How is it possible that that US which provides little or no services to its citizens can have so much debt? Where did the money go?
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) July 3, 2013
Yesterday Pacifica commented that that the core value of US citizenship is taxation.
Both Yahoos and Govt. officials agree that to the US of today the core value of US citizenship is taxation. http://t.co/6OUP7hRxgZ
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) July 3, 2013
She is correct. But, in thinking about this I realized that the US provides little or no services to its citizens. Government debt is never okay. Governments must live within their means. But, at least other Western democracies provide better levels of health care, education, etc.
It appears to me that the U.S. government is using its citizens as “tax chattels” to finance its never ending wars. The effect of the wars is to make the U.S. and its citizens disliked the world over. So, the US government is using your money to make people NOT like you.
Your tax dollars at work.
I am interested in your comments on the following question:
Given that the core value of citizenship is taxation, what do U.S. citizens get for their money?
In a country such as Canada I don’t feel I’ve gotten anything for my U.S. citizenship except maybe that I could cross the border unmolested…well, not even that with the current body scanning going on! Not to make light but, my Canadian spouse and child can cross as easily as I could. In fact maybe easier after I renounce. Perhaps I won’t be treated the same as any other Canadian? Embassies here charge fees. Americans in the EU or Canada really get very little for their citizenship based taxation? Does someone come here to help us even do these tax forms? No, that was removed from us. I guess London, Beijing and a few others get that service at certain times of the year. Interesting that Canada has the majority of expats yet we get no face to face help with forms or filing.
Nothing, I can’t think of any service I use or that is available for me to use as a benefit of being required to file FBARs and tax forms.
Some say “Well, the U.S. would swoop in and save you if you got in trouble abroad” So would Canada. In fact the one time I had to call the Canadian embassy abroad they did a stellar job of helping us. I can’t imagine the U.S. would offer better services.
I don’t get respect for it since being an American abroad is a challenge indeed. We’re not thought well of most places in the world so it’s best to not put out there that you are American if one can help not doing so. That’s just a sad fact. A U.S. person abroad may have no influence on what their government does but,they are certainly held accountable for it everywhere they go. In fact I have said as have others before that if anything WE have done a lot of work for them abroad trying to build understanding of an “average” American to foreign citizens. If there is such a thing. The U.S. is very diverse, though it is not seen that way abroad. It is seen as this huge, one size fits all bully nearly everywhere outside its borders due to the governments actions in other nations. So as expats you end up working FOR them not the other way around.
I guess we could rightfully claim we’ve done them far more good than they have done us. I’d like to hear what their justification is for it myself. I mean something that makes sense.
Not sure if this is true- but I have heard if the USA saves your life at a hospital- they will send you a bill afterwards. Then you might be alive but you might also be bankrupt. And similarly- if they fly you out of a war zone, they also send you a bill afterwards. At least that is what I have heard.
“Given that the core value of citizenship is taxation, what do U.S. citizens get for their money?”
As those living, working and earning entirely outside the US – and paying taxes in full to our non-US country of residence; what do we get for any money we might be forced to pay to the US, or may be assessed for in US taxes, FBAR and other reporting penalties?
We reap grief, pain, fear, anxiety, anger, hours of gathering, translating and completing useless documents, and lots and lots of labyrinthine complexities, expensive ‘crossborder’ accounting and legal fees. The US harvests massive and growing ill-will, resentment, anger, and resistance, and the expense of paying hours and hours of federal civil servants time – in the IRS, and Treasury, including highly paid legal counsel to pore over tens of thousands of nil or de minimis returns and transcribe FBARs and the like from those ‘abroad’.
First and foremost: we are forced to pay for our own persecution. We pay in order to support the very IRS and Treasury apparatus that oppresses us. Like being billed to cover the cost of your own execution.
We pay for a President, Congresscritters and Senators that refuse to acknowledge our letters and e-mails, and refuse to address our concerns, or even acknowledge them – because we do not live in the US. We pay for the right to be deemed a US ‘taxable person’ – without services or respect or representation.
We pay so that our children born outside the US can be subjected to laws that require them to register for the draft and be subjected to punitive and confiscatory US taxation and draconian regulations. Many of them can never and will never be allowed to vote in US elections – just as many of us cannot.
We pay so that the US can fund its wars and manipulate affairs abroad to US corporate advantage.
We pay so that those resident and based in the US – such as the US corporations incorporated in VP Biden’s home state of Delaware http://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbrown/2012/10/12/why-vice-president-bidens-delaware-is-a-big-taxing-deal/ , can enjoy their profits held untaxed ‘offshore’, and so that US residents with friends in high places can keep the loopholes that give them a US tax advantage – and benefit from their accounts and trusts in the Caymans (Treasury Secretary Jack Lew http://billmoyers.com/2013/03/08/jack-lew-citigroup-and-the-ugland-truth/ Commerce Secretary Pritzker http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-21/pritzker-s-54-million-family-trust-fee-seen-as-unique.html etc.).
