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Comment by jjcm | Hacker News Reader

For myself (a US citizen living abroad), my biggest annoyance isn't that I'm taxed on my income overseas, it's that it effectively is taxation without representation.

Even though I'm paying tax overseas, there's no US Representative who fights for my interests. I have one who fights for the interests of the residents of a district I lived in years ago, but I have no relation to that anymore. I have a US senator who fights for the interest of the state listed on my old drivers license, but none who represent me as an expat.

The US was founded precisely because those who were living overseas had no representative fighting for their rights, yet they were still taxed. The same thing is happening today. What I want isn't for this tax to stop, it's to have representation.

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Do representatives really and honestly fight for the interests of their constituents or do they simply vote in ideological buckets. Dems with dems and repubs with repubs regardless of where you are? The local interests seem to be subservient to national goals at the federal level. I have yet to see our representatives really fighting for your interests. I'm not seeing much evidence of representative democracy but rather tribal thinking.

They do more than in other countries. Representatives have autonomy to vote as they see fit, without being beholden to the party line, for instance they can vote with their caucus [1].

This is in stark difference to countries like the UK, where MPs have to vote on the party line unless it's declared a conscience vote by the party leader [2]. Voting across party lines in Westminster system parliaments will get you kicked out of the party.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_caucus

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscience_vote

That's not entirely true. Having the Whip removed was a very unusual move by PM Johnson, which is why it gained so much attention. The US Congress is based on the Westminster system. In effect, MPs are allowed to vote however they feel, but there can be consequences to them voting against the party line.

Which is also the case in the US, the party could run a primary challenger to them in the next election.

It's the same case in most parliamentary systems, it's usually right of MPs guaranteed in a constitution. Tradition and procedures, however, tend to ensure party line votes, but there are no legal ramifications, if an MP rebels against the party line.

In France we have representation for citizens living abroad since 2012:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constituencies_for_French_resi...

"The constituencies for French residents overseas are eleven French constituencies, each electing one representative to the National Assembly."

My first thought was "wow, it would be cool if we had something like this in the US". But after a second, I realized that probably many people in the US are so rabidly nationalistic that if this were ever proposed, they would be against it, because "if you don't want to live in our great country, why do you deserve representation?" It's sad, really.

I’m not entirely convinced it’s fair for non residents to vote, especially those that have no intentions of coming back.

Election results for French expats are typically very different from those back home. LePen was not even close to be qualified for a second turn in the last presidential elections in London. Unless you live in France you would typically not be subject to any of the laws the new government would enact, so part of me thinks “why should I have a say in this?”

On the other hand, LePen proposed to strip French expats of their citizenship if they hold other nationalities, so I suppose having a say in the matter was only fair.

I'm totally fine with not voting at the state level. I don't think it makes any sense that I can vote in a state I don't live in, just because it was the last one I lived in before I left the country.

But if they're taxing me, I deserve a vote at the federal level 100%.

>I’m not entirely convinced it’s fair for non residents to vote, especially those that have no intentions of coming back

I think it would be fair to be able to opt out of tax filing obligations in the US and for that give up the right to vote until you return.

You are assuming all French nationals abroad have no intention of ever moving back to France. This is certainly true for a fraction of them but that’s only going to be a fraction.

I disagree incredibly strongly with this idea - I'm Polish and Poland wasn't even on the map of the world for over a 100 years, yet the country survived. Then again during the communist rule we had a proxy government formed in London. Polish expats living abroad are definitely still Poles and as a nation we have a history of those people carrying what made our nation come back from the brink of destruction over and over again - the idea that as a Pole living abroad you couldn't vote is almost repulsive to me.

I am also a US citizen abroad and I don't understand your annoyance. This is exactly why Foreign Earned Income Exclusion exists. For anyone not aware you don't pay taxes on 100k if you are out of the USA 330 days out of the year. 200k if you are married.

Do you qualify? Then you are exempt from such a ridiculous amount that it is hard to argue this.

Or maybe you visit the USA too much to qualify? In which case you do have enough ties that I think tax makes sense.

It's still a lot of paperwork to file, just to get told you don't have to pay anything. And that's paperwork in addition to the paperwork you have to file in the country where you are earning your money.

Though, I am curious, since my wife is a US citizen, and we are living in my home country; does the 200k if married limit count, if your spouse is a foreign citizen (like say, me)?

Just because I have a discount on my taxes (which is fair considering I don't use roads, public utilities, law enforcement services, emergency services, medicaid, or qualify for contributions towards my social security points) doesn't mean I don't deserve representation for the amount I pay over that discount.

By the way 100k may seems a lot, but not in Switzerland where the median salary is at 80k$ per year. It means that if you are in a senior position you will make easily more than 100k... For that simple reason I personally know at least 3 ex US citizen that all renounced their citizenship (often painfully because of the paperwork involved).

I do understand the annoyance. The $100k exclusion, as others have mentioned, is not a "ridiculous amount", it's all relative to where you live and how much you earn.

