Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

rachelsruminations.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 256 posts

Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#81

Post by nicolas_t »

colechristensen wrote: post #37
andylynch wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No, even if you can open a bank account as a US citizen, most services will be restricted. If you want to get a life insurance, they won't have anything for you, if you want to open an investment account, same issue, etc...

So, first it's difficult to find banks that'll even accept US citizens and then once you do, it can still be very restrictive.

Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#82

Post by cletus »

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…

I don't disagree with the spirit of what you're saying. This is a burden for expat US citizens. A few notes and corrections though:

> 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).

This is true but unrelated to taxing worldwide income. Basically, there has to be bilateral/multilateral agreements between countries about how to treat contributions to and distributions from retirement accounts and these are very few and far between.

The US and Canada have such agreements but the US and Australia do not. So Australian superannuation accounts generally can't ever be closed so you have to keep reporting them to the US government every year, whether you're a citizen or not. Even those on work visas have to do this. Worse, it's unclear how gains in such accounts should be treated for US income tax purposes. There are literally no laws and no case law on the subject so everyone just has to guess.

> It also makes it challenging for expats to find banks willing to serve them because elf the added complexity.

So this is also mostly true but again (mostly) unrelated to taxing worldwide income. This is because of FATCA [1]. The US uses access to the US financial system as a wedge to get foreign financial institutions to report accounts of US citizens so being a US citizen imposes a reporting requirement on foreign banks that many don't want to deal with. It's easier not to offer services to US citizens. But again, FATCA reporting requirements aren't really the same thing as taxing worldwide income.

> ... lost taxes to be a mere fraction of the costs of enforcement.

The point here unfortunately isn't really to enforce anything. It's so if the US decides to get you, it's something else they can prosecute you for.

> This makes literally zero sense.

That's not strictly true either. The idea is that US citizenship is so beneficial that it justifies these costs. It's true that a US passport gives you a lot of access to various countries. I believe the US passport is right up there in the top 10 passports. I'd hazard a guess and say the only reason it's not even higher is Middle Eastern countries. Also, the State Department will make some efforts to recover and evacuate US citizens in certain circumstances.

Is this worth the hassle? Probably not but for some it is, I'm sure.

Still, there's definite room for improvement.

[1]: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/corporations/foreign-account-...

Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#83

Post by Rapzid »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #48
Hamuko wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Apparently she wasn't paying taxes (to the US) anyways.

Then I'm even less clear on what her issues were. Somehow this is reminding me of that girl that took $350,000 in debt to get a Theater Management degree from Duke University and then blogged about how criminal the American higher education system is and how she was running off to Russia with her husband to escape the crippling debt. It's like, you took almost half a mil in debt to go to a PRIVATE SCHOOL to get a deg…

The understanding I came away with from skimming was it had to do with an ideological railing against the FATCA reporting requirements. And shame; lots of shame.

Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#84

Post by calessian »

eterevsky wrote: post #62
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…

I don't think citizenship in general can be unilaterally renounced, in the same way as you usually can't unilaterally divorce somebody. Citizenship includes obligations both from the state towards an individual and vice versa. In my understanding (IANAL) the easiest way to unilaterally renounce a citizenship is to seek political asylum.

At least in the US, unilateral no-fault divorce is possible in nearly all states.

Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#85

Post by welder »

throw63738 wrote: post #63
Rapzid wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice the 2021 108k per person foreign earned income exclusion is reasonably large and uncomplicated to claim. After that the list of countries we have tax treaties with is pretty large: https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/united-states/individual/foreig...

In practice US citizens have it difficult to even open simple bank account. Most foreign companies prefer not to deal with US gov.

Yes! Banks in Germany would flatly say "we can't help you" when I pulled out my US passport. The only one I could get was Number26, which is technically only an online bank account.

Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#87

Post by Rapzid »

throw63738 wrote: post #63
Rapzid wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice the 2021 108k per person foreign earned income exclusion is reasonably large and uncomplicated to claim. After that the list of countries we have tax treaties with is pretty large: https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/united-states/individual/foreig...

In practice US citizens have it difficult to even open simple bank account. Most foreign companies prefer not to deal with US gov.

It depends on the country and the financial institution. I'm a permanent resident of another country and had no problem opening an account there(on vacation there the first time no less). Another user here reports a very easy experience opening an account with an institution in the Netherlands.

Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#88

Post by capitainenemo »

cletus wrote: post #82
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…

I don't disagree with the spirit of what you're saying. This is a burden for expat US citizens. A few notes and corrections though: > 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). This is true but unrelated to taxing worldwide income.…

The US seems to be in 18th place worldwide along with France, Malta, Czech Republic, Greece, Poland, Hungary, United Kingdom, Canada. Based on https://www.passportindex.org/byRank.php

Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#89

Post by Rapzid »

voisin wrote: post #67
Rapzid wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice the 2021 108k per person foreign earned income exclusion is reasonably large and uncomplicated to claim. After that the list of countries we have tax treaties with is pretty large: https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/united-states/individual/foreig...

As the name implies, that only applies to Earned Income. Not investment or business income not taken as salary or any other form of income.

> After that the list of countries we have tax treaties with is pretty large

Would need to look at the tax treaties for the specific country.

Re: On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

#90

Post by bryanrasmussen »

jkfdrsak wrote: post #74
digbybk wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citizenship is a meaningful thing to most people. Of course it's a legal fiction, but so is marriage. Personally I've never given up a citizenship, but I imagine that it'd be an emotional experience.

Marriage is voluntary and almost always necessitates an emotional element.

I mean sure, but on the other hand WTF? I understand not sharing the emotions regarding the country, patriotism, the 4th of July, the standing for the pledge from school years onward etc. but despite your freedom from the effects of all this it should probably cross your mind that not everyone else is free in the same way.
Post reply on HN