Cross posted from RenounceUScitizenship
Here is a comment on an earlier post I wrote:
#americansabroad For our company we are sending all the ex-pat Americans home to the US. For one reason only. #FATCA renounceuscitizenship.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/sto…
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) June 9, 2012
The IRS should be made to answer certain questions before FATCA can be enacted. Here are just a few. Other readers please add more.
1) How many Americans are affected by FATCA?
2) How many of them do the IRS consider to be criminals?
3) If there is no change in the behavior of American citizens how much extra tax will FATCA generate?
4) What percentage of Americans change their behavior if FATCA is enacted to reduce their taxes?
5) How many FFI are there in the world?
6) What is the total cost born by the FFIs to become compliant, and the annual cost thereafter?
7) How many FFIs will choose not to do business with Americans living abroad, just terminate their accounts?In business we have failure criteria. The IRS must make a statement in advance that FATCA will be considered a failure if it fails to raise a defined amount of new taxes. Considered a failure if a certain percentage of FFIs withdraw funds from the US rather than bear the cost of compliance. Etc. etc.
For our company we are sending all the ex-pat Americans home to the US. For one reason only. FATCA.
Everyone’s situation is different of course. What could do irreparable damage to people like Monalisa wouldn’t, in all honesty, bother me personally at all. If the US government wants to enact a law that subjects any future potential US investments at a 30% rate or ban me from entering the country then I view that as their problem, since they will stupidly be closing the doors on investment and tourism money that I might have otherwise brought in.
Its the same situation with the ESTA fee for the “visa free travel” to the US (which is now $14). A lot of people in the EU are calling for reciprocity and charging all Americans €14 to visit here and making them do an online registration as well. I say why bother – I view this as brilliant legislation personally, since it will make more tourists from the EU and overseas think twice about visiting the US and more might be inclined to come to the EU or visit another EU country instead. It would be self-defeating to turn away US tourists – We should welcome them no matter what their crazy government is up to.
Let the US go it alone in its own downward spiral of stupid legislation – Maybe after the crash they’ll wake up and become a normal country again!
@Joe Smith
I think that the first round of people coming to the US with CLNs will be hit the hardest this year and next. After a while surely the border guards will start to get used to seeing CLNs since there are so many renouncing nowadays. They’ll probably lose a bit of ‘zeal’ after awhile – Not saying of course that they will be friendly though in the future..
*Let´s not panic or become too paranoid. I don´t believe that renouncing US citizenship will necessarily lead to being unable to enter the US with a Visa. Each case is a case. A good US Tax Lawyer would be able to clarify this. I also don´t believe that one will have to pay a lot of tax in order to renounce. But of course there are many more reasons why a person would like to keep its citizenship, some of them more emotional than legal. Let me say again each case is one case. The only thing that seems to be the case is that it is become very close to impossible to remain an American, a Dual Citizen or a Green Carder if you decide to live and work abroad. Of course it is can be done but the cost in time, money and quality of life is becoming too high. Now, the USA may be losing from this. For instance with the jobs problems in the USA, these people may refuse to go to work abroad. And of course when these people work abroad as a rule they send money earned there to the USA or spend this money visiting their relatives here. Do you think the USA government is considering these unintended consequences?
@markpinetree, is that a rhetorical question? 🙂