You might also think it is "ridiculous" because you only earn money from a paycheck (e.g. you are an employee). For the self-employed things look very different: your revenue might easily be $200k, while your actual income is half that. Your foreign business pays taxes on income, but claiming the same deductions in the US might be difficult or impossible, so you might end up paying taxes on your $200k of revenue.

More importantly, though, the amount of paperwork that the US requires (FATCA and FBAR reporting) is ridiculous. And preparing your US taxes if you are an expat is a minefield, there is no way you can do it yourself. You need help from experienced tax accountants. All in all, it is a significant burden.

I will probably give up my USA citizenship at some point because of this.

I suggest not admitting this publicly.

I'm curious: why?

My concern originates with this statement [1]:

> If the Department of Homeland Security determines that the renunciation is motivated by tax avoidance purposes, the individual will be found inadmissible to the United States under Section 212(a)(10)(E) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(10)(E)), as amended.

[1] https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-lega...

I'm married to a US citizen. My children have inherited US citizenship via this route. We have to spend thousands preparing tax returns reporting no income each year for three people (the children have bank accounts).

  If you buy a house, things are going to be complicated.
  If you have a workplace pension from your job, you're probably screwed. State pensions have screwed people too.
  If you invest in stocks, or mutual funds, you'll pay more in tax preparation than you'll make.
  If you set up your own company and are not paid as an employee but as the owner, you will be screwed.
  Rent out a property, screwed.
  Fail to declare every account that you're a signatory on? Prepare to pay up to 125% of the contents. 
  If you're children are beneficiaries of a trust set up by their non-american grand-parents? Totally screwed.

Almost every American expat I've spoken to has had a shock when they find they totally didn't understand their commitments. The only ones who didn't were employees of big banks/hedge funds whose employers paid a big 4 accountant to take care of everything.

It's much more complicated than just having a foreign income exclusion and being out of the country.

If your income is above $100k, you also have to fill out the AMT worksheet, which may result in you needing to calculate everything to deduct the foreign taxes you've paid.

If you have US stocks and sell them, you have to worry about paying capital gains taxes to the US (they consider this US income, regardless of if you received the stocks as part of your employment), and you generally have to pay taxes to the country you're living in for that as well. If you're lucky you might be able to deduct the US taxes or expected taxes, otherwise you might not be able to do so or might not be able to do so until the next year.

You also have to report your overseas accounts every year.

When I first moved overseas, yes, it was pretty simple to just fill out my 1040 and my form 2555. Last year I needed those plus the 1040 Schedule B and form 1116. Next year things will get even more complicated since this year I bought an apartment, so there's a mixture of rent deduction and mortgage deductions, plus a significant capital gains tax burden due to selling stocks for my down-payment on the apartment.

I am a Dane living abroad. I don’t have to do any paperwork and jump through hoops for the Danish government.

That the U.S. government makes demands of people living outside its borders is preposterous.

There are enough US citizens abroad to justify about 7 or 8 members of the House of Representatives, but how would you allocate them?

There are enough in Mexico, and enough in Canada, and maybe enough in the Philippines to have one Representative for each of those.

The rest, though, are sufficiently spread out that when you group enough different countries together to get enough US citizens for a Representative, that Representative will have such a diverse group of constituents with such diverse concerns that it is not clear the Representative could actually effectively represent them.

Maybe the US could look to France again - since they do just this in their National Assembly, and also have representatives for citizens aboard in the Senate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constituencies_for_French_re...

Maybe France could not look at the US and also start taxing citizens everywhere in the world: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.boursorama.com/actualite-ec... (french source)

That’s pretty bad, you could end up with two countries claiming you are fiscally resident in their country at the same time.

France has actually considered taxing French citizens abroad like the US. It comes regularly during presidential campaigns. I think the last serious attempt was Hollande. They backed down because it would require to renegotiate every tax treaty and they didn’t want to open that door.

But I think it will happen one day.

Maybe just allocate them through proportional representation?

Seems like that would pretty much fit the problem of representing diverse sub-groups naturally. For example say the demographic of "student-age backpackers teaching English overseas" was about 20% of the expat population. Then all else being equal you'd expect candidates who best represented this group to garner about 20% of the vote totals, and therefore gain 1-2 seats.

This is an interesting point. Can you vote in elections at all? I'm curious as to the nature of the representation you desire. Would there be some kind of "expat" state with senators and representatives? How would this compare to the representation of territories like Puerto Rico?

>represent me as an expat.

Immigrant is not a dirty word

Isn't it the wrong word, though? From the US perspective (which is what's relevant here), he's not an immigrant.

Emigrant is the word you're looking for, since we're talking about the policies country towards someone who left it.

You're an emigrant if you left permanently, otherwise expatriate is still the correct term.

Nobody implied this.

All immigrants are expatriates, but not all expatriates are immigrants.

The term immigrant denotes someone who has left their native land permanently - that is, they never plan on moving back there. Many expatriates do plan on returning home, so calling them immigrants is inaccurate.

Please understand that anyone studying abroad, stationed overseas (either with the government or military), or working abroad is an expatriate - no matter where they're from and where they're living.

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