Why #Americansabroad do NOT renounce U.S. citizenship because of taxes http://t.co/sR9Qasjuge – Excellent article
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) October 10, 2014
This superb guest post from @TaxGirl is one of the best I have seen.
As you read this consider this question:
Would you be less likely to renounce U.S. citizenship if the U.S. had tax rules for its citizens abroad that were more like those of Eritrea? A straight 2% of income?
Polly, You get it. Our politicians have set up a system of re election where the CBT is just one of the revenue streams they use to keep a job for life that should be a temprorary job, and then go home and live under the laws you have passed. I advocate the FairTax for the citizen who is supposed to be the boss, but the politicians have either forgotton who the boss is or they want re election so bad they will ignore the will of the people.
The FairTax fixes all tax problems. Tinkering with an 80,000 page tax code is temporary at best. Since 1986 they have passed 8,000 tax extenders that expire the same year as our election. These Tax extenders will come right back and along with it some form of CBT, even if it is addressed at all. Dumping the tax code for the FairTax and disbanding the KGB like IRS, is the only answer to all our tax problems.
Steve: You said, “In response to the question would I pay a flat 1 or 2% of my gross income worldwide to keep my US passport – the answer is YES I would. I do not think any CBT is fair, but I would pay it to keep my US citizenship.”
I would not pay a dime beyond the normal passport application fee, not because I don’t (didn’t) have a deep fondness for the U.S.A., but because it is an American’s *right* to have a U.S. passport and to move freely across the border. Rights are free and available to all, not just to the few who can afford to pay for them. Neither your birth certificate, nor mine, has a sentence that reads: “The bearer of this certificate will be charged 2% of annual income for life.”
Put another way, if you would pay 1 or 2% of your income to keep your passport I assume you would approve of “user-pay” kiosks set up outside polling stations at every election.
While I am on the subject, renunciation is every bit as much a right according to U.S. law as having a passport or voting. As a *right* renunciation used to cost nothing to the renunciant. Then in July 2010 a “renunciation fee” of $450 was instituted. By doing this the U.S. government made it more difficult for Americans to assert this particular right especially if more than one member of a family was taking the step of renunciation. Then, just a few weeks ago, as “Tisha” so eloquently states, the U.S. State Department raised the fee to $2,350.00! With that action the right to renounce was wiped right out of the constitution for all but the well-to-do!
By taking such punitive steps against its own people the United States is very, very surely committing suicide because a United States of America without it’s Constitution, without its sense of justice and without its heart is no United States of America at all.
@Muzzled, let me elaborate on Steve’s comment. He may or may not agree……
I think it would be reasonable for the USA to g back to the old expatriation clauses pre Supreme Court.
I would be in favor if failure to file tax returns to include information returns was an expatriating act for those with another citizenship.
I would also be in favor if expats were given the option of paying a flat tax one page return or regular filing.
So yes, if the USA were to consider failure to file by an Irish/US National resident in Ireland to be expatriating, so be it.
I personally believe the problem is that they have made it far too complicated to get rid of it!!! US Nationality in the twenty first century is NOT precious for many former/ex pats.
You are spot on. America was an idea. All men are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. Not some men, not limited rights. Whatever an American aspires to that is not harmful to his fellow man, is his right.
Starting with Woodrow Wilson, who issued a memo his first day in office, dated it the day before and fired all the black people in government, jobs that the Republicans had granted with their blood during a bloody war in 1861-1865. Wilson blamed it on his predicessor, starting the idea of American subversion and successive presidents and congresses have infringed a little more with each administration.
The current president has taken the Imperial Presidency to new heights.
This citizen based taxation started with JFK and was ignored until Jimmy Carter dregged it up again, but most expats ignored it still until the current administration hired an administration void of any civil libertarians. Mostly Ivy League professors with no practical real life experience, who will never admit a mistake of any kind. I am afraid the fences they are building on our borders will be turned into prison walls at some point.
They have acted like the Romans, making every government in the world except Russia, sign onto FATCA. The IRS has, in the past, acted like the NAZI brown Shirts. With urging from the administration they are turning into The Waffen SS. Those of us who stayed home and see what they are doing to expats and are willing to speak up, are taking the same chances the Priests and Ministers took in NAZI Germany. You are actually out of their reach, but we aren’t, so when they come for us will you recsue us? Probably not. When the Muslims take over a region, it is convert or die. Like here some will convert and some will die.
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