14 ms·

United States Expatriation at an All-Time High

• macrael 9y ago
  The absolute numbers are still pretty small, though. In 2000 273 people renounced their passports. This year, 6800 people have so far. A big increase, but still a drop in the bucket compared to the 700k that were naturalized.
  • Iv 9y ago
    That only captures the flow toward countries that refuse double nationality. 9 out of 10 of the most common names for those are Asian (Chinese mainly, at least one Vietnamese and at least two Korean) Most people will keep their passports even when residing long term abroad.
    • hueving 9y ago
      Is it expatriation if the person isn't giving up their citizenship?
      • KC8ZKF 9y ago
        Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expatriate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expatriate
        • hueving 9y ago
          Sorry if it's a stupid question, but how do you tell the difference between an expat and a tourist when looking at people traveling out of the country then?
      • saiya-jin 9y ago
        definitely yes
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    • torrent-of-ions 9y ago
      Many don't keep their US passport even if they can to avoid paying tax.
      • doktrin 9y ago
        US worldwide taxation is incredibly obnoxious, but the benefits of keeping a US passport still outweigh the drawbacks for many. That's not guaranteed to last forever, though.
        • Dolores12 9y ago
          What are benefits?
          • codewithcheese 9y ago
            You can become the POTUS!
          • Symbiote 9y ago
            Being able to return to the USA, and visa-free access to more/different countries compared to the new citizenship. Renouncing American citizenship is extremely rare, as these figures show. The taxation is a paperwork hassle, but you need a very high income to actually owe anything -- for most, the higher tax rate in the new country offsets the American tax due.
            • Dolores12 9y ago
              So you call it benefit - paying 30%+ of your income in taxes worldwide instead of paying 20$ for visa on arrival? That makes no sense.
              • tryingagainbro 9y ago
                You will (probably) NOT get another visa to USA if you renounce for taxes.
  • pizza 9y ago
    That's a pretty large growth rate, though
    • nippples 9y ago
      The absolute quantity is so far off from being statistically significant sample of the population that the variation rate at this point is a worthless data point.
      • nonbel 9y ago
        Statistical significance doesn't imbue a datapoint with worth, but I guess that thinking is why many research literatures are unreliable because people filter which results get published.
• uoaei 9y ago
  How does one differentiate "expatriate" and "emigrant"? Why is the term "expatriate" only reserved for those who originate from Western countries?
  • IIAOPSW 9y ago
    expats don't plan to die in the country they moved to. Usually they are there for less than 10 years. Expats don't get citizenship in the new country. No the term is not just Western exceptionalism. Yes it can apply to people not from Western countries.
    • timgrahamtech 9y ago
      People generally move to another country in search of a better life... not planning where to die. In casual use I hear expatriate used for anything from someone temporarily living abroad to people who have renounced their citizenship - even if still residing in the US. I understand the legal definition for the US is simply someone working in a country that is not their country of origin (https://definitions.uslegal.com/e/expatriate/ https://definitions.uslegal.com/e/expatriate/). In this legal sense, the US applies the term expatriate to Americans who are in other countries but not to people from other countries who are working in the US. Instead, people from outside the US are referred to as aliens until they obtain US citizenship (https://definitions.uslegal.com/a/alien/ https://definitions.uslegal.com/a/alien/). I would not call this an example of Western Exceptionalism. It is rather a phenomenon known as "othering" meaning to portray someone or something as different to emphasize that he/she/it is the other and not us/this. Note you won't find this term in Webster. They were apparently too busy adding "bling" and "ginormous".
  • throw2bit 9y ago
    Thats a common misconception and ignorance of western world in action. Just like they call their native Americans as Indians. And when they say "world", they really mean the North American continent. When they say immigrants, they mean third world people, and when they say expats, its first world country citizens. These misconceptions will change once the solipsistic cloud over the western world clears out.
• m_fayer 9y ago
  I know many American expats here in Berlin in the high-tech and academic worlds. Many say that the current political climate in the US greased the skids for their expatriation. No one says that the impetus was only the political situation, or that they will never return, but rather that it's a major factor in reducing the resistance to expatriation. For many, even those who aren't particularly partisan, the US political situation has become a source of constant low-level anxiety at best, and that generates a kind of exhaustion that makes it easy to throw up your hands and think "to hell with all this."
  • gozur88 9y ago
    I don't see how that's rational after what happened in Hamburg last month.
