Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship • Hacker News Board

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#281

Post by ninja3925 » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

opheliate wrote: post #253

roenxi wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're worried about people being oppressed, moving away from basic principles of freedom and liberty is probably not the path you want to take. If libertarianism would result in a great many oppressed people, any sort of centralisation of power will result in even more oppressed people. Beefing up government power is no solution to oppression; the worst oppressors are invariably governments. The worst of the grea…

> The worst of the great catastrophes and oppression of the last century were perpetrated by strong centralised governments. Absolutely. It's a good thing I'm not calling for massively beefing up government then, I'm just advocating that tax laws exist & are enforced, so as to redistribute wealth, which I don't view as oppressive. > If libertarianism would result in a great many oppressed people, any sort of centrali…

> I'm just advocating that tax laws exist & are enforced, so as to redistribute wealth, which I don't view as oppressive

Laws are strongly enforced in this country (USA).

Where is the bar for "oppressive"? I come from a country that thought that 70%+ taxation was acceptable. In the USA, we are now at 60%+ (across federal, state, local). It sure sounds oppressive to me and one way out is to give the choice to people to opt out.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#282

Post by jimkleiber » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

academia_hack wrote: post #42

It's so irritating to be an American that has moved overseas. Basically the only country in the world that charges taxes on money you make and spend somewhere else, just because of where you were born. Thanks to IRS regulations, 90% of investment firms will just reject me outright rather than deal with the paperwork. Getting someone to help file my inordinately complex taxes costs thousands of dollars more than I act…

When I lived and worked in East Africa, I know that most, if not all of my income, was not taxed back in the US because of the Foreign Income Exclusion Act. Basically, for foreign earned income anywhere below ~$80,000 at the time, I didn't have to pay tax, which the limit is now around $108,000 or so.

However, as you point out, that doesn't seem to apply to dividends and capital gains and other types of income [1].

I wonder why it doesn't apply to those other incomes and if it did, whether that would alleviate many of the problems for most Americans overseas. In other words, why not just have a threshold below which all foreign income is not taxed and then tax above it?

I'm curious to learn more about the history of that act and why it developed as it did.

[1]: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/fore...

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#283

Post by shell0x » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

larrysalibra wrote: post #214

shell0x wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was a good read. It's interesting that you decided to stay in HK after the protests/hostile takeover in 2020. My partner and friends all left HK for the UK, Australia, and Canada.

Thanks for reading! The stay versus go debate in HK is always very interesting and one that has been going on for decades and will no doubt continue for many people.

I think it reached a point of no return. HK is still a very special place, but I see a lot of expats leaving for Singapore and Hkers leaving for overseas(BNO visa).

Singapore is more stable, but has even less freedoms than HK though.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#284

Post by emodendroket » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

MangoCoffee wrote: post #269

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only because of US laws. I have two citizenships, but one residency. U.S. citizenship carries extraterritorial benefits. For example, we're pretty good at getting our people out of thorny situations, even at great national expense. If someone isn't paying to support that, it makes sense to force a revocation decision.

>we're pretty good at getting our people out of thorny situations, even at great national expense. If someone isn't paying to support that, it makes sense to force a revocation decision. how many American get into that kind of shit storm? it seem like this benefit isn't worth the taxes that you pay

How many Americans actually end up with real tax liability from a foreign country? Probably need to answer that before we determine whether it's "worth it" because my understanding is most people don't.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#285

Post by goodpoint » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

luffapi wrote: post #105

foolinaround wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best thing to do is forbid them re-entry into the country nor to hold controlling interest in any company in the US. Do we forbid foreigners from holding US stocks, assets, etc? Who do you think is financing the profligate lifestyle we live, compared to our true earnings?

> Who do you think is financing the profligate lifestyle we live, compared to our true earnings? Globalized labor and environmental exploitation, of which the wealthy are gaining the most.

Why the downvotes? It's well documented.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#286

Post by paulddraper » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 2:48 PM UTC

academia_hack wrote: post #42

It's so irritating to be an American that has moved overseas. Basically the only country in the world that charges taxes on money you make and spend somewhere else, just because of where you were born. Thanks to IRS regulations, 90% of investment firms will just reject me outright rather than deal with the paperwork. Getting someone to help file my inordinately complex taxes costs thousands of dollars more than I act…

US states do the same thing.

