Comment by pjc50
15 days ago
The US is unique in levying taxes on its nationals wherever they are in the world.
Although you've just made an argument for capital controls. We could call them "dollar export tariffs".
15 days ago
The US is unique in levying taxes on its nationals wherever they are in the world.
Although you've just made an argument for capital controls. We could call them "dollar export tariffs".
Believe it or not but there are Americans who relinquish their passport precisely because of this reason. Patriotism is automatically assumed but we live in a globalised world.
The US is fairly unique in imposing an "expatriation" tax precisely to avoid this situation. The IRS taxes all of their assets as if sold on the day before expatriation.
Of course collecting taxes internationally is difficult, but anyone wealthy enough to meet the criteria will probably need to visit the US at some point.
Did you know that US has tools to claim part of your wealth even if you relinquishment the citizenship. Google "exit tax" for us citizens.
The US exit tax is a tax on your worldwide assets. The tax applies to all property that you own on the date of renunciation
Most of the times I've heard of it happening it's someone who's net worth is well below the threshold for this (indeed well below the threshold where they actually need to pay any income tax to the US government), but because of the headache of needing to file the paperwork and the fact that a lot of banks don't want to deal with US citizens due to extra requirements imposed on them by the US government (via its financial system).
1 reply →
That seems very likely, but I'd like the names of a few billionaires to verify.
The USA is not unique but member of a very exclusive club. The other member is the enlightened dictatorship of Eritrea. And, IIRC, Trump promised to abolish this taxation during his campaign. I'm not holding my breath.