    • tormeh 9y ago
      There were 15 school shootings in the US last year, according to Wikipedia. Shure, Germany has revolutionary communists, anarchists and néonazis, but the US is a wild place too. I'm sure this image has been distorted by Hollywood et al., but I have the impression that the US is a particularly violent place, at least when compared to Western countries of similar development.
      • dsfyu404ed 9y ago
        >but I have the impression that the US is a particularly violent place, at least when compared to Western countries of similar development. That impression is right and wrong. Violent crime is more common in Europe but murder is more common in the US Violent crime in the US (murder included) is mostly confined to drug trafficking and the downstream crime. Basically unless you or your neighbors associate with those kinds of people who derive their income from illegal drugs you're slightly less likely to encounter violent crime in the US. I'm summarizing a paper I bookmarked awhile back. I'll try and find the link.
      • snoue798rcs 9y ago
        The US is not a particularly violent place for the majority of people in it. There are certainly parts of it that are, but chances are someone reading hacker news would never end up in those parts. I've lived in Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, Miami, Los Angeles, even Flint, Michigan and have even been to some of the less nice parts of those areas. I've never been mugged or beat up or even threatened really. I've had my car broken into once or twice in 50 years, but I was not in or near it at the time. The image Hollywood projects is extremely distorted. I've even known lots of people who owned or really loved guns, and none of them has ever done anything violent with them as far as I know.
• zapperdapper 9y ago
  Interesting, but it's been a growing trend. US is one of the few countries that taxes its citizens who move abroad. This leads many to give up their US passport/citizenship. You may also know that US citizens who open bank accounts here in UK have to declare, specifically that they are US citizens. It's basically a checkbox you clear (or not). That is then flagged back to some 'entity' in the US presumably... One thing I did notice that was interesting. If you click the 'raw data' from the Federal Register and scroll down the list of those who have given up citizenship there is one 'Steven Ballmer' listed..I had to chuckle at that one...
  • cr1895 9y ago
    >US is one of the few countries that taxes its citizens who move abroad. More precisely it is taxation by citizenship, not residence. For example, the Netherlands will happily tax everyone on their assets worldwide, but you're not going to be paying Dutch income taxes if you're not living and working in the Netherlands.
    • UnoriginalGuy 9y ago
      > More precisely it is taxation by citizenship, not residence. Both. Non-citizens (inc. illegal immigrants) are required to pay US taxes just for residing in the United States. The US will actually give non-citizens a unique tax ID (TIN) for this express purpose. So the US will tax both based on residential status AND citizenship status.
      • seanmcdirmid 9y ago
        You can also get an ITIN for non resident aliens, as I found out when I married my wife abroad and needed to put her on my taxes so I could "married filing jointly" and not get screwed on taxes. In at case, the US is effectively taxing a non-resident non-citizen, which is another level of bizarre (but the foreign tax deduction makes it OK in the end).
      • tormeh 9y ago
        To paraphrase: "Illegal immigrants to the US are required to pay US taxes" That's... Slightly insane?
• sergefaguet 9y ago
  Makes perfect sense. The US is the most wealthy-unfriendly tax regime in the world. I have friends who have never lived or worked in the US amd yet are asked to pay high US taxes. They hate it and will leave. The people who get naturalized are all people with no meaningful assets. Plus many global banks will not open us citizens accounts. In other words being a US citizen is no upside and all downside.
  • sjg007 9y ago
    You only get taxed on income above a certain amount and you don't usually pay double taxation on taxes you paid to the country you live in. It's not that big of deal except that you have to file the tax return.
    • MarchHare 9y ago
      It's not a big deal if you haven't made the egregious choice of investing any extra money you may have earned, perhaps via an ETF. Furthermore, good luck finding a place to invest in the first place. If looking for a US company, the likes of Vanguard and Charles Stanley will freeze your account if they find you reside outside the US. In the UK, I've gotten very used to seeing the text 'we are unable to open accounts for US, Cuban, Iran, Sudan, Syria, and North Korea persons'. I make well below the standard deduction and just want to save a bit for my future. The US laws as they stand make this very difficult.
      • thisone 9y ago
        quite. For my SIPP provider, I've ended up having to go with one of the more expensive providers, when all I need is one of the cheap diy ones, because the cheap diy ones don't allow US citizens to open accounts When I called to change my address for an old work Fidelity IRA years back, the panic in the advisors voice, as he informed me I'd no longer be able to contribute to the fund, was kinda funny. Considering I'd never personally contributed to the account in the first place.
