In fact, one might even go so far as to call it “a brilliant tax move” 
Symptom of?
Eritrea does it. And was condemned in the UN by the USA because of it.
…hold on: you said that the law didn’t need defending: yet here you are, once again, defending it with another bit of irrelevance. “The law isn’t stupid because the USA is cool” is all I’m seeing.
“The US dollar is the de facto global currency, hence our tax laws are not stupid.” Sorry mate: not seeing the connection.
People not living in the United States have to pay tax twice. I haven’t seen a decent defense put up for that situation here in the thread: and considering you don’t consider the law needs defending I’m not sure why you keep responding to me.
There is a little box you can check when you naturalize that lets you naturalize your minor children along with you. They don’t have to check that box but noone asks the child if they want to become American citizens and noone interviews them.
The point is that the law isn’t stupid because the US can get away with it. Again, the law doesn’t apply to people who are never coming back; if they choose not to pay US income taxes, there’s not much the US can do about it.
In any event, people don’t have to “pay tax twice.” As has been pointed out, taxes paid in the person’s state of residence are credited against anything owed to the US. In most cases- including an American who decamped to New Zealand- that would mean no US tax liability at all, since our federal income tax rates are very low. Really, the only people who do have to pay US taxes under the law are those who move to tax havens.
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]
As has been pointed out, taxes paid in the person’s state of residence are credited against anything owed to the US.
[/quote]
This is a gross oversimplification, for various reasons.
First, only same-category income taxes are credited against the tax that the U.S. imposes on the same category of income (investment income, wage income, income whose source has been redetermined by treaty, and “certain lump sum payments”). This is why, if you have multiple categories of foreign income, you must file multiple Form 1116s. If you live in a country with high taxes on one category of income and low taxes on another category, then you are paying a higher total tax rate than either a U.S. citizen living at home or a Canadian, Chinese, or Cameroonian citizen living in the same country as you.
Second, payroll taxes are not creditable unless you live in a country with a “totalization agreement” with the US. Plenty of countries with tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans living there do not have such agreements: China, Israel, Brazil, and Mexico, for example. You end up paying payroll taxes twice, but due to the “windfall elimination” provisions of Social Security, your SSI benefits get reduced in the end because you receive money from a non-US social insurance system too.
http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,,id=105254,00.html
Third, “paying the higher rate of the two countries” means you pay U.S. tax on things that the country where you live has voted should be tax-free and have very simple reporting requirements for everyone who lives there, like government-mandated retirement accounts. The U.S. does not consider contributions to those plans to be tax-deductible, and moreover it taxes you on the appreciation inside those plans on a mark-to-market basis, and makes you file 10 pages of forms to tell the IRS about them (and if you didn’t hear about those forms 3520 and 8621 because they’re ridiculously obscure? $10,000 fine per missing form). Foreign countries do not recognise contributions to IRAs as tax-deductible either (far more reasonable, since if you actually live there they expect you to participate in their local system). The result is that a U.S. citizen abroad is taxed on retirement savings in a way that no one else anywhere in the world is — whether a U.S. citizen living at home or another expat living in the same country.
Those on the right think avoidance of taxes is consistent with patriotism.
Yes, but its a good generalization. You also get to exempt the first 100K of so of foreign earned income.
Consistent with? More like “fundamental element of”
It is not a good generalization at all, because it deliberately obscures the problems that the US system causes. It’s not a tax problem and the 100k tax exemption does not solve it; it is a paperwork problem. The laws are quite onerous to comply with, especially for us ordinary emigrants.
I do absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, money-wise. I go on the internet and pick up translation or coding work. Clients write me checks. I walk down the street to the bank and deposit. I pay taxes and file accounts with the government where I live. I make my mandatory retirement contribution. And yet the IRS makes me file the same tax forms as people with 1000 times my assets and income to prove to that I don’t owe them any taxes, because the clowns in Congress think my retirement plan is a “foreign grantor trust” and that complying with my local law requirements to be a freelancer means I’m the “tax owner of a foreign disregarded entity”. My U.S. tax return ranges from 30 to 40 pages long. I can either spend 80 hours doing it myself (and lose whatever I could have earned in that time), or I can throw thousands of dollars at an international accountant to do it for me.
I would rather say forget the exemption and just let me file simpler paperwork. At least the tax money would go to pay for roads and schools (or maybe for bombs and guns) instead of my CPA’s Ferrari. And it would be cheaper in the end too. But I don’t have this option. The paperwork is mandatory regardless of the taxes owed and the fines for not filing start from $10,000. The only reason you don’t hear more complaints about this is that people are plain old not aware of the requirements. One of the forms I file is Form 3520. You are supposed to file this if you have a non-U.S. retirement plan (unless it’s a Canadian plan, in which case you file Form 8891 instead). There’s millions of Americans living overseas. In 2006 the IRS got five thousand 3520s. (Google “SOI Tax Stats - Foreign Trusts”).
If there is no ultimate US tax liability then what is the effect of not filing your US taxes at all? Do they come get you or does your international acocuntant get really mad and send you ominous letters about what would happen to you when the US invades your current country of residence?
That’s my point. If you’re not coming back, stop filing US tax returns. If you are coming back, suck it up.
There’s a few possible consequences. I can avoid most of them, but not all. Others may be less lucky.
