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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

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.
    - MarchHare 9y ago
      Out of curiosity what SIPP provider do you use? Interactive brokers are the only broker I've found to actually advertise as for expats, but the 10k min is a bit much for me.
      - thisone 9y ago
        Hargreaves Landsdown. I've found the platform easy. They're good at getting the 20% top up, though it takes about 4-6 weeks after each deposit for the extra 20% to be deposited. Not the cheapest though, but I think they may actually be cheaper than my work place pension! I need to sit down and work it out. I started with a £20 deposit, and just set up a monthly transfer.
  - cr1895 9y ago
    > 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. Ugh, this is maddening. I had a Kafka-esque conversation with a Charles Schwab dude whose scripted answers almost comically changed when he learned that I lived in the Netherlands. It was fine at first, even with the understanding I lived abroad. But their deceptively advertized "expat services" only apply to Americans living in HK and UK. It wasn't as bad when I called Vanguard, aside from the non-answers they kept giving me at first (they kept saying it was against US regulations and illegal, which I know to be false; when I pressed, they admitted it was purely their own company policy). At least she wasn't literally reading from a script and took the time to check with some supervisors.
    - MarchHare 9y ago
      I love how vanguard.com will redirect to vanguard.co.uk, which will then proceed to inform that they do work with US persons.
- kalleboo 9y ago
  I hear some Americans here with pretty standard work income+pension savings say that they end up spending $1000+/year for an accountant who is educated in cross-border US taxes to prepare their filings that always end up as $0 owed. Seems like a massive burden to me.
  - thisone 9y ago
    If the US doesn't have a tax treaty with the country you are in, pensions become quite difficult. Even in countries like the UK where there is a tax treaty in place, it can be difficult because the UK offers a wide variety of tax wrappers to encourage people to save money. But those tax wrappers can count as PFICs for US taxes and you won't be getting the paperwork you need to do a QEF, so you have to Mark To Market I farked up on an ISA because I never knew about any of this and ended up owing over $1000 in back taxes. If I had known enough to declare the PFIC correctly from the date I started it, I wouldn't have owed any where near that amount of tax on it :(
braythwayt 9y ago
> The US is the most wealthy-unfriendly tax regime in the world. I'd like to hear more about this. I'm a Canadian, and our conservative politicians are always saying that WE are the most wealthy-unfriendly tax regime in the world, and that it is stifling investment. And I keep reading about how in Scandanavian countries, the rich have to give nearly all of their income back to the state, but they are impossibly nice people, so they don't mind. Are Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark friendlier to the wealthy AND providing Universal Health Care to their citizens?
- yoz-y 9y ago
  Well, in France we have national celebrities who prefer to take Russian citizenship rather than pay taxes here. So I think we have the most wealthy-unfriendly tax regime in the world.
  - sebtoast 9y ago
    Out of curiosity, can you name some of those celebrities? I know Gerard Depardieu moved to Russia, but haven't heard about others. Thanks.
    - yoz-y 9y ago
      I know only this one particular case, sorry for the exageration. However thousands of (nameless) millionaires have left france in these past years (according to http://www.lalsace.fr/actualite/2017/04/11/de-plus-en-plus-de-millionnaires-quittent-la-france http://www.lalsace.fr/actualite/2017/04/11/de-plus-en-plus-d...) it was 12000 in 2016, 10000 in 2015 and 6000 in 2014. Not a very good development.
      - sebtoast 9y ago
        That's a lot of people, thanks for the reply.
- cr1895 9y ago
  >the rich have to give nearly all of their income back to the state High-income tax rates are high, but not that high.
cr1895 9y ago
>The US is the most wealthy-unfriendly tax regime in the world. [citation needed] The US has no wealth taxes like some European countries, and long-term capital gains tax is 15%. Just to pick a few counterexamples: Denmark has 42% capital gains tax on gains over ~$7600. Netherlands has a 1.2% asset tax on assets held worldwide over something like $20k. >I have friends who have never lived or worked in the US amd yet are asked to pay high US taxes. Asked to pay or just to file?
- SeoxyS 9y ago
  Long-term capital gains hasn't been 15% for a long time. We can thank Obama for that. Furthermore, in any state that's remotely desirable to live in, you can throw in another 10-13% on top of those 20% capital gains. US taxes are absurdly complex and expensive. The upside is that the system can be fairly easy to game / optimize.
  - plandis 9y ago
    Long term capital gains are 20% if you're in the top tax bracket (making a little under $500k/yr) so I doubt you'll find many people being sympathetic there. It's 15% on long term gains for the majority of people.
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    Long term capital gains is 15% until you hit a super high income tax bracket. Many states lack capital gains taxes at all (e.g. Washington, which I find very livable). Thanks Obama.
- sergefaguet 9y ago
  The US is the only country that taxes worldwide income. So i travel between different countries without living much in any particular one and i pay zero tax. And if i ever want to live somewhere fulltime, i can defer income into trusts and collect it in future years when i happen to not be domiciled anywhere. Options available to everyone except US citizens. Or for example my friends in Russia who are US citizens have to pay a crazy US rate instead of the far more reasonable 13% in russia. All the comments about scandi countries assume people actually declare income without using many more legal strategies available there compared with the US. The effective tax situation for wealthy US citizens is actually much worse, it is just obfuscated by the headline number.
monsieurbanana 9y ago
"In other words being a US citizen is no upside and all downside." Spoken as a true first-world citizen.
- sergefaguet 9y ago
  I'm not :)
rbcgerard 9y ago
Hardly - if you are wealthy and LIVE in the US it's very good compared to many other countries. I'd hazard that most of the repatriations/expatriations are from people living abroad and sick of the burdens of US tax/financial compliance
- sergefaguet 9y ago
  See comment above about trusts.
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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.
  - MarchHare 9y ago
    Out of curiosity what SIPP provider do you use? Interactive brokers are the only broker I've found to actually advertise as for expats, but the 10k min is a bit much for me.
    - thisone 9y ago
      Hargreaves Landsdown. I've found the platform easy. They're good at getting the 20% top up, though it takes about 4-6 weeks after each deposit for the extra 20% to be deposited. Not the cheapest though, but I think they may actually be cheaper than my work place pension! I need to sit down and work it out. I started with a £20 deposit, and just set up a monthly transfer.
- cr1895 9y ago
  > 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. Ugh, this is maddening. I had a Kafka-esque conversation with a Charles Schwab dude whose scripted answers almost comically changed when he learned that I lived in the Netherlands. It was fine at first, even with the understanding I lived abroad. But their deceptively advertized "expat services" only apply to Americans living in HK and UK. It wasn't as bad when I called Vanguard, aside from the non-answers they kept giving me at first (they kept saying it was against US regulations and illegal, which I know to be false; when I pressed, they admitted it was purely their own company policy). At least she wasn't literally reading from a script and took the time to check with some supervisors.
  - MarchHare 9y ago
    I love how vanguard.com will redirect to vanguard.co.uk, which will then proceed to inform that they do work with US persons.
kalleboo 9y ago
I hear some Americans here with pretty standard work income+pension savings say that they end up spending $1000+/year for an accountant who is educated in cross-border US taxes to prepare their filings that always end up as $0 owed. Seems like a massive burden to me.
- thisone 9y ago
  If the US doesn't have a tax treaty with the country you are in, pensions become quite difficult. Even in countries like the UK where there is a tax treaty in place, it can be difficult because the UK offers a wide variety of tax wrappers to encourage people to save money. But those tax wrappers can count as PFICs for US taxes and you won't be getting the paperwork you need to do a QEF, so you have to Mark To Market I farked up on an ISA because I never knew about any of this and ended up owing over $1000 in back taxes. If I had known enough to declare the PFIC correctly from the date I started it, I wouldn't have owed any where near that amount of tax on it :(

