On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality
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On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality
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Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality
#2[deleted]
Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality
#3The US doesn't like losing tax cattle.
Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality
#4> FATCA forces me to hand over my private financial information, as well as my non-American husband’s, to an extent that homeland Americans don’t have to unless they’re suspected of a crime.
Come on, it's your bank account numbers, that's only because the US government already knows what your account numbers are.
> I pay almost $1000 per year to an accountant to fill out the forms—more and lengthier than they’d be if I lived in the US—only to prove I owe nothing, since I pay taxes here in the Netherlands.
If I had to pay $1000 to an accountant, I'd probably learn how to do the forms myself.
Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality
#5It's not like a divorce, because there is no way to become a US citizen again after you've renounced your citizenship.
e: I was wrong; see below.
Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality
#6> FATCA forces me to hand over my private financial information, as well as my non-American husband’s, to an extent that homeland Americans don’t have to unless they’re suspected of a crime. Come on, it's your bank account numbers, that's only because the US government already knows what your account numbers are. > I pay almost $1000 per year to an accountant to fill out the forms—more and lengthier than they’d be if…
I did the tax forms myself when living abroad, precisely because I didn't earn enough income to afford the $1000 cost (in fact, it was perhaps twice this, in Switzerland, based on my cursory Googling at the time). It routinely took over a week of working days, which was only possible because I had a sympathetic boss and generous vacation time.
It's also quite stressful, since there are many ambiguous questions, most of the proprietary tax software is ill-equipped to consider the situation of an American living abroad, and a wrong answer can subject you to audit.
Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality
#7> FATCA forces me to hand over my private financial information, as well as my non-American husband’s, to an extent that homeland Americans don’t have to unless they’re suspected of a crime. Come on, it's your bank account numbers, that's only because the US government already knows what your account numbers are. > I pay almost $1000 per year to an accountant to fill out the forms—more and lengthier than they’d be if…
Eventual expat here (clock is running on citizenship elsewhere through an investment program). I would not recommend filing your taxes yourself if you're a non-US resident with citizenship. It's cumbersome because of mechanizations to prevent tax evasion. There's room for improvement, but expats have very little pull congressionally in getting reform done to improve the experience. These fees should also be made deductible (tax prep fees no longer are).
With that said, $1k annually is a small price to pay to maintain your US citizenship through annual tax filings. The benefits (imho) outweigh the cost (employment access, residency, repatriation).
Tangentially, this sounds like a startup opportunity.
Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality
#8> FATCA forces me to hand over my private financial information, as well as my non-American husband’s, to an extent that homeland Americans don’t have to unless they’re suspected of a crime. Come on, it's your bank account numbers, that's only because the US government already knows what your account numbers are. > I pay almost $1000 per year to an accountant to fill out the forms—more and lengthier than they’d be if…
I did the tax forms myself when living abroad, precisely because I didn't earn enough income to afford the $1000 cost (in fact, it was perhaps twice this, in Switzerland, based on my cursory Googling at the time). It routinely took over a week of working days, which was only possible because I had a sympathetic boss and generous vacation time. It's also quite stressful, since there are many ambiguous questions, most…
What are the consequences to not filing? My wife is a US citizen, and she hasn't filed for two years. I've met other US citizens that don't file either. So far I have not heard of any issues relating to not filing.
Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality
#9It's not like a divorce, because there is no way to become a US citizen again after you've renounced your citizenship. e: I was wrong; see below.
Are you saying the immigrant visa path isn't available to former citizens? That seems surprising.
Sure, it's a very difficult path in practice... But in theory I don't see why something like this wouldn't be possible: you renounced your citizenship, win the Nobel Prize 30 years later, get an EB-1 visa based on that achievement, then get naturalized five years later.
Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality
#10> FATCA forces me to hand over my private financial information, as well as my non-American husband’s, to an extent that homeland Americans don’t have to unless they’re suspected of a crime. Come on, it's your bank account numbers, that's only because the US government already knows what your account numbers are. > I pay almost $1000 per year to an accountant to fill out the forms—more and lengthier than they’d be if…
Eventual expat here (clock is running on citizenship elsewhere through an investment program). I would not recommend filing your taxes yourself if you're a non-US resident with citizenship. It's cumbersome because of mechanizations to prevent tax evasion. There's room for improvement, but expats have very little pull congressionally in getting reform done to improve the experience. These fees should also be made dedu…
it's extremely easy to file the FBAR forms. and the rest are standard tax forms, and you even get to file later. I lived abroad and ran a US and Argentine company and had 2 accountants and a bookkeeper, so it can get complex when you have a lot of employees, but for the first few years abroad, when it was just me doing remote consulting, i just did it myself and it's not difficult.