Yes, but even that analysis assumes that citizenship is valuable (or not) according to the economic benefits that it confers (or doesn’t).
But for most people membership of a community like a nation is not purely, or even largely, an economic issue. A congolese person might have no compelling economic case for retaining his nationality, but that doesn’t meant that he would (or should) lightly give it up. And I think those who say that renouncing US citizenship in order to have the convenience of a bank account is “contemptible” are not saying that it’s an economically unwise decision.
I know I’m overly nitpicky, but I hate leaving an incorrect factual statement stand uncorrected, so I’d like to point out that Andorra is not an EU country. And, but that’s more of an opinion of mine, I’d also like to point out that GDP per capita is not a very good indicator of the actual wealth and standard of living enjoyed by the citizens of a country. Andorra is an example for that: It established itself as an offshore shopping location for foreigners, so sales in all sorts of goods (and to a lesser extent services) boost GDP per capita, but that does not necessarily mean the averyge Andorran benefits a great deal from it.
Yeah, I’d like an explanation too. What is the moral difference? There might be practical differences, like there might be practical differences between disowning rich parents and disowning poor parents, but whay is the moral difference which would make it more or less contemptible?
And I notice solosam admitted he was just threadshitting and has not been back to explain.
One of my favourite sayings is"nothing is impossible for the person who doesn’t have to do it themselves."
The USA has put reporting requirements on these banks, and severe penalties that can be arbitrarily imposed if they fail to meet these obligations. The USA seems to think that all foreign banks are the size of Chase or BankAmerica and can do all this stuff with a few tweaks, a compliance staff is not a big burden, and in case of problems, they have a knowledgeable big legal staff on retainer in Washington DC. If this is not the case for some small Swiss or Czech bank, well, sucks to be them. So yes, US politicians’ concerns can be measured in micro-giveashits, and the only reason they get away with it is the 800-lb gorilla principle.
the banks’ concern is that if they mess up in the reporting, they have to clean up a huge expensive mess to get back into the world of commerce. Whereas if they have no American customers, there is no need to report.
There can also be conflicts with local law. For example compliance with the original FATCA as envisioned by the US would have been illegal under German law. Banks can’t just send customer data overseas and US law is no excuse in German court. Later they negotiated a modified system where banks only report to a local government agency and that sends vetted results to America.
Countries that used to follow through on citizens renouncing to acquire US citizenship now allow former citizens to fast track back to being citizens.
There were a TON of elderly former citizens in the immigration waiting room with me in Trinidad, big posters and signs telling them how to easily regain that citizenship they gave up to immigrate to the USA/etc years before.
You are correct about my health situation (both before and now with Obamacare). However, given the US pushing to make my life as difficult as possible overseas, I see no reason to give in and move back to the USA. In fact I have since lost my residency status in the Czech Republic (with a change of rules recently in the visa requirements).
Therefore I have to currently live as a perpetual tourist and move countries every 90 days as I did from 2002-2005. I have few assets in the USA, but it would be hard to live without a passport. I’d have to seek refugee status somewhere.
Why? I left America almost 12 years ago, have no love for the American government with its endless wars and wasteful spending, don’t like paying taxes to a country that I do not live in and see no reason to return.
I am working on a new residency in yet another country, but banking is a problem as an American. Trying to sort that out. I still have an account I can use for now.
Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that at all. All I said was that GDP per capita is not necessarily a very good proxy for the actual standard of living enjoyed by a country’s population. I know that there are examples where the correlation between high GDP per capita and high standard of living for the average resident holds - Luxembourg is a prime example, and Andorra may or may not be. But there are counterexamples.
I think that the factual aspects of this have been fairly well answered. Those who wish to discuss the morality of renouncing US citizenship, or provide advice on banking, can open a new thread in GD or IMHO. If there are further specific factual questions about banking laws, or the process of renouncing US citizenship, a new thread can be opened in GQ. But let’s keep personal opinions out of it.
