Monday, August 12, 2013 Here’s The Law That’s Driving Record Numbers Of Americans To Renounce Their Citizenship
This is an interesting view in the US:
Of course, every law has compliance costs, and it’s not even clear that it’s such a big problem if more Americans, presumably dual citizens living abroad with relatively weak ties to the U.S., are renouncing citizenship.
So, it’s not a problem when Americans renounce in response to bad policy. I wonder how one defines “weak ties”? I’d define it as being a growing gap between the US and its diaspora. Only the American diaspora seems to care about bad policy:
This has been a major point of complaint for organizations representing American expatriates.
This is not a complaint for stateside Americans? It’s not only a “compliance cost”, but also a federal crime concerning national origin discrimination. It is great that stateside Americans care nothing about their diaspora and don’t mind it when they renounce in response to bad policy. Yet, do they really need the exit and diaspora taxes to demonstrate such?
Atticus, it’s doubtful we’ll ever get the Homelanders to ever see what’s at stake here. Junglejim being a prime example of this idiocy.
USA passed the debt ceiling $39 billion ago. Time for a good war to get peoples’ mind off of the deficit.
Homelanders can’t influence their representatives. The key here is to lobby congress directly and get RBT inserted in a bill in the last minute with as little debate, oversight and attention as possible by fellow legislators (in the same manner as FATCA and Section 877 were passed).
American politicians strive to avoid demonstrating any sign of weakness or humility before their constituents and “kingmakers”; thus it is easier to pass laws discretely rather than openly debating them for adoption or change in both legislative chambers.
This is why I believe ACA has to take the lion’s share of the effort here in lobbying congress; foreign governments or organizations represented by non-Americans are of limited use.
This undemocratic and non-transparent legislative process is one of many factors slowly contributing to America’s economic and political structural decline. Expatriation numbers (both Treasury and FBI figures) will keep setting new record highs in the coming years and we might start seeing many US companies reincorporating abroad and openly barring US persons from employment in their non-US offices (especially considering the fact that most US companies will be, if they are not already, generating the majority of their revenues overseas).
I’m hanging tight for the moment; I can terminate my US citizenship anytime with no consequences or burdens: 1) I already hold another passport that grants me visa-free access to most of the world, 2) I will never be a covered expat and owe any exit tax even if I were richer than Warren Buffet since I fit the special “dual-citizenship acquired at birth” exemption clause in Section 877, 3) I can completely go under the FATCA radar if I want to as I can easily hide all US inidicia (no US birth place).
Mark Twain, looks like Syria picked a bad time to stick it’s head up, didn’t it? Not that I condone what Assad did in gassing his citizens, but… playing the world’s policeman is not the job of the United States, let the Syrians sort it out for themselves.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/25/secret_cia_files_prove_america_helped_saddam_as_he_gassed_iran
Why is poison gas a big deal today?
@Animal, I was so relieved and pleased that the Commons in Britain voted against military strikes in Syria.
With regard to Syria…here we go again. So, I guess when the U.S. dropped napalm on Vietnam the rest of the world ought to have rushed in to punish the U.S. Yes, Britain, good for you!
With regard to it not being a problem for those living in the U.S. if a bad law is making people renounce? Hence, more renunciations!! We all know they haven’t a clue, don’t care to and do not care one wit about us except when we willingly destroy our lives for them and pay penalties on no taxes owed. Why would ANY expat choose to stay one of them when this is their attitude towards us? I can’t fathom it myself. Unless, you are just super rich and have loads of money to throw at a tax lawyer or accountant each year and even then. There’s no good reason to stay…they’ve shown us who they are, what they care about and don’t. I say we’d best believe them and move on.
I read the comments in the article. Most were very hateful of USPs. They enforce my resolution to never go back to visit america. Most would consider me a traitor. Canada is a big and beautiful country. I feel no loss in not going back to the usa. It is their loss.
Thanks for highlighting the hypocrisy, Mark Twain, from a story that should be, but of course isn’t, front-page US news,
The US, land of hushed-up opportunists in never-ending wars.
Let me throw this out there as an Economic Way of viewing this whole issue..someone may want to polish it up a bit…
The US is not a FREE TRADE country…
Free trade came to what would become the United States as a result of American Revolutionary War, when the British Parliament issued the Prohibitory Act, blockading colonial ports. The Continental Congress responded by effectively declaring economic independence, opening American ports to foreign trade on April 6, 1776. According to historian John W. Tyler, “Free trade had been forced on the Americans, like it or not.”
ExPats who maintain US Citizenship are slaves to a taxation policy (Citizen based taxation) that prevents them from competing on an equal footing to global competitors…all other countries are on a Resident based taxation system…So, while the U.S. professes to be Pro Free Trade, it shackles and enslaves it’s greatest assets and Exports (ambassadors of US Citizenship and US Goodwill) to the tyranny of a Citizen Based Taxation that adds costs to the Human Capital and is counter-productive to a bourgeoning society…Thus begins the decay of such a society from within, as individuals seeking global participation shed their Citizen Based shackles to become members of a Global Community…This is the reality of the rise in US Renunciations…
A great number of Americans are threatened by our choice to renounce because it conflicts with their core belief that the US is the best country on earth. But because they are too lazy or scared to think about it too much they wrap themselves in their patriotism and find it much easier to think of us as either traitors or not being American enough anyway, as this writer does. It doesn’t help that the US is in such a state that everything that happens outside the US borders has to be analyzed as to whether it’s a threat or not.
