I found this on the site of AARO (Assoc. of Americans Resident Overseas):
“At present, only seventeen states explicitly allow Americans reared abroad to exercise their right to vote in federal elections by registering to vote using the legal voting residence of their U.S. citizen parent(s).”
There is a fellow I know of who was born overseas, but has never been to the USA. Both of his parents are US citizens, so he too is a US citizen (and has a US passport). His parents have no US address either. He would like to vote, but it seems he is unable to do so. As he is required to pay US taxes, but not able to vote, what does everyone think about simply not paying taxes (he does not work for a US employer so there is no auto-witholding).
Is taxation without representation a valid defense to this?
chowder: All US citizens have to pay taxes… unlike most other Western countries, the US taxes you based on citizenship, not residency. His parents were US citizens when he was born, thus he is a US citizen by birth. He can not obtain the citizenship of the country he was born in as his parents are not citizens of that country so if he gave up his US citizenship, he would be stateless.
Unless there is a tax treaty between the US and a second country, you can pay tax twice, but this does not help him in this case. The real issue here is if he does not pay tax and later in life wants to live in the US, he does not want trouble with the taxman.
I thought it was an interesting situation and happens more often than you think as there are some 6 million Americans resident overseas.
I’m a US citizen who doesn’t live in the US. As long as I fulfill certain requirements, I am exempt from a large part (but not all) of my federal tax obligation.
Since he’s not a resident of a state, it is reasonable that he not be allowed to vote for representatives of that state, whether it be a Representative or Senator. It’s also true that no individual citizens actually vote for President, they merely vote to determine who their state’s electors will vote for.
The problem is that our voting is very much based on the state you live in, if you don’t live here, and never lived here, what state do you vote in?
As for not paying taxes, he still does get some sort of benefit to being a citizen, so he can’t completely divorce himself from the US, unless he wants to drop his citizenship.
Legally, you know the answer: No.
Morally, you should know the answer. If you don’t, ask the good residents of the District of Columbia, who will be happy to tell you about almost 600,000 people who don’t get to vote for a voting representative to Congress, and who, until 1961, didn’t get to have any say in the election of the President, either, yet still pay the full load of federal taxes. :eek:
Close, but no cigar. A technical amendment: All U.S. citizens are subject to U.S. tax rules, but that doesn’t mean they necessarily owe any taxes. Otherwise, Desert Nomad is quite correct: the U.S. taxes people based on either residency or citizenship – so, someone resident in the U.S. must file U.S. tax forms, and a U.S. citizen must follow U.S. tax rules regardless of residence. Usually, “following tax rules” means they have to file a tax return, but even that is not necessarily required. For starters, if income is less than a certain amount (used to be $25K, I think, but my memory could be faulty) there’s no need to even file.
Once they do have to file a return, there are lots of reasons for not paying any taxes. As Desert Nomad notes, the U.S. has tax treaties with most countries that are designed to avoid double-taxation, and those will take precedence. The most typical form is that you may have to file in both the U.S. and the country of residence, but usually the tax in the country of residence is higher and so you will not owe any additional U.S. taxes.
A U.S. citizen resident in Dubai (just to pick a random example) would have to pay U.S. tax on total income, just the same as if he were resident in the U.S., because Dubai has no income tax, and therefore no tax treaty.
U.S. citizens resident abroad are usually excluded from paying state tax – but this depends on timing in the year of leaving and the year of returning, similar to someone who moves from one state to another, or is part-year resident in two states, etc.
How enforcable is this? It depends on what connections (other than citizenship) the person has to the U.S. Someone who has moved abroad for a few years and then comes back, the absence of filing with be a red light once they are back. Someone who has never lived in the U.S. and never intends to, but has U.S. citizenship, well, the chances of being caught for failure to file are pretty slim.
Is it that hard for US citizens abroad (expats? I’m never sure if I’m using that word right) to vote? I recall the guy that ran the electoral-vote.com site during the 2004 election was involved in some organization to help such people get set up to vote in the presidential election, it was a long time ago (and I can’t find the post now) , but the impression I was left with was that it wasn’t that hard for them to get absentee ballets if they wanted them.
The notion of “no taxation without representation” sounds nice but it is meaningless. There are numerous people living in the U.S. who are citizens and pay taxes but cannot vote. In many states, if you are a felon you cannot vote. If you are under 18 you cannot vote. If you live in Washington, D.C., you can’t vote for a Representative or Senator. All these people pay taxes. Furthermore, I pay taxes in Idaho, where I own land. I cannot vote in Idaho, though. Many people pay a “commuter tax” to the city in which they work but do not live. Paying taxes has never been the reason people have gotten the vote. It’s not even connected.
What sort of benefit does he get? If the Embassy had to evacuate him as they did in Lebanon recently, those people get a bill for the service so that is not really a benefit.
There are two errors in the above. First, the US taxes people who are either residents or citizens. Actually, I doubt there are any countries that don’t tax all residents. Second, there is no requirement for a tax treaty. The foreign tax credit has no such restriction and I use it every year. Especially now that most of my income is pension and there is no earned income exclusion (although my own opinion is that pension income is just as earned as the regular kind). In some ways I do better than US residents since I get the credit for both provincial and Canadian federal taxes paid. US residents do not get a tax credit for state taxes paid, although I guess they get a deduction (which can make them liable for alternate minimum tax).
Since all of my medicare costs are implicit or explicit in income taxes, the effect of this is that I get my medical expenses as a tax credit. Needless to say, I end up owing no US tax, except on US investment which I got rid of a year ago. (Not that I foresaw the mortgage fiasco, but I concluded that the imbalance of payments had to eventually cause the US dollar to go down, way down.)
It’s not that it’s hard, it’s that since he is not a resident of any US state it is legally impossible for him to vote. This is because there are no true national elections, just state elections for national office.
I would imagine that the ability to evacuate at all is a worthwhile benefit. At any rate, if he doesn’t feel he’s getting his money’s worth, he can renounce his citizenship. Or is the US actively preventing him from doing so?
He would be stateless if he renouced his citizenship as the country where he was born does not grant citizenship by being born there. He would also still be subject to US taxes for 10 years per IRS policy. As far as I know he has no plans to ever live in the US, but may at some point (he is still pretty young), but it seems silly to pay taxes to someplace that you have no relation to except a piece of paper… but one that you can’t easilly exchange for another.
Hard to cry for DC residents, who get $5.50 in federal funding for every dollar of federal tax they pay, higher than any state. http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/topic/19.html I’d like to get that kind of taxation without representation…
For citizens living overseas, you can always give up your citizenship or trundle back home if it’s just not worth it, can you not?