We pay so that US banks and the US government can try and corral all US citizen and ‘US taxable person’ assets worldwide, and confine them to the US – even if they were generated and are held by people resident outside the US. Which is why Canadian citizens and residents living in Canada, with the US ‘taxable person’ tattoo, are punished severely by the IRS for investing in Canadian mutual funds http://www.advisor.ca/tax/tax-news/tax-planning-and-dual-citizenship-46794 http://www.canadianlawyermag.com/4621/the-ticking-time-bomb-of-tax-liability-for-americans-in-canada.html https://www.ific.ca/Content/Document.aspx?id=7607&LangType=1033
xyz, you have heard correctly.
US Citizens Abroad get Grief (and all else badger enumerates). We should not be deluded into believing otherwise.
US Citizenship also provides us second-class status to any others who are citizens of or reside in the countries where we do. US citizenship-based taxation and our countries changing legislation to accommodate that is discrimination based on US nationality / citizenship. We are in many ways economically deprived in the countries in which we live (in addition to the ways our human rights are not respected).
Our dealing with US citizenship can also cost our countries in cost of health care (emotional and health issues related to coming to terms and dealing with US extra-territoriality) and social services (as a good portion of our and our countries’ resources transfer to the US).
I’ll add this comment (and some of badger’s additional) to the Globe & Mail news article http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canadas-information-sharing-deal-with-us-under-fire/article12913617/comments/
As Calgary411 has pointed out, CBT adds insult to the injury by rendering us unable to enjoy the benefits of other Canadians. We must renounce in order to do so, but there are so many within the US itself who don’t have the mental capacity to recognize this and therefore assume that we must be rich in order to afford to do all of that filing, and worse, must be guilty of trying to evade taxes because the IRS requires so much reporting. The fact that we would renounce as a result just proves our lack of loyalty! Not recognizing that we are victims, they assume we are perpetrating a crime because the USG treats us as such!
When the cost of something far exceeds its benefits, that ‘something’ loses value. Citizenship is no exception. The USG itself needs to take full responsibility for cheapening US citizenship to the point where its own citizens want to rid themselves of it. Stop blaming the victims of your insane policies!
Of course us outlanders don’t get anything more than trouble but what do homelanders get? US taxes are generally lower than the rest of the developed world. A large chunk of that goes to subsidise an excessively large military force far beyond what is necessary to defend the homeland. Most services are actually provided by state and local governments whose levels of taxation and service vary greatly across the USA. So homelanders don’t get much for their federal taxes and so it’s easy to see why they get so upset about them.
Barack Obama, without any word of exaggeration your administration has managed to price US citizenship out of the market. Even certain segments if the US’s Illegal population realize that US citizenship will price their services too high and will avoid it in order to continue to undercut the competition. There’s BIG BUSINESS in the US’s illegal workforce for the same reason it’s cheaper for US companies operating outside the US to hire non-USP’s. In the real world, we simply aren’t worth the premium that comes with our status.
@Badger
Re your statement:
“First and foremost: we are forced to pay for our own persecution. We pay in order to support the very IRS and Treasury apparatus that oppresses us. Like being billed to cover the cost of your own execution.”
Yes, exactly. This is how the OVDP program works too. You have to pay to calculate your own penalty and then pay the penalty.
For tax compliant U.S. citizens abroad, U.S. citizenship is like being in a permanent state of OVDP.
Those who are NOT tax compliant actually have far fewer problems.
There are no incentives left to be in compliance.
@Bubblebustin
Your comment is interesting and illustrates the same principle. The cost to be in compliance with U.S. law is simply too high. The incentives for immigrants to stay illegal are high.
@Johnson
The Homelanders are actually in a far worse situation. They have no way of leaving. They are forever locked in the Homeland where they are owned and abused by the US government. They don’t even have the option of considering a life elsewhere. It’s good that they believe they are in the greatest country on earth.
@USCitizenAbroad
“It’s good that they believe they are in the greatest country on earth”.
Eventually the Koolaid will run out or they’ll realize it’s unhealthy to drink.
The taxes go towards achieving ‘American Exceptionalism’. You see nothing worthwhile happens elsewhere in the world. Why would anyone not wish to be part of and pay taxes to the greatest nation in the history of the world? And it is always heartwarming to hear Chris Matthews reinforce this on a regular basis. It is an unfortunate national myopic delusion, so deeply entrenched, that the chance of seeing anything meritorious in the rest of the world is rather remote.
I wouldn’t care too much what Chris Matthews says about anything. I saw him speak once in person. “Some people say I’m a misogynist, I guess I am.” Chris Matthews Denver 2008. He’s a craven little man.