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Comment by sschueller | Hacker News Reader

Worst part is that we have to pay US taxes as well local taxes even if we don't live or make any money in the US. If you live in a county with an effective lower tax rate you have to pay the difference.

I take home less money than someone with the same job and same expenses. In addition it's so cumbersome to file from abroad that I have to pay someone.

It's like the king of England collecting taxes from the ones who left.

We also have to declare the entire finances of any company that we own more then 10 percent in which is a huge problem for the other 90 percent owners that aren't Americans.

I don't think this will ever get fixed since Americans abroad also don't have any representation in congress. :-(

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> I don't think this will ever get fixed since Americans abroad also don't have any representation in congress.

Overseas Americans are theoretically represented in Congress at their last American domicile. In practice, this is difficult to achieve. For example, many places will not mail absentee ballots overseas.

And of course, the Congressman for your last American domicile probably isn't that concerned about your interests overseas. This makes it disturbingly similar to the "virtual representation" that the colonies had in Parliament.

Also, the United States now practices more "taxation without representation" than the United Kingdom. Commonwealth citizens residing in Britain can vote in British elections. EU citizens cannot vote for the British Parliament, but they can vote for the devolved Scottish and Welsh Parliaments.

"Worst part is that we have to pay US taxes as well local taxes even if we don't live or make any money in the US."

You can resign your citizenship. I remember hearing reports of people doing this last year (going to Singapore)

Eduardo Saverin's a good example. Of course, he did have the benefit of dual citizenship (Brazil).

That's not exactly an easy or consequence-free thing to do.

Be careful there. It's explicitly illegal to resign one's U.S. citizenship for the purpose of reducing one's tax bill.

For instance, Saverin nominally gave up his U.S. citizenship in order to make doing business in S.E. Asia easier.

This is not entirely accurate. Read further:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renunciation_of_citizenship#Tax...

In most cases, paying a tax-preparer to do the annoyance for you is far less hassle than dealing with both trying to get rid of citizenship, and trying to attain citizenship in another country where you would like living.

Perhaps some European country would like to start offering citizenship to anyone that renounces US citizenship, as a way to encourage immigration of skilled and high net worth individuals.

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