5 ms·

"Unlike other countries, Americans are taxed not only as residents of the US but also as citizens, wherever they live." Huh?? Just because you are a US citizen

• dutchbrit 13y ago
  Yes, being a US citizen requires you to pay the US tax, even though you live in a different country, work in that country and already pay tax in that country. It's been like that for a long time already, pretty rediculous of you ask me!
  • seanmcdirmid 13y ago
    Note that you often don't get double taxed. They just want the difference between what you would pay in the USA vs. what you actually pay in country B, after $97k that is. If you are in a country with higher taxes than the states, which is most of the world actually, you won't be paying anything more (just watch out for HK, Singapore, and Switzerland).
    • capisce 13y ago
      Having to go through the form hell of filing US taxes seems like a tax in itself.
      • seanmcdirmid 13y ago
        Every year I spend a couple of hours on it, and I do my taxes by hand at that. The hardest part is figuring out where to find a post office to mail the forms out. They seem to change each year (I could also drop it off at the embassy I guess, but that would require 15 or 20 more minutes to get in the front door).
• ekianjo 13y ago
  France was also trying to do that recently, since the government there spends way more than they can hope to "steal" from their citizens. They thought it was a good idea to try to tax citizens living abroad (on top of the taxes paid abroad). If they ever did that, I can tell you a number of French citizens living abroad would just drop their French passport without hesitation.
  • gamblor956 13y ago
    A number of French citizens, including nearly a dozen billionaires, actually did renounce their French citizenship over the proposed tax scheme. Gerarad Depardieu is the most famous of them, but not the wealthiest. One of the Facebook founders similarly renounced his U.S. citizenship prior to its IPO.
  • pekk 13y ago
    Taxation is not theft, it is lawful. The developed world is founded on taxes.
    • Frozenlock 13y ago
      And war isn't murdering people? Just because something has the backing of a government doesn't change the definition of words. You can argue who is the owner of the money being taxed, but you can't say something is or isn't because it's lawful.
      • wmt 13y ago
        My ISP insists that I must allow them to steal my money on monthly basis or they would cut my Internet! Taxes are not theft, but a membership fee. Its perks are roads, fire department, schools, laws and law enforcement, protection from foreign armies and basically keeping the society together.
        • Afforess 13y ago
          Except your argument makes no sense if you DONT LIVE IN AMERICA. If you pay US Taxes but live elsewhere, you are in fact getting robbed. Your local and government services are not provided by America, you get almost no representation from America, and yet you pay full taxes. Complete highway robbery.
• sipior 13y ago
  Yes, although there is a high deductible (~$80k, as I recall). It's never been something I needed to worry about, but FATCA most definitely will be. I don't know the answer to your last question, but I've never personally heard of another nation with similar policies.
  • bsullivan01 13y ago
    Do you still have to file US taxes though? Say you make $60K in Germany, well under the deductible, and do not file US taxes for 10 years. Is there a penalty just for not filing? penalties can cripple you.
    • sipior 13y ago
      Yes, I believe you are still obligated to file. Not sure how rigidly that's policed, though.
• ronilan 13y ago
  According to Wikipedia Eritrea also has a citizenship based tax system. They do however use the metric system over there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_taxation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_taxation
• brudgers 13y ago
  US citizens living abroad are able to avail themselves of services through embassies and consulates for ordinary problems and call upon the USMC etc. for assistance with extraordinary ones.
  • Lewisham 13y ago
    Are you trying to say that US citizens abroad are paying for the services of their embassy? That's crazy. Every expat citizen from any country is offered help from their home country's embassy, and they do it without citizen-based taxation. I could walk into the British consulate in San Francisco tomorrow and expect help, and I haven't paid taxes in the UK for 5 years now.
  • yardie 13y ago
    If that is what the embassies and consulates are for than I wouldn't have a problem with that. At the moment I have to call a number to make an appointment and get shaked down by consulate security to get in to file an announcement of birth. I also have to pay a fee for that same announcement. I think you are under the impression US embassies are a country club that expats just go to and have a cocktail from time to time.
    • deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
• nohuck13 13y ago
  In practice, the US has lots of bilateral income tax treaties [1] that prevent expats' getting doubly taxed. For example, I'm an American living in London but I don't pay US taxes for work done here because the tax rate is higher here and by treaty, the UK gets first crack at me. I know a few Americans in (low-tax) Singapore who have to pay Singapore taxes, then pay the on top of that to the US government up to the level they would have been taxed if living in the US. I get extra pain when I go on business trips to the states, which the US doesn't count as being foreign work. So every year I have to fill in a spreadsheet of all the days I worked in each country, and subtract the US days from my tax treaty credits. I have to do the same thing in reverse for the HMRC in the UK. My least favorite part of being an expat :) [1] http://www.rumbaklaw.com/resources-and-tools/us-federal-tax-resources/countries-with-and-without-income-tax-treaties-with-the-u-s/ http://www.rumbaklaw.com/resources-and-tools/us-federal-tax-...