US Expat Taxation

Note that USA citizens living abroad, no matter for how long, are required to pay USA income tax. The only way out of this parasitic arrangement is to give up your citizenship. The USA charges hefty fees for citizenship renouncement. They know you're doing it for money and want to squeeze something out of you before you get away for good.

not an expert, but I thought the US is unique in that you can't escape taxes unless you renounce citizenship. and even then, there's an exit tax

Emigrating does not absolve one of the duty to pay taxes in the US. Renouncing citizenship does, but doing so for tax reasons is already illegal and those that do would be taxed anyway when renouncing.

Not if you're a US citizen :) even renouncing forces you to pay taxes to the IRS on your way out the door (the expatriation tax: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/expa...)

It is not that simple to renounce US citizenship. As op wrote, if they think that you are renouncing because of taxes, they will flat out deny your request. Furthermore, changing tax law for an expat is virtually impossible because it is very hard to vote from abroad, and expats are very diverse so no one politician would care to represent them.

Most countries don't tax their citizens abroad though, so there's no real necessity to give up citizenship.The US charges far more to give up citizenship than most other countries, and requires you to pay any outstanding tax before you can do so. For some people that is just not possible. What exactly are they supposed to do now that they can't access any financial services?

It's extremely funny that the US kind of does the same thing in a roundabout way - if you're a US citizen, you have to pay taxes to the US government, wherever you live. If you want to abandon your US citizenship, you have to pay an exit tax and pay all the other taxes you owe.

One remarkable thing that most Americans don't seem to know; the US is one of two countries (the other being Eritrea) that takes income tax on income earned while living outside the US. While there are some tax credits that lessen this burden, the only way to free oneself of US income tax is to renounce citizenship. Renouncing citizenship requires a fee of over $2000 and several years of extensive tax records at the IRS's request.

IIRC US citizens are still required to pay income tax to the US even when working and living abroad, which definitely stops some money from flowing outwards. There's probably a way to complete renounce one's US citizenship, but given how it likely would be hard to reenter the country to visit family or friends once you do that, I think the tradeoff ends up being a lot more than people are willing to give up compared to simply moving abroad.

And that's because for some unknown reason the US is one of the few countries that tax based on citizenship, and not residence [1]. It's absurd. Even resigning your citizenship is taxed [2].[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_taxation#Citizen...[2] - <a href="https://nomadcapitalist.com/2018/06/16/tax-con