If you are living in a country whose tax treaty with the U.S. specifies mutual collection assistance, the IRS could invoke the treaty provisions and ask your local government to collect from you. Fortunately I live in a non-treaty country. (Of course, the flip side of living in a non-treaty country is the double social insurance taxation I mentioned above). Anyway even in treaty countries, I don’t think this is a particularly likely outcome: from what I have heard the US has done it once in history for an individual taxation case, in France. Usually the mutual assistance requests are for business taxation cases. But it could become more likely as the U.S. tries to increase its revenues.
If you are getting payments from a US-owned entity (apparently including a foreign subsidiary of a U.S. employer — I am unclear on this point because I have only worked for non-American employers), you have to give the payor your SSN so that the payor can file a Form 1099 or W-2 or whatever’s appropriate. (You could probably sidestep the issue by getting an ITIN instead, but you’d have to lie about not being a U.S. citizen). The IRS can check the records for that SSN and inform the payor you are subject to backup withholding, and then the payor is obligated to keep 28% of your payments and give it to the IRS. This is fairly standard procedure.
Under the new “Moving Ahead For Progress in the 21st Century” highway bill that already passed the Senate (S. 1813) and is now stuck in the House, there’s a provision (S.A. 1761) to deny renewal or revoke the passport of anyone who has more than $50,000 in outstanding tax debt and fines. State already forwards the SSNs and addresses of passport applicants to the IRS; this ups the ante. The House’s 90-day extension of the old highway funding bill is expiring soon, so this is going to come up for consideration again I believe this month or next. In the Homeland you generally have to screw something up pretty badly to get to $50,000, but out here if I stop filing all these forms I get to $50,000 of fines in one year even when I don’t owe any taxes. Fortunately if my passport is revoked I can get a stateless person’s travel document from my government. People in other countries who have not yet naturalised there may not be so lucky — their country may simply deport them if they do not have a valid passport.
Finally, when I renounce U.S. citizenship so I can get my new passport (where I live, naturalised citizens cannot have dual citizenship), if I cannot certify on IRS Form 8854 that I complied with all my filing obligations for the past 5 years, I would become a “covered expatriate” like Saverin (the same as if I had $2 million in assets or $148,000 in tax liability). At the moment covered expatriate status would have no consequences for me because there’s a six-figure capital gains deduction against the exit tax. But under Schumer’s Ex-PATRIOT Act, the IRS would make a finding that I’m a “specified expatriate”, at which point I would not be able to get a visa ever again. (It would be nice to go to the US back for high school reunions and to see my nephew get born, the way civilised countries like those in Europe or Asia or Latin America let their emigrants do.)
Apparently they forget, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
Screw our country when it comes time to pay for the things it needs!
This may be the best indicator of how twisted and unrecognizable the right has become. I’ve heard some on the right call this guy a hero.
Most of these same people would call it heroic and patriotic to sacrifice your life in military service to your country.
How can it be heroic and patriotic to both sacrifice your life to defend your country and also to renounce your American citizenship to avoid paying taxes?
I’ve read the thread. Can’t seem to recall anyone saying this.
I don’t know what you mean. I quoted the assertion from New Deal Democrat regarding those on the right believing that it’s patriotic to avoid paying taxes. I referenced having heard others call this guy a hero.
Here, for instance, is an op-ed piece from Forbes’ Magazine For De-Friending The U.S., Facebook’s Eduardo Saverin Is An American Hero.
Is your point that I’m misrepresenting what someone in this thread said? If so, please point to where I made any other claims about what anyone in this thread has said.
Or is it your contention that conservatives, or those on the right, don’t think it’s patriotic or heroic for people to sacrifice their lives in defense of their country? If that’s the case, I think you’re sadly mistaken.
“And yet the IRS makes me file the same tax forms as people with 1000 times my assets and income to prove to that I don’t owe them any taxes”
You had posited that the tax laws required a mountain of paperwork despite the fact taht tehre was ultimately no taxes due. I asked what would be the harm of not filing if there were no taxes due.
How?
Other than proposed legislation by Chuck Schumer (which has ZERO chance of becoming law), there really is no down side. Or are you saying that you actually do have US tax liability and all that paperwork is an effort to determine that liability?
BTW, I’m not defending worldwide taxation per se and i am particularly not defending how it is implemented but it seems like a problem a lot of people sucessfully ignore without consequence.
Two people on the left proclaiming what the people on the right are saying with little proof, certainly no one from this thread, that they are. I’m pretty sure the thread is about how brilliant the move is, not how patriotic.
Here, for instance, is an op-ed piece from Forbes’ Magazine For De-Friending The U.S., Facebook’s Eduardo Saverin Is An American Hero.
From the article:
Some guy says it. Does it make it true? Is he the left’s hero for paying a billion dollars in taxes? No, because it is likely that the left doesn’t think it was enough!
Are you saying that only the right thinks that it is heroic for people to sacrifice their lives for their country? If that’s the case, then you are very much mistaken.
The author of that article is an idiot who either doesn’t understand what he is talking about or doesn’t expect his audience to.
He is just the latest ina long line of conservatives who want bad things to happen to America so that America will remake itself in their image.
He is obviously a consumption tax advocate and he thinks that Saverin’s departure should be a clarion call to all Americans to adopt a regressive consumptiont tax:
The entire article is retarded. He is arguing that “taking the money and running” is heroic because it deprives the US of tax revenue and THAT will starve the beast yada yada yada.