Actually, the US tax issue doesn't care where you live / work / reside / domicile, that's the problem. The US is one of the FEW countries that taxes it citizens regardless of where you live in the world and / or if you are additional paying taxes to foreign governments (since you live / work there). Only bonus you get living outside the US is the first $80K USD is tax-free (federal and state, not FICA (which is paid at 15% since you count as self-employed for tax purposes regardless if you work for a foreign company)). The US looks at it as a kind of future benefits tax. You have NOT given up your US citizenship so obviously one day you do plan to return and live in the US (regardless of truth or not). The taxes you pay while you are not here will support the federal benefits and infrastructure you receive when you do one day decide to return to the US and live. While one could argue you could not report / misreport the monies you made while working / living in a foreign country, that is tax evasion and something the feds don't take kindly to (especially if you bring yourself back to the states to live / visit). Its not as if you can keep it under the table either, your entry / exit records at the US border are kept file. Kind of suspicious not making *ANY* money in the years you lived overseas, raises an eyebrow or two with the IRS. Additional, you are not authorized to declare you have no intention to ever returning to the US live (some states allow you to declare this is writing making you exempt from ALL state taxes). Your options are: 1. Keep US citizenship, pay FICA (and taxes +$80K USD) 2. Keep US citizenship, misreport taxes, risk tax evasion. 3. Pay US taxes until you establish residency in another nation. Official surrender your US citizenship. 4. Immediately surrender your US citizenship (before gaining residency in another nation). You official become a 'stateless person (UN)'. Risky boat to be in. While 3 looks to be the best choice, nice things about being a citizen of the sole superpower is: 1. Can always go back to the US, its relatively stable. 2. US State Dept. honestly does care and try to help US citizens living in foreign countries (even today). 3. US Passport is a gateway to anywhere, very very few visa requirements. Nice thing to have. So for us who never plan to return to the US it comes down to money, just how much is our US Citizenship worth to us. Is that passport / legal status worth the yearly fee required. Its a question we all must ask ourselves. -Peter DISCLAIMER: This message in no way reflects upon the official opinions / policies of the US Army or Sprint. The opinion expressed above is the sole responsibility of the sender.
-----Original Message----- From: Bill Stewart [mailto:bill.stewart@pobox.com] Sent: Sunday, April 27, 2003 09:05 To: cypherpunks@lne.com Subject: Re: The Freest Country?
At 09:18 PM 04/26/2003 -0700, Tim May wrote:
[This space reserved for insertion of usual silliness about living out of suitcase, stuffed or not, and being a "perpetual tourist," which only works if one is below a certain net worth and if one likes to travel a lot.]
There are different kinds of perpetual tourism, some of which involve less travelling than others. I have friends who are believed by the Netherlands bureaucrats to be spending their time in Belgium, and by the Belgian bureaucrats to be over in the Netherlands.
I think the apartment in the Netherlands is probably different than their official when-we're-not-outside-the-country address, and that their Belgian address is a mailbox, but I could have that backwards, and at least one of their addresses is probably owned by a corporation, and their net worth is probably in Switzerland or some such location, but while their net worth is fine, I think they're probably retired or at most "consulting" rather than doing full-time work. On the other hand, one nice thing about that area is that if they _do_ need to be out of the country, it's an hour or two across an unguarded border.
I don't know if it's as easy to confuse the US and Canada about which country you're living in, and while the borders are permeable, they're a lot more thoroughly audited than they used to be, so maybe you need to spend more time on the ferryboat to Vancouver instead of driving or flying commercially.