Comment by itkovian_
1 day ago
The US isn’t what it used to be. It’s definitely not the best place in the world to live for quality of life, on basically any metric.
The requirement of being permanently obligated to pay us taxes on global income, if you have any kind of global mobility, is not worth it when you look at the situation objectively. The US is the only country that requires this, and signing up is voluntarily.
So while US immigration continues to act as though people will jump through any hoop they put up in order to be granted the extreme privilege of being able to live in the country indefinitely, it’s worth realising it’s not the 70s anymore and thats a goal many people are no longer optimizing for. In fact the opposite - the most talented people I know are all planning their lives to not settle long term in the US.
There's a term called "US Person". Many European banks will refuse to open your bank account if you're a "US Person" and require upfront declaration that I'm not a "US Person."
Reason? Because banks don't want to deal with the mandatory annual reporting of the "US Persons" to US government on regular basis.
Their solution? Don't have a "US Person" as your client.
This appears to have been downvoted but everything is completely factual in what the parent poster said. I have literally been told by many banks they can't help me due to this.
People said the same when the $100K fee for H1b was introduced, and said that the US won't be able to fill the 85,000 spots. But there were 211,600 applications in the last cycle.
Also, your other 'facts' are incorrect. The US for example has the highest amount of disposable income per family, has a lower tax burden (despite your complaint about it) then almost all developed countries, and there is one more (small) country with global taxation.
USA joins the esteemed nation of Liberia in having global taxation.
Eritrea too.
They're not collecting 85,000 * $100k. I'd guess the majority will be adjustments and therefore circumvent the fee.
Correct - it has significantly shifted the makeup:
1. Master degree holders increased from 57.0% to 71.5%
2. Average wage increased by ~30% (estimated from the massive drop in the number of applications from the lowest category.
3. The balance has shifted from foreign workers to students in the US (F-1 visa), because they are exempt from the $100K fee.
I actually wish HN covered this, as many people were complaining about H1b being abused by abusive software companies bringing in cheap labor. About how hard it is for students studying in America to stay in America, etc.
But now we can't actually discuss a topic without attributing it to a person, so if it's attributed to Trump, all discussions become a shitshow.
The extreme privilege of being forced to pay a major portion of all income you make, regardless of where you earn it, to the us gov indefinitely. And they make it hard for you to apply to do this. Crazy.
> being forced to pay a major portion of all income you make, regardless of where you earn it
If you're a US citizen living abroad you get a Foreign Earned Income Exclusion of $130,000 for 2025 taxes. So if your income was $130k you'd pay zero in US taxes. You potentially also get to deduct housing costs and get a credit for foreign taxes you already paid among other things.
If you're paying a "major portion of your income" as a US citizen living overseas you're probably pretty dang wealthy. Go wipe your tears with your bands of $100 bills.
The FEIE and foreign tax credits are just there to limit the scope of double taxation, and often they can't even do that much. Then you have to consider the cost of compliance, requiring specialist tax advice encompassing two countries; the difficulty of obtaining financial services because of FATCA; the frequent impossibility of saving for retirement because of the way the U.S. treats foreign investment funds (PFIC).
There's a reason no other country on earth tries to do this.
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And yet why do people want this?
> The requirement of being permanently obligated to pay us taxes on global income
Many countries have higher rates than the US and have reciprocal treaties to avoid double taxation. In practice it means many people end up paying zero taxes to the US. Of course it will depend on the country you want to reside in, but then what's the point of seeking out a US passport?
> The US isn’t what it used to be. It’s definitely not the best place in the world to live for quality of life, on basically any metric.
There is actually a list with metrics https://greatcountry.org (disclaimer: my pet project)
#27th
Interesting project!
I would say some of the indicators are a little odd.
Some of them are questionable in terms of capturing the spirit of the idea ("violent crime" being the same in the UK and the US is a surprising one to me for example. It's capturing serious assault per 100k, but is then not considering murder as violent crime. You have murder later, but maybe combine / group them?).
Some are confusing because they are not clear politically: everyone wants less violent crime, but I don't know your politics and so have no idea which direction you have weighted net migration and asylum/capita.
> It’s definitely not the best place in the world to live for quality of life, on basically any metric.
I guess these immigrants must be stupid.
To be perfectly clear. The US has a much higher standard of living than the vast majority of countries in the world and people from those countries hope to improve their lives by moving there.
The US has a lower standard of living than basically all OECD countries.
To use a sports analogy, the US is last place on the pro league ladder, while also being first place on the “everyone else” ladder.
Also there is a bit of inertia. In people's imaginations, the US still seems to glimmer, even if the reality isn't the same.
I don’t think this captures the full story. The US has a bimodal standard of living reflected as a lower mean relative to other advanced nations.
It can be simultaneously true that immigrants to the U.S. from both advanced and developing nations both experience a higher standard of living than their countries of origin.
Immigrating to the U.S. with an advanced degree in an in-demand field: you likely will experience a higher standard of living.
Immigrating to the U.S. from a developing country without a particularly in-demand career: you likely will experience a higher standard of living.
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That the US is a better place to live than Venezuela or Guatemala or Haiti isn't crossing a very high bar of well developed countries.
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The President confirmed this. They're not sending their best.
Literally how could he possibly know that? He's just saying racist things because he's obviously a racist. Haitian immigrants aren't eating cats or dogs either, we need to stop listening to him as an authority on anything. If Donald Trump is saying something, you should automatically assume it's a lie. Any other course of action isn't reasonable.
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