The renunciations are just one of a growing list of things that chisel away at the notion that they are #1. They hate it.
“The renunciations are just one of a growing list of things that chisel away at the notion that they are #1. They hate it.”
That is likely why on one side of their mouth, they’re all about ‘love it or leave it’, and ‘don’t let the door hit you on your way out’, and on the other side of their mouth, trying to shake people down for all they’re worth as they’re trying to leave.
bubblebustin, it’s not just the attack on the core belief that they are the greatest. For some it’s jealousy b/c deep down, they know they can’t get out and here we are – free. And their is also the (possibly correct) assumption on their part that we live a bit higher on the economic food chain than they do. A recipe for the haters to hate on us.
Nations in decline nearly always cling to their lost ideals and the notion that they are still in their prime.
Who cares what they think?
They live in a mess, a war-mongering nation that actively promotes the “war economy” in a desperate attempt to stave off the sun setting on their empire. We are doing ourselves, our families and our descendants a huge favor by giving up our USC’s.
And as Mark Twain points out, most of us will still have passports that allow fairly unrestricted world travel and aren’t wealthy enough to be covered expats.
I’m afraid that their desperation is leading to them shaking down anyone and everything they can. This will come in the form of fines instead of incurring the huge public expense of running wrongdoers through the courts. It’s win-win for the government and those who flout the law, but is justice being served? No, but many are willing to overlook that in getting money into the US Treasury quickly.
The whole Syrian thing is a smoke screen. It’s Libya all over again.
What I have read is that Syria is the proposed route of a pipeline that would rid Europe of it’s dependence on Russia as a fuel source.
Is it any surprise that right after Putin gives Obama the middle finger with Snowden that suddenly there is a gas attack of innocent Syrians by Assad?
Don’t forget that it was the American govt that gave Iraq the gas to use on Iran during their war, and that the USG is quite capable of making events fit any paradigm they like to justify their little incursions. It’s ironic that someone like Assad, who is not at all a sympathetic character, is likely telling the truth but is going down for the crime all the same.
I feel sorry for the people of these small Middle East nations that must deal with being the battlegrounds for the proxy wars that the super powers can no longer fight out in Europe or Asia. It’s times like these that I appreciate Canada’s proximity to the US. They would never want to fight a proxy war here b/c it’s basically their back yard.
@YogaGirl
“Is it any surprise that right after Putin gives Obama the middle finger with Snowden that suddenly there is a gas attack of innocent Syrians by Assad?”
Very ‘coincidental’, isn’t it?
mjh49783, not really but when you point out the obvious and the timing, you are just a conspiracy nut, right?
@bubblebustin
Those that are going to flout the law, and have no intentions of ever returning to the US for a visit, are going to find a way out without paying the exit tax. I know if I was a ‘covered expatriate’ with serious disillusionment towards US policies, that I wouldn’t exactly be motivated to fill out the proper tax forms after renouncing, and that I would be more motivated in liberating my money, instead.
But that’s the funny thing, isn’t it? How these laws end up working punitively against those trying to obey these laws while expatriating?
@YogaGirl
“mjh49783, not really but when you point out the obvious and the timing, you are just a conspiracy nut, right?”
Nope. Just cynical.
@YogaGirl
“Don’t forget that it was the American govt that gave Iraq the gas to use on Iran during their war, and that the USG is quite capable of making events fit any paradigm they like to justify their little incursions.”
….and I’m not doubting that part even a bit. How else could the US be so sure that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction if they hadn’t given them the weapons themselves?
As for the gas attack in Syria, how do I know that it wasn’t the rebels that did it in some sort of black flag operation? Maybe the reason as to why Russia is standing behind Assad is because they know that the rebels could be a greater threat to them?
All the more reason to stay the hell out of there in my opinion.
Knowing firsthand how the USG is willing to treat its own citizens who live abroad, it’s not cynical at all to assume that it’s about something other than freedom and liberation.
Exactly. The US is looking for another fight, and is more than willing to wrap itself up in self righteous bullshit in order to have that convenient excuse.
Thankfully, it seems that only the French are buying into it this time. ;^)
I agree with a view expressed by many of you others who have commented on this. Except for family members and maybe a few of our friends in the U.S., most Homelanders and politicians don’t understand or care about us U.S. expatriates or our problems. All they want is our money, if they can find a way to get it. Why would we want to belong to or visit a country like that?
I know I don’t!
@mjh49783
I don’t understand why someone would bother renouncing if they don’t plan to take all the necessary steps to completely extricate themselves from the US.
@AnonAnon
That’s a great question. Because some of us have varying degrees of attachment to the US and hope that things will change for the better?