country, so they’d be over represented in this set.

Do you have any evidence of this?

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#776

Post by wolverine876 »

rsstack wrote: post #473
aarchi wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

The parent sounds authoritative, but its source, Wikipedia, isn't. It's not much better than a comment on HN.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#777

Post by Dracophoenix »

Chris2048 wrote: post #771
Dracophoenix wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it unfair to have fallback option? Is it unfair to California when someone decides to move Texas for lower taxes?

> How is it unfair to have fallback option? because natives with just one passport don't have that option. > Is it unfair to California.. California and Texas are in the same country

>because natives with just one passport don't have that option.

If by natives, you mean Native Americans, they have their own sovereignties. Many have do have tribal passports in addition to US passports.

If by natives you mean, John Q Public, then that's just crab-bucket thinking. The majority of Americans have zero passports, leave alone one. By your standard, it should be wrong for people to have one at all since most Americans don't have the legal certification to travel beyond North America and seek asylum as a fall back should the US crap itself.

While not everyone has a similar option for a fallback, everyone has a choice. Nobody is prevented by the US government from attempting to a obtain a second passport. It's a matter of a person's choosing to meet the requirements to obtain one or not.

>California and Texas are in the same country.

Yes, however your argument was one escaping to another jurisdiction with the previous jurisdiction as a fallback. That isn't limited to hopping between states nor should it be. If a state or country can't compete in taxes, services, or culture, I have the right to vote with my feet and to obtain a new residence or nationality however I see fit. Mutatis mutantis, the same goes for everyone else.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#778

Post by lionhead »

bnralt wrote: post #411
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.

Many Americans seem to believe that, but it doesn't actually seem to be the case. For instance, when Yemen was falling apart, countries like China, India, Pakistan, Russia, and Indonesia all worked hard to evacuate their citizens, many using their military to do so[1]. The U.S. response was to tell American citizens they were on their own[2]. The U.S. embassy even recommended that Americans seek assistance from India…

At the early onset of the Covid-19 pandemic started, many countries sent special planes to repatriate their citizens either from the Wuhan region, or from other countries where they got stuck because of a sudden borders close. The US also organized flights, but I was personally very shocked to learn that they charged close to $1,200 for those trips, although it was clearly a case of force majeure. That was the moment I thought that Americans don't actually get their tax money worth in terms of government support, while being subject to taxation on their worldwide income even when not residing in the US.

To be clear, most if not all countries chartered special flights for free. Later on, some more flights were organized with the help of airline companies, but those were paid.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#779

Post by hermannj314 »

junar wrote: post #751
hermannj314 wrote: post #743

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea what form I used. I do know that I paper filed those years and it didn't cost me money, only time, a few evenings, reading IRS publications and googling 'expat taxes please help'.

The reason I ask is because for the forms I mentioned, it's very easy to either make an error or fail to file a form you were required to. The fact that you mentioned "paper file" is a bit worrisome. You were required to file an FBAR if you had foreign accounts (such as bank accounts) totaling more than $10,000, and given your stated income, that seems likely. FBAR must generally be done electronically, and is a sepa…

I appreciate this info.

Normally, I found, when filling out a 1040 and walking through line by line, you are able to discover the forms you need and guide yourself quite easily. In the case of citizens living abroad, there is a publication as well that mentions everything, including all the forms and the FBAR you talk about. I found the process is quite discoverable and linear.

Also - the FBAR did not apply to me based on how I moved my money back to my domestic account, the foreign account was a current account for local bills, its balance never exceeded $5k.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#780

Post by _v7gu »

bakuninsbart wrote: post #672
anticristi wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard rumours that this law is basically to put a thorn in the eye of Turkish immigrants minus what the EU does not allow. Is there any truth in this?

It got really awkward when the large minority of turkish Germans living in Germany with turkish citizenry overwhelmingly voted for Erdogan in the last elections. I'd really wish Germany was able to adopt an immigrant culture similar to the US, but the current situation is a semi-failure, but neither side of the political spectrum seems to be able to implement good policies to solve the issues.

First import uneducated Turkish workers for unskilled jobs so they will work for cheap, and then discriminate against educated workers because you think it's being Turkish (rather than education) that makes the previously-arrived workers have trouble integrating. So Germany and Europe in general keeps getting more Erdogan voters while others just don't want to deal with racism and immigrate to other places like US or Canada.

If you really want to fix this, you have change the main demographic of Turkish immigrants, probably by offering a clear immigration path to students who come to Europe for graduate programs or such.

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