        • 9y ago
• deleted 9y ago
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• nvarsj 9y ago
  As an expat, the main reason I'd give up my citizenship is dealing with the extremely onerous IRS and FINCEN filing requirements. Last year I probably spent 20-40 hours on this crap, just to prove I owe nothing. My tax return has been to tax court even though it was 100% perfect, simply because IRS doesn't have the expertise to evaluate their own murky laws around foreign employment. Everything is okay as long as you are a permanent employee without a self-controlled pension. Step out of the bounds and you're in for a world of pain. It seems so unnecessary and stupid to me. You also get double taxed on some things, like house purchase/sales in the UK. Expats really get the shaft from the US gov. Note it's not cheap to expatriate either. It's 2000 a family member plus possible exit tax. IRS can also pursue you for taxes afterwards if they think you did it to explicitly avoid taxes. There is no 100% escape.
  • cr1895 9y ago
    >Expats really get the shaft from the US gov. And worse, while you're still entitled to vote for your representatives in the last place you lived in the US, politically, why would they even give you the time of day? There are a lot of Americans living abroad, estimated to be 3-9 million, excluding military. Collectively more than a number of states. Yet their distribution means that Americans' voices abroad fall on deaf ears in Washington.
    • rbcgerard 9y ago
      It would be nice if the US allocated some house seats to expats like many European counties.
      • delinka 9y ago
        If you're an expatriate (i.e. you've given up your citizenship), why do you need voting representation? I don't see the logic here.
        • socialist_coder 9y ago
          no taxation without representation! also, he's not saying that ppl who give up their citizenship should have fair voting representation. it's the people who are still americans who just happen to live overseas. we are still paying US taxes and therefore should have proper representation. if i didnt have to pay US taxes, i wouldn't care.
• throw2bit 9y ago
  Its funny to see if a first world country citizen moves to another country he is called an Expat and the third world citizens are called immigrants. A common misconception. If you have given up your US citizenship, you are an immigrant. Not an expat.
  • return0 9y ago
    People have a reason to make that distinction. You are not bound to see humanitarian aid for expats anytime soon. Also, i dont think it's a term reserved for westerners. What do you call a rich saudi who currently lives in miami, an immigrant?
• ForRealsies 9y ago
  So they replace constant low-level anxiety of politics with low-level anxiety of getting hit by a truck?
  • brational 9y ago
    >low-level anxiety of getting hit by a truck no, that one replaces the low-level anxiety of getting shot.
    • ForRealsies 9y ago
      I can protect myself in one country, not in the other one.
      • wlll 9y ago
        What on earth are you talking about?
        • vkou 9y ago
          He thinks he's in a John Wayne film, where a guy with a bright T-shirt that says 'TERRORIST' across it will announce his intentions, before opening fire with an AK-47 in a public place. He will then draw his Smith & Wesson, and put the criminal down with one well-placed shot. In the real world, this is, of course, laughable. Even people with guns don't fight back against armed gunmen, for two reasons. 1. Most of the time, you have no idea who the armed gunman is. 2. You are very likely to be mistaken for the gunman, and shot and killed by the police.
      • celim307 9y ago
        Ounce of prevention is worth a pound of a cure. I'll take never being shot over being shot while carrying a gun and maybe shooting them back, anyday
  • oddevan 9y ago
    I can do more to not get hit by a truck than to try and convince my elected representatives to behave in a manner I consider upright and positive. There are a plethora of reasons I wouldn't take this option (friends, family, taxes, culture, property, etc), but if it was a fully even choice between "politics" and "cars," I'd take cars.
• MarchHare 9y ago
  I find myself in the odd position of hoping for republican tax reform to happen, if only for the repeal of FATCA (S. 869)
• dade_ 9y ago
  Based on the names, could it just be that the baby boomers are retiring and going home? They are a very large demographic and I imagine their options for reasonable priced healthcare insurance are shrinking.
• mmosta 9y ago
  Well written and well presented. This exactly the kind of solid out-reach that gets me to click through and take a look at the axibase product.
• zip1234 9y ago
  It says the NUMBER of people doing so is at an all time high. How many per capita? The absolute number is kind of silly to use as the population grows over time...
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• squozzer 9y ago
  >Abraham Lincoln’s second term was viewed as the tightening of federal authority to excessive levels that ultimately led to the American Civil War By Lincoln's second term, the American Civil War was already underway.