On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality • Hacker News Board

Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#31

Post by voisin » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 6:51 PM UTC

soperj wrote: post #27

voisin wrote: post #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 c…

>some negative impact on US competitiveness Negative impact on US citizen's competitiveness, which means they're less likely to get jobs outside of the US. Which means more looking for jobs domestically, leading to lower cost of labour for corporations inside the US.

Well I suppose that’s one interpretation but I think it misses the forest for the trees. Everything I’ve come across has discussed how it exacerbated trade imbalances due to a relatively lower proportion of Americans living abroad than citizens of other nationalities. Americans want to trade with Americans, like Chinese want to trade with Chinese. So having Americans abroad in bigger numbers helps for trade which I think would have a much bigger impact than some small reduction in labour costs locally.

Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#32

Post by jacquesm » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

KennyBlanken wrote: post #20

reedjosh wrote: post #3

The US doesn't like losing tax cattle.

The US expects you to pay your bar tab before you peel out of the parking lot.

No, this goes much further than that. They also want a slice of all the other bar tabs that you will run up in the future abroad.

Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#33

Post by hbrav » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

I have a question about this, that I've never been able to find a good answer to: what happens if you unilaterally renounce US citizenship?

Consider the situation: you're a dual US / Dutch citizen. You want to avoid paying US income tax (or just to avoid filling in a form each year that results in the IRS telling you that your tax bill is $0 because the Netherlands' tax rate is higher). But the State Department's renunciation route takes 3-4 years. So you mail them a letter instead announcing that you are renouncing your citizenship, and you include your US passport with the letter. You don't send the IRS a tax return in subsequent years, and you tell all your banks that you are not a US citizen and ask them to update your details accordingly.

I assume that what happens next is that your bank has a procedure for asking the US State Department if you have renounced your citizenship, and they say "no". So the bank continues to treat you as a US citizen, with all of the reporting obligations that entails.

Your method of enforcing this would (I assume) be to file a suit against the bank in the Netherlands and seek an order to prevent them from passing any information on you to the IRS. You would effectively be asking a Dutch court to rule on whether you can unilaterally renounce US citizenship.

I have never heard of such a case (either in the Netherlands or elsewhere), so I assume this has never been attempted. I don't know if that is because there is a strong reason to suspect that it would fail.

Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#34

Post by colechristensen » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

jeffrallen wrote: post #23

KennyBlanken wrote: post #18

[flagged]

You should try living as an expat before assuming her experiences are exaggerated. She is telling it like it is.

Is there any other reason to renounce your citizenship other than paperwork? Or taxes if you make a lot of money?

Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#35

Post by KennyBlanken » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 6:55 PM UTC

voisin wrote: post #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 c…

Some of her points are valid but the melodrama drawing analogies to stress from the death of a spouse, describing nearly breaking into tears every so often, and describing the consequences of her actions as something "done to her" are absurd.

Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#36

Post by jacquesm » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 6:55 PM UTC

unhammer wrote: post #25

nickthemagicman wrote: post #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…

If you have access to your spouse's account you may need to enter that into the FBAR form https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Secrecy_Act#FBAR Regarding the difficulty of investing/borrowing outside the US: Non-US banks are required to report stuff to the US if they have US customers. So they might not want US customers because it's a hassle for them.

And that in turn is not in line with EU law - if not in letter then at least in spirit so banks are caught between two powers and in turn offload that burden onto the citizens. Realistically as an American abroad you can do it but there is a continuous cost and stress associated with remaining a US citizen.

I know several people that have gone down this path and a few who are doing it right now, the US seems outright vindictive against those that want to leave, a bit like an abusive spouse that can't imagine there is a life after them for you.

Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#37

Post by colechristensen » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 6:55 PM UTC

andylynch wrote: post #29

marstall wrote: post #12

ELI5 why she renounced her citizenship? Not getting it from that post, a 3 minute wander on her site and the FATCA Wikipedia page.

If you’re a US citizen living in another country you’ll find many banks and financial institutions decline to have you as a client because dealing with FATCA makes it far more trouble than it’s worth. No other developed country makes similar demands.

But like wouldn’t you be fine once you found one?

Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#38

Post by nonameiguess » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 6:55 PM UTC

For what it's worth, there are a few other reasons a US citizen may be compelled to disclose quite a bit of financial detail without being criminals. Just from what I've experienced, joining the Army, getting a security clearance, and attempting to become an adoptive parent all required having to disclose basically everything, up to and including people coming to my house to interrogate me on why I got divorced 18 years ago, having to take a polygraph. All in spite of definitely not being a criminal.

I'm not complaining. This is all voluntary (though I think the adoption licensing is excessive, given it's even worse than getting a security clearance whereas a biological parent just needs to inject sperm into someone). But living overseas is also voluntary.

I completely agree that the US government is unnecessarily overbearing about this kind of thing compared to most other countries, but let's be honest about how widespread this is. It's not at all limited to burdening expats. Even down to cosmetology licensing, we do this kind of thing everywhere, at every level of government, to many types of people.

This presumably contributes to why Americans are so anti-government compared to Europeans. Our main points of interaction with governments are often things like this. Just this morning, I finally managed to pay off four years worth of back property taxes. The stupid thing about it is I've been trying to pay the entire time. The money has always been sitting in an escrow account. But something about our deed was incorrect, the county had no record of my lot existing, and we couldn't pay! When they finally corrected the deed, we not only got the four years worth of charges, but late penalties on top of it, even though I'd been trying to pay! And because the past year's charges were all listed as supplemental, the escrow account didn't even pay it and I've been fighting with them for 8 months to give me back my money so I can pay my taxes.

So you are not alone, Rachel Heller.

Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#39

Post by rognjen » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 6:55 PM UTC

What a whiny and melodramatic series of posts from a privileged person giving up one first class citizenship for another out of economics and convenience.

Many of my compatriots wait longer, pay less in absolute but more in relative terms and celebrate afterwards.

Lots of us would do well to be more grateful.

Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#40

Post by voisin » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 6:56 PM UTC

hbrav wrote: post #33

I have a question about this, that I've never been able to find a good answer to: what happens if you unilaterally renounce US citizenship? Consider the situation: you're a dual US / Dutch citizen. You want to avoid paying US income tax (or just to avoid filling in a form each year that results in the IRS telling you that your tax bill is $0 because the Netherlands' tax rate is higher). But the State Department's ren…

> you tell all your banks that you are not a US citizen and ask them to update your details accordingly.

Banks abroad demand proof beyond just telling them that. You need to show the Certificate of Loss of Nationality or present a US Taxpayer Identification Number.