241–250 of 411 posts
I am an American living in Prague and will be among those to give up their citizenship. The new FBAR requirements and the recently pushed through changes that require foreign banks to report are really a huge burden. It is a significant legal risk to be an American overseas. The fines are insane for failiure to report, even if you owe no taxes! You can easilly land yourself with a $20 000 - $80 000 fine for having a…
What austerity are you talking about? That's not a US thing. There's been no austerity here; government spending has continued fairly normal growth once you factor out the stimulus spending. Although since that seems to be what a lot of EU governments are calling "austerity", perhaps we have had it.
I am an American living in Prague and will be among those to give up their citizenship. The new FBAR requirements and the recently pushed through changes that require foreign banks to report are really a huge burden. It is a significant legal risk to be an American overseas. The fines are insane for failiure to report, even if you owe no taxes! You can easilly land yourself with a $20 000 - $80 000 fine for having a…
> There are some benefits to being a US citizen, like that the army will rescue you if there is a civil war This is a common myth. If you don't intend to return to the USA there are no benefits to US citizenship, only downsides. The US may or may not rescue you if there's a civil war (see the fate of people in Yemen), but if they do, they will charge you for it at military rates you almost certainly cannot afford: ht…
But the link you posted said "We charge you the equivalent of a full coach commercial fare on a comparable mode of transportation at the time that commercial travel ceases to be a viable option."
Where'd you get the "military rates" part?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That list is out of date - there's an updated version on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_(document)#Visa_restricti... Not sure if "powerful" is the right word either. It's more of a list of the best passports to have if you want to go on holidays. "Doesn't require a visa" usually means those countries don't require visas for short non-business trips (anything from 14 days to 6 months). E.g. you can visi…
> E.g. you can visit the US with a German passport for 3 months for a holiday but it's extremely difficult to get a visa to move there indefinitely. You do realise that works the same way for everybody and US visa-free entry is not a residence permit right? For instance as a US citizen you'd get visa-free entry to Iceland or Japan or New Zealand but can only stay for 90 days.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From https://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Corporations/FATCA-Informatio... Taxpayers with a total value of specified foreign financial assets below a certain threshold do not have to file Form 8938 From https://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Corporations/Do-I-need-to-fil... You must file Form 8938 if: 1. You are a specified individual. tick! 2. You have an interest in specified foreign financial assets required to be reported. tic…
Not sure if you are aware of this or not but Form 8938 is different from FBAR. FBAR is filed with the department of the treasury and the threshold is only $10,000.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does your girlfriend have access to services as a US citizen? Such as embassies, entrance to the US without a visa, or evacuation in case of war? Who should pay for those services if your girlfriend doesn't want to?
You say this like other countries don't also offer those services. Almost every western country does, and none of them tax their citizens abroad. The UK embeds the cost of consular protection and embassy services into the renewal cost of a passport - approximately £15 in 2010, probably more now. It's an insurance payment that most people will never use, so it doesn't need to cost very much per person. Citizens of a n…
This is certainly not limited to western countries, to underscore your point. Even India evacuated its citizens from Yemen, while the US did not. [1]
On that note, India also organized the largest-ever civilian airlift to evacuate tens of thousands of citizens from Kuwait during the Iraq invasion (1990). [2]
[1]: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/4/7/us-among-26-c...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_airlift_of_Indians_from_K...
So, I know a us born billionaire who rescinded his citizenship last year to avoid fatca. He has successfully evaded both the US and UK tax authorities to the tune of half a billion or so, he tells me. The guy gives crazy amounts to philanthropic causes instead. He doesn't want his hard earned wealth pissed away by clueless bureaucrats. So. Anyone who tells you fatca has been a success is full of it. It penalises "nor…
>He doesn't want his hard earned wealth pissed away by clueless bureaucrats. Yeh, but guess he likes driving on roads and making use of many of the other public services taxes pay for
US Citizen living and working abroad buys a house for X in local currency. Later sells same house for the same amount X in local currency. That local currency has appreciated by 20% against USD in the timeframe. And the IRS computes capital gains in USD, not in local currency.
Net result: the seller owes IRS "capital gains" taxes on 20% of the value of a house that was bought and sold for the same price.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When the most recent war broke out in Yemen, the Indian govt managed to evacuate its citizens from Yemen using their navy and if you take into account the size of the Indian diaspora in the Arabian Peninsula including Yemen, it wasn't an easy feat and I can't imagine that the USG wouldn't be capable of carrying out a similar evacuation plan or doing what it could to get their citizens out of harm's way abroad.
I highly doubt there are many Indians in Yemen. It's a poor country and doesn't have many migrant labourers like the UAE or Bahrain do. Also the Americans I knew seemed to expect helicopters to come pick them up and all that. Saying to your citizens they need to get out and we've got a navy ship in port that you can get on if you want isn't really evacuating your citizens.
The use of the term "expat" rather than "immigrant" is interesting. I read a piece in the guardian the other day which framed that distinction in terms of white vs non-white ( http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-... ), but it's obviously a bit more complicated than that. I don't think the two terms are synonyms, but they are very close, and once you try to pick apart the differences, I think t…
2 thoughts . Immigrant: person who's moved to a new country indefinitely Expat: person who's moved to a different country temporarily Also a 2nd definition from my personal experience Expat: a person sent temporarily to another country by their company. Usually they are in $300k+ a year job and their company pays their relocation expenses and their rent. As someone who has lived abroad for 8 years of my own choice, i…
The term for anyone working outside of their home country is 'migrant worker'. Some migrant workers are called expats. These tend to be rich, at least on a global scale.
Many foreigners come to the US as seasonal farm workers. Almost no one refers to them as, say, "Mexican expats", even though by your definition that's exactly what they are.
While on the other hand, Madonna is one of many Americans who are called "expat" but live overseas and have no plans (or at least no definite plans) to return. There's a long list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_expatriates_... if you want to see more.