Re: Re: Potential bad tax news for USA expats.
getonwithit said:
i knew nothing about u.s. tax laws and find the differences between them and those of my own country fascinating.
International tax law is of little interest to anyone, except the accounting nerds at large firms like KPMG who make a handsome living off it. If there are 80,000 Americans in the DR, then I suppose there are probably as many of all other foreign nationalities who are a blithely unaware of international tax law - as it does not concern them.
Only Americans have this singular priviledge of what amounts to double taxation. Now, if Congress, in its supreme wisdom, could "suspend" the double taxation of equity dividends, might there not be hope that they "suspend"
ad infinitum double taxation of expats?
Nah ...
There is not a nation on earth, once having established a tax scheme, that will seek to reform it profoundly regardless of how archaic it has become. There are too many "entitlements" that might be menaced.
The point is this: If an American is thinking of living abroad for good, he/she should consider going "underground". That is, sever all ties that bind with the mother country, and pay only local taxes. I mention this in the spirit of American forebears who dumped all that tea in Boston harbour. Taxation without representation, that bane of English colonialism, is just as vibrant an injustice today as it was two hundred and fifty years ago.