Potential bad tax news for USA expats.

[Amicus]

At the risk of repeating myself, I find extra-territorial taxation unjust. Taxes are intended to support various government services but as an expat those services (except the IRS!) never are of the least necessity.

Oh, yes, once I asked a local US consultat to renew my passport. Big deal.

As well, saying that taxation is the "price of being an American citizen" just doesn't hold water.

 

[Amicus]

jazzcom: Now there is a good reason to get DR citizenship

Unfortunately, that won't help in the least. Expat taxes are due regardless of any additional citizenship of all Americans living abroad for more than 330 days.

Renouncing American citizenship would do the trick, however.

 

[getonwithit]

Word of warning, if this turns into a "nasty" political thread regarding USA politics I will remove it.

i have nothing to add to this thread, but i would like to say that i have been reading it with a lot of interest, and that it has developed into one of the better threads that i have seen so far (obviously amicus has helped with that).
i knew nothing about u.s. tax laws and find the differences between them and those of my own country fascinating.

actually, i lied. i do have something to add.
as robert implied, we could have used this to take the mickey out of the americans again, but nobody has really done that. as a result, the thread has kept a good and interesting line, whether you agree with american politics or not.
i am impressed with you all.

(if this has opened the door to some moron, who is no longer able to restrain himself from said mickey taking, then i apologise).

 

[Amicus]

Re: Re: Potential bad tax news for USA expats.

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.