My business is software which is IP and the IRS makes it difficult to transfer this out of the US. We are working on setting up a company in a Persian Gulf country (no taxes there) to run future income through. This will allow us to avoid having to pay into US Social Security (which I never expect to be able to collect anyway). The cost of the business license is less than the tax we pay so it is a net gain.
Prior to 2006 (IIRC) the foreign exclusion was better - it was tax free up to $86K and then the next dollar was taxed as if it was the first dollar. Now the exclusion is a bit higher, but the following dollar is taxed at the bracket for that lever (28% in this case), and quickly gets to 33%.
The Health Insurance is a normal annual plan like any in the US except that you have to have a non-US residence and if you visit the US, there is zero coverage. So we either don’t visit, take out special travel policy or just go without.
There can be complications with it, but my UK insurance would cover that… I am less concerned about complications than I am with other issues. The trouble is I can’t get US insurance to cover a broken arm, cancer, appendicitis or anything else that could happen (all of which would be very expensive in the US).
It is not always easy to do this of course. We have to carefully keep track of days spent in each place so that we don’t become illegal immigrants. It also gets expensive to rent short-term apartments (3 months or less). Also most airline tickets are most economical with round-trips which we rarely do so most travel is overland. The longest in one direction was from Tashkent, Uzbekistan to Paris.
Right now on the table next to me I have 17 currencies, 3 laptop computers, two passports (since some valid visas are in the old one) and electronic doodads for bank accounts in two different countries that I haven’t been to in almost a year. I also have transport passes for cities in three countries and mobile phone SIM cards for seven… some of which are probably expired but there is no way to tell.
So the insurance (i) doesn’t cover you for any injury or sickness that happens while you are in the US and (ii) doesn’t pay for any treatments in the US for an inury or sickness that happens while you are not in the US?
Is there an overall dollar limit on the coverage?
Does it exclude coverage for any particular illnesses or injuries?
(The above I am told is because US law does not allow foreign health insurance companies to operate in the US)
Overall lifetime limit is £5,000,000 (about $7,800,000), with no exclusions and a £1,000 deductible. Cost is about $200/mo for the both of us combined (paid annually in GBP). We’ve never lived in the UK and did not have to visit to get the policy - it was issued in Dubai.
Come on a guest worker visa, while here, locate a good immigration attorney, then seek out a small business to purchase, that comes with employee(s).
If you’re willing to invest, with a good attorney on your side, it should be as easy as filling out the applications and biding your time. You may have to own the business for a few years until you have completed the process and become a full citizen, but, once there, you could sell the business, if you haven’t run it into the ground.
This doesn’t make sense. Otherwise how can you get travel health insurance for the US?
When I lived in the US in '97, I had transferable private health insurance from Ireland. (Of course I didn’t realise at the time that the maximum it would pay out wouldn’t even cover the cost of an ambulance in the US. But it still would pay out.)
All the travel insurance that I have seen for use in the US is issued through a US partner and is in any case deemed “short-term” and excludes any pre-existing so it is not the same as a normal annual policy.
I get free travel insurance with my UK bank account, and there is no differentiation between cover for the US and anywhere else in the world. Here’s a policy sold by the British Post Office. “Area 4” includes the US (as well as Canada and the Caribbean). Here’s hit #1 on Google UK, that can include the US; the policy is from AXA UK.
Hmmm… it may be that you need to be a UK resident for that. Getting travel insurance is not a problem, but I know of no way to get UK-based (or any non-US) insurance and then go live in the US permanently.
You do have to be a UK resident for that, which the OP is not. I live in the Netherlands (which probably does have a visa program for you, OP, as does Belgium, though I cannot say much for the climate) and my health insurance has worldwide coverage but excludes the US. I have bought a supplemental policy to cover US health care for myself and my kids as we are there quite regularly. Unless one works in the insurance industry it is difficult to get straight answers about why this would be; what they say here is that it’s because health care costs in the US are exponentially higher than anywhere else in the world.
Both Spain and Costa Rica allow immigration of people who make “more than N/year” from outside sources. CR is pretty nice to English-speakers, too; Spain has areas with a ton of Brits but they tend to be pretty sad if you ask me… it’s like they keep being surprised that the sun is shining.
I didn’t mean permanently, I meant just that you had to get extra insurance to visit the US.
Anyway, I thought because you bought UK insurance, you had residency status in the UK, but now I see that’s not the case, so I withdraw that line of questioning!
I friend of mine in the same line of work moved from the US to Spain a couple years ago under similar circumstances. It is an option now that prices in Spain are falling, but the large number of Brits there tends to change the place (and not for the better).
Same in Dubai really - in 2000ish most the expats living there were successful in their own countries. Now you end up with people coming to look for work and the demographic has changed alot… they are trying to change it into the UK with sun.