States with income tax will tax you whether you work in the state, or you are resident in the state.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#287

Post by throwaway5372 » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 2:48 PM UTC

c_o_n_v_e_x wrote: post #119

Overseas American here. The whole paying tax and getting nothing out of it really sucks. I’ve been out over 10 years, here are some of my good and bad experiences. Good: 1. When I first got here, super cheap drinks put on by the marines at the US embassy. People would get wasted and it was an obvious security threat so those parties don’t happen anymore. Bad: 1. No access to covid vaccine despite paying taxes and not…

> 1. No access to covid vaccine

Countries were not vaccinating permanent residents? I had no problem getting a vaccine as a foreigner in Turkey. I thought all countries would be like that.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#288

Post by emodendroket » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 2:48 PM UTC

goodpoint wrote: post #271

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> only relevant to a tiny percentage of American immigrants who travel/work in conflict zones and unfriendly countries I know a (thankfully small) handful of cases in which Americans' kids were arrested in a friendly country. The State Department provided invaluable support. (Recommendations on legal counsel, prudent next steps, relevant authorities' phone numbers...nothing nefarious, just context and support.) I am…

> Since this article concerns itself with rich overseas Americans, I think it's relevant Not many millionaires are getting arrested in general, due to the availability of lawyers and so on. The US support might be very relevant for a war reported captured by ISIS. But most millionaires are not going to be in those locations and/or able to afford good private security.

Ok, but they're also not very sympathetic. I don't feel sorry for anybody who can afford private security that he has to pay if he wants to hang on to the benefits of US citizenship.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#289

Post by trutannus » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

papito wrote: post #259

trutannus wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best thing to do is forbid them re-entry into the country Given the track-record lefty authoritarianism has, I'm always a little nauseated to see people pull out the truncheon and jack-boots to enforce "economic justice". That and suggestions like this don't even make any sense, and rarely ever do. It always looks to me like retribution is the aim here, rather than effective economic policy.

Well, now, let's not paint "authoritarianism" as "lefty". Some Marx-reading student on campus is not exactly a threat, is it? The ultra-left sentiment is, indeed, anti-liberal at its core, but it is still an irrelevant fringe . The actual, viable threat of authoritarianism is coming from the opposite side, which is a spit away from holding absolute power, here in the States, at least. And then, it's on.

This is a complete misrepresentation of my point. I never tried to 'paint "authoritarianism" as "lefty"'. I specified there's an issue with lefties who are also authoritarians. If you don't think that can exist and if you think it's not that big of a deal, I suggest you take a look at the latter-half of the 20th century. It's pretty uncharitable to paint my argument as being afraid of a student on a campus who's read the Communist Manifesto. That's not even in my argument and requires a lot of bad-faith interpolation to get to from what I said.

> viable threat of authoritarianism is coming from the opposite side

This is nothing more than whataboutism. There's authoritarians on both sides. They're both just as dangerous in the end-game. In Canada, it's the left mainly. In the US, there's highly vocal, and influential to public opinion, left wing authoritarians. In Canada lefty authoritarianism isn't just a fringe, it's mainstream. This is true in a lot of places too. I'm not sure why some folks insist on downplaying the risk of authoritarianism when it comes from the left as opposed to the right. Both kill just as many people, one just uses gas where the other uses starvation.

Re: Wealthy people are renouncing American citizenship

#290

Post by api » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

academia_hack wrote: post #42

It's so irritating to be an American that has moved overseas. Basically the only country in the world that charges taxes on money you make and spend somewhere else, just because of where you were born. Thanks to IRS regulations, 90% of investment firms will just reject me outright rather than deal with the paperwork. Getting someone to help file my inordinately complex taxes costs thousands of dollars more than I act…

AFAIK if you live in a country like Canada with higher taxes you still have to file to maintain citizenship but you end up paying zero since you can deduct what you paid in your home country.

This would apply to people relocating to countries with a lower tax base. In that case you have to renounce.