braythwayt 9y ago

> The US is the most wealthy-unfriendly tax regime in the world. I'd like to hear more about this. I'm a Canadian, and our conservative politicians are always saying that WE are the most wealthy-unfriendly tax regime in the world, and that it is stifling investment. And I keep reading about how in Scandanavian countries, the rich have to give nearly all of their income back to the state, but they are impossibly nice people, so they don't mind. Are Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark friendlier to the wealthy AND providing Universal Health Care to their citizens?

yoz-y 9y ago
Well, in France we have national celebrities who prefer to take Russian citizenship rather than pay taxes here. So I think we have the most wealthy-unfriendly tax regime in the world.
- sebtoast 9y ago
  Out of curiosity, can you name some of those celebrities? I know Gerard Depardieu moved to Russia, but haven't heard about others. Thanks.
  - yoz-y 9y ago
    I know only this one particular case, sorry for the exageration. However thousands of (nameless) millionaires have left france in these past years (according to http://www.lalsace.fr/actualite/2017/04/11/de-plus-en-plus-de-millionnaires-quittent-la-france http://www.lalsace.fr/actualite/2017/04/11/de-plus-en-plus-d...) it was 12000 in 2016, 10000 in 2015 and 6000 in 2014. Not a very good development.
    - sebtoast 9y ago
      That's a lot of people, thanks for the reply.
cr1895 9y ago
>the rich have to give nearly all of their income back to the state High-income tax rates are high, but not that high.

cr1895 9y ago

>The US is the most wealthy-unfriendly tax regime in the world. [citation needed] The US has no wealth taxes like some European countries, and long-term capital gains tax is 15%. Just to pick a few counterexamples: Denmark has 42% capital gains tax on gains over ~$7600. Netherlands has a 1.2% asset tax on assets held worldwide over something like $20k. >I have friends who have never lived or worked in the US amd yet are asked to pay high US taxes. Asked to pay or just to file?

SeoxyS 9y ago
Long-term capital gains hasn't been 15% for a long time. We can thank Obama for that. Furthermore, in any state that's remotely desirable to live in, you can throw in another 10-13% on top of those 20% capital gains. US taxes are absurdly complex and expensive. The upside is that the system can be fairly easy to game / optimize.
- plandis 9y ago
  Long term capital gains are 20% if you're in the top tax bracket (making a little under $500k/yr) so I doubt you'll find many people being sympathetic there. It's 15% on long term gains for the majority of people.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  Long term capital gains is 15% until you hit a super high income tax bracket. Many states lack capital gains taxes at all (e.g. Washington, which I find very livable). Thanks Obama.
sergefaguet 9y ago
The US is the only country that taxes worldwide income. So i travel between different countries without living much in any particular one and i pay zero tax. And if i ever want to live somewhere fulltime, i can defer income into trusts and collect it in future years when i happen to not be domiciled anywhere. Options available to everyone except US citizens. Or for example my friends in Russia who are US citizens have to pay a crazy US rate instead of the far more reasonable 13% in russia. All the comments about scandi countries assume people actually declare income without using many more legal strategies available there compared with the US. The effective tax situation for wealthy US citizens is actually much worse, it is just obfuscated by the headline number.

monsieurbanana 9y ago

"In other words being a US citizen is no upside and all downside." Spoken as a true first-world citizen.

sergefaguet 9y ago
I'm not :)

rbcgerard 9y ago

Hardly - if you are wealthy and LIVE in the US it's very good compared to many other countries. I'd hazard that most of the repatriations/expatriations are from people living abroad and sick of the burdens of US tax/financial compliance

sergefaguet 9y ago
See comment above about trusts.

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