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For those of us earning middle-class salaries in more social democracies and with sub-7-figure assets, we don’t usually owe anything in taxes to Back Home, but

For those of us earning middle-class salaries in more social democracies and with sub-7-figure assets, we don’t usually owe anything in taxes to Back Home, but have to spend hundreds to thousands of dollars per year proving it. And are shut out of retirement savings in both our chosen homes (no bank wants to deal with FACTA for non-rich customers, and PFIC will eat up any gains should you find a bank willing to let you buy ETFs) and Back Home (no US brokerage will sell an EU resident even the most boring of S&P 500 ETFs). In exchange for paying a lot each year to prove that I don’t owe anything Back Home, and keeping Uncle Sam out of my husband’s business and bank accounts, we have to file separately Here, costing a few thousand more Euros in already impressive taxes. I love Back Home, and am particularly proud of what my grandfathers did Here in WW2, but Back Home seems to be doing all it can to prevent me from having a normal, middle class life and planning a decent retirement over Here.

daniel-cussen 5y ago
I see your point, I think it's backwards but apart from that every logical step is airtight. I am quite familiar with it. So the way we ended up in this situation is that taxes were demonized. Everybody wants someone else to pay taxes, the middle class wants the rich to pay more, the rich I think want higher taxes on high wage earners as though earning a lot each year were the same as a great fortune (this is what Bill Gates says), the poor have really little say, but it's the same thing, they don't want to bear the burden. Nobody wants to bear the burden. Guess what? Nobody bears the burden then [1]. But that can't happen, it's unthinkable. And that means instead of taxes being a friendly system, like getting funds together with your friends to plan a surprise party for a birthday (don't argue that that isn't the exact same thing) it's a system that needs to hunt people down, catch them unawares, and always be suspicious of being cheated because that's exactly what's happening the whole time. Did you think maybe instead of paying a tax lawyer those thousands to protect you from the IRS you just said to the IRS, hey you know what here, here's the money I was going to spend on a tax lawyer, I was going to spend it on doing the math but maybe that's too expensive[2]. Instead of proving I owe nothing, maybe do that, and then pay some amount of money to them. Spending that money on math isn't worthwhile. It's stupid anyway, the math is actually decorative, the reality is fat pigs get slaughtered. It's not because they're a bureaucracy and that's bad it's because they're the one and only bureaucracy that is holding back all kinds of demons, the only one that will be loyal to Americans, and you can't just crap out on it. It's no different than in WW2 like you said. America could totally have decided not to intervene in Europe after Pearl Harbor, and just fought Japan. It was a choice. It could have gone either way. People think it was a sure thing because it was decided by vote and the vote was very one-sided, almost unanimous. They think it's a statistics thing, like you could have predicted it. Sure. It's about collective freedom, really. When I pay taxes that I'm not obliged to pay, and make sure the IRS gets a good margin off me, I turn my personal freedom into collective freedom. Mine and other Americans, including yours in fact. I'm putting the decisions we make together above the decisions I make alone. You have the right, but not the obligation, to do the same. You're doing your best, but I think you can do better. What you put in might even benefit a third person, an American who's reading this. It's not actually a math problem. It's a question of sacrifice. Freedom has a price. You have to sacrifice things. Not give in to some temptations no matter how many times they ask. If you give it up, how will you get it back? [1] If the burden goes without being borne, hell breaks loose. The military can barely afford to surrender to the enemies America very much does have. There's no entitlement spending as though that were any less unacceptable. And freedom is lost. No big deal right? Hey, maybe you can go somewhere else and become a citizen of that place, can't be any harder to become one of them than it was for them to become one of us, right? [2] This is related to the Silva Paradox: what is the cost of solving a problem including the cost of tallying costs? The costs can be time, money, energy. It means taking the cost of accounting into account.
- MandieD 5y ago
  I live and pay taxes in Germany. Do not lecture me on collective freedom. I pay a lot to support my neighbors, and in turn, have enjoyed a year home with my kid (could I have saved far more than what I got in German maternity payments, in the US? Without a doubt. Am I glad for the system anyway, which got me out of the office for a year with full confidence that I’d still have my job? Yes.) No other democracy taxes its citizens living outside the country on money they earned in their countries of residence. For example, Germany would not tax my husband on money he earned while living and working in the US, and would not require him to file income taxes. He would be perfectly free to have both a 401k and Roth account without any concern for reporting back to Germany, as long as he was still a US resident. Should he decide to move back to Germany, it would be easy enough for him to transfer that money to similar German accounts, perhaps with some penalties on the way out. I do not have a parallel ability to save for my retirement as a US citizen in Germany. FATCA makes US citizens with small accounts radioactive - we cost far more to deal with than we’d likely pay in fees. I’m thankful to still have a plain checking account - I know other Americans who had theirs closed. I’m a reasonably content German taxpayer, feeling like I get relatively good value for my tax euros. I’m a sour US tax filer, feeling like my country is doing all it can to force me to work till I’m 70, despite not actually collecting any taxes from me, because I pay so much more in tax to Germany than I’d ever owe in the US (thank God for the small mercy of the US-German tax treaty) Save your vinegar for Americans who want that American cake without paying any taxes, and spare those of us who are eating (and paying for) Strudel or baklava.

