My comment on the superb article about the plight of #Americansabroad by @Laurasn1000 https://t.co/OPflDEmehD … Calling the other Laura – @Saunderswsj
— John Richardson – lawyer for "U.S. persons" abroad (@ExpatriationLaw) February 18, 2018
Recently an excellent article Think you can leave the US? Think again!
appeared on the Thom Hartmann site.
Written by an expat laurainparis , it is one of the best summaries/sources of information available. This post is based on a comment to the article.
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Laura, this is one of the very best articles I have seen about the reality of this situation.
At the outset, I would like to explain that what most people call U.S. “citizenship-based taxation” (sounds kind of patriotic) is the U.S. policy of “imposing worldwide taxtion on the “tax residents” of other countries who do NOT live in the United States” (which is what it really is). In other words, let’s call it like it really is. It is NOT restricted to “so called Americans abroad”. The vast majority of people impacted by this are the citizen/residents of other countries.
You explain what it means when the United States claims the right to impose “worldwide taxation” on the residents of other countries. This of course means (as you know first hand) that a resident of France must pay U.S. tax on his/her French income. In addition (as you point out) the penalty regime imposed on assets that are local to the resident of France but “foreign” to the USA are draconian and completely idiotic.
I would also like to point out that although this discussion is frequently framed in terms of “taxation”, what this is really about is the United States exporting the Internal Revenue Code to other countries. This exports certain U.S. cultural values, reporting requirements and penalties on those who “commit personal finance outside the United States”. In other words, this is about much more than taxation.
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