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On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

rachelsruminations.com

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Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#11

> 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…

The penalties for making a mistake are such that you would be a fool to take the risk to save $1,000.

Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#13
Her essentially 3 reasons for renouncing essentially and my responses:

>I could vote in the US, but no one represents the needs of US citizens abroad because our votes are dispersed over all 50 states.

* there's hundreds of millions of people and only two parties in the U.S. no one represents anybodies needs well

>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. 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. FATCA strong-arms our local banks into handing over our private financial information as well. It treats my local accounts as being equivalent to hiding money overseas.

* Taxes and the FATCA issues....to me and I'm sure billions of other people: $1000$ bucks a year is well worth it for a U.S. citizenship...Turning over financial records of the non-American spouse...this one doesn't add up, just do Married Filing Separately status in tax return.

>Without an address in the US, I can’t open an investment account there; with US nationality, it is becoming more and more difficult to do any investment or borrowing outside of the US.

* this doesn't make sense. Why would having a citizenship affect if a Dutch bank loaned you money as long as your credit score was good?

The reasons she gives don't make sense to me...something feels off here.

Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#14

It'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.

Can you share a source for that? I know at least 1 person first hand who has renounced and then later on in their life regained citizenship. It's possible the rules around this have changed however.

Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#16
The conversation here at this moment seems to be focused solely on whether or not it is complicated or costly to keep filing US taxes. This misses the point in that the US is the _only_ developed country to impose worldwide taxation on its citizens regardless of where they live. The only other country to do so is Eritrea and the US has routinely criticized them for doing so. Moreover, it makes expats ineligible for certain retirement savings in their country of domicile (as the US does not recognize pre-tax deductions for these investments, like those countries do not recognize investments in 401k’s). It also makes it challenging for expats to find banks willing to serve them because elf the added complexity.

All of this adds up to making Americans less attractive abroad than say Aussies or Brits, which surely has some negative impact on US competitiveness. And for what? Even the IRS estimates the savings in lost taxes to be a mere fraction of the costs of enforcement.

This makes literally zero sense. None. Cut your nose off to spite your face.

Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#17
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I know a US citizen who hasn’t filed in 34 years. I wonder what the penalty would look like if she ever takes a job in the US again.
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