daniel-cussen 5y ago

I see your point, I think it's backwards but apart from that every logical step is airtight. I am quite familiar with it. So the way we ended up in this situation is that taxes were demonized. Everybody wants someone else to pay taxes, the middle class wants the rich to pay more, the rich I think want higher taxes on high wage earners as though earning a lot each year were the same as a great fortune (this is what Bill Gates says), the poor have really little say, but it's the same thing, they don't want to bear the burden. Nobody wants to bear the burden. Guess what? Nobody bears the burden then [1]. But that can't happen, it's unthinkable. And that means instead of taxes being a friendly system, like getting funds together with your friends to plan a surprise party for a birthday (don't argue that that isn't the exact same thing) it's a system that needs to hunt people down, catch them unawares, and always be suspicious of being cheated because that's exactly what's happening the whole time. Did you think maybe instead of paying a tax lawyer those thousands to protect you from the IRS you just said to the IRS, hey you know what here, here's the money I was going to spend on a tax lawyer, I was going to spend it on doing the math but maybe that's too expensive[2]. Instead of proving I owe nothing, maybe do that, and then pay some amount of money to them. Spending that money on math isn't worthwhile. It's stupid anyway, the math is actually decorative, the reality is fat pigs get slaughtered. It's not because they're a bureaucracy and that's bad it's because they're the one and only bureaucracy that is holding back all kinds of demons, the only one that will be loyal to Americans, and you can't just crap out on it. It's no different than in WW2 like you said. America could totally have decided not to intervene in Europe after Pearl Harbor, and just fought Japan. It was a choice. It could have gone either way. People think it was a sure thing because it was decided by vote and the vote was very one-sided, almost unanimous. They think it's a statistics thing, like you could have predicted it. Sure. It's about collective freedom, really. When I pay taxes that I'm not obliged to pay, and make sure the IRS gets a good margin off me, I turn my personal freedom into collective freedom. Mine and other Americans, including yours in fact. I'm putting the decisions we make together above the decisions I make alone. You have the right, but not the obligation, to do the same. You're doing your best, but I think you can do better. What you put in might even benefit a third person, an American who's reading this. It's not actually a math problem. It's a question of sacrifice. Freedom has a price. You have to sacrifice things. Not give in to some temptations no matter how many times they ask. If you give it up, how will you get it back? [1] If the burden goes without being borne, hell breaks loose. The military can barely afford to surrender to the enemies America very much does have. There's no entitlement spending as though that were any less unacceptable. And freedom is lost. No big deal right? Hey, maybe you can go somewhere else and become a citizen of that place, can't be any harder to become one of them than it was for them to become one of us, right? [2] This is related to the Silva Paradox: what is the cost of solving a problem including the cost of tallying costs? The costs can be time, money, energy. It means taking the cost of accounting into account.

MandieD 5y ago
I live and pay taxes in Germany. Do not lecture me on collective freedom. I pay a lot to support my neighbors, and in turn, have enjoyed a year home with my kid (could I have saved far more than what I got in German maternity payments, in the US? Without a doubt. Am I glad for the system anyway, which got me out of the office for a year with full confidence that I’d still have my job? Yes.) No other democracy taxes its citizens living outside the country on money they earned in their countries of residence. For example, Germany would not tax my husband on money he earned while living and working in the US, and would not require him to file income taxes. He would be perfectly free to have both a 401k and Roth account without any concern for reporting back to Germany, as long as he was still a US resident. Should he decide to move back to Germany, it would be easy enough for him to transfer that money to similar German accounts, perhaps with some penalties on the way out. I do not have a parallel ability to save for my retirement as a US citizen in Germany. FATCA makes US citizens with small accounts radioactive - we cost far more to deal with than we’d likely pay in fees. I’m thankful to still have a plain checking account - I know other Americans who had theirs closed. I’m a reasonably content German taxpayer, feeling like I get relatively good value for my tax euros. I’m a sour US tax filer, feeling like my country is doing all it can to force me to work till I’m 70, despite not actually collecting any taxes from me, because I pay so much more in tax to Germany than I’d ever owe in the US (thank God for the small mercy of the US-German tax treaty) Save your vinegar for Americans who want that American cake without paying any taxes, and spare those of us who are eating (and paying for) Strudel or baklava.