No I am not, I am looking at it from people who live overseas...Rock wrote:You are looking at this from the perspective of a US citizen and resident who occasionally takes very short trips overseas. Your life is fully in the US.djfourmoney wrote:1) True most countries just require residency to get accounts, leases and such. Truth be told, if you keep your money in a international bank with branches in the country you are staying like Santander, you can do much of your banking without the extra fees if dealing with a different bank or out of network bank.Rock wrote:1. Opening bank accounts overseas. A lot of banks have blacklisted USA citizens but don't always inquire into your other potential nationalities if you present an alternative passport/citizenship.djfourmoney wrote:Why would you want to change your name for different countries????????
Not sure why you would want to complicate your life more than it needs to be.
What is your goal for multiple citizenship? As I have said before, the majority of people only need residency to take advantage of most benefits.
2. Having all the building blocks in place in case you ever need to quickly renounce US citizenship.
3. Having the right to stay in a country even if you get into trouble, perhaps by accident. Otherwise, your a** gets permanently deported right after your serve any jail/prison time you might owe. I know a guy who got deported from the country he grew up in but was just permanent resident cus he had a car accident which killed someone. PR status is very weak compared to citizenship. Don't be naive.
4. If you ever get sued in USA or even if IRS comes after you, that second citizenship and perhaps even a different name will be a huge deterrent. It's next to impossible for a private party to pursue you. If government came after you for tax debt or student debt, it would be a major pain in the a** for them and there's a good chance they would not bother pursuing it unless amount in question was millions of dollars.
OTOH, if you just have PR(s) in other countries, you can be forcibly repatriated by passport cancellation. So if the pursuing party can make that happen (and this will get easier in time), your country of residence will yank away your PR status as soon as you have no valid passport.
2) I see no reason to renounce your US citizenship, to be honest only White men talk like that or people that might be native Americans but are able to carry dual citizenship like being of Irish descent. As long as the US remains the military power it is and as long as it has the best State Dept/Liaison/Embassy Network there's no reason to consider having citizenship of some two bit country. I put before the court why Julian Assange who can't get out of the UK safely.
3) Johnny @Expat Wisdom told a similar story about some Brit who was rich and moved to Belize. He accidently hit a child, checked to see if the child was fine (he was on a bike) no external injuries anyway, but turns out the family filed charges and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
He had much of his wealth tied up in Belize. So he was able to get out of the country undetected but the majority of his wealth is stuck in Belize and he'll never get it.
The point here is carrying dual citizen, still being an American/US Citizen will prevent much of legal, trumped up shenanigans. Because countries fear not only the State Dept but the US Military.
However much longer the US still plays a dominate roll in Geo-Politics is up for debate I suppose but in the next 5-10 years I don't think its position will be diminished much.
4) Now why would the USA or IRS sue you? If you do your taxes right, there should be nothing to fear from the IRS. The problems comes from ignoring tax problems, not filing your taxes or some type of protest, which don't recommend because people have lost their homes fooling around with the IRS like that.
As I said my main concern is being detained, missing flights and that sort thing. Those are real, the other stuff is hyperbole unless you have six/seven digits behind your name.
IE cross those roads when you come to them.
But if you are a career expat who makes a living off investments in third countries (countries other than your citizenship or residency country) then US citizenship is a huge liability. Why? Because 1. you pay taxes on virtually all your incomes whereas without it, your income tax rate would be zero and b. a very high percentage of private/personal banks (those which give you access to liquid investments from around the world such as high yield bonds, structured products, and certain types of liquid hedge funds) will not take your business. I know this because I've been kicked out of three banks in the last 4 years just for being a US citizen. Being a US citizen has cost me a huge amount in terms of time, trouble, and financial cost. I would be much better off financially if it weren't for my US citizenship.
If my parents did not have illiquid assets tied up in the States, I would have renounced in order to naturalize in Taiwan. People like Julian Assange and Edward Snowden are huge fish. A regular guy who makes a living overseas is not. Enforcement resources are very limited, especially on the criminal side. Consider, even on US soil, only a handful of tax cheats ever get charged criminally. It's mostly about civil penalties, the money.
Over 30,000 US citizens with overseas accounts have been slapped with huge (oven confiscatory) fines since the US started aggressively attacking private banks who have US clients. That's why the banks don't want our business anymore. Many of these are unfortunate innocents.
Doing your taxes right is easy if you just punch a clock and work 9-5 in the US. But do you know how many tens of thousands of pages the US tax code has become. How do you account for forex gains and losses involving hundreds of transactions from arbitrage hedge funds with investments in 3 countries? What about if you are a Canadian resident and citizen who also happens to technically be American because you were born in Minnesota even though you've lived in Canada since childhood and never returned to the States. If you've had large financial accounts in your own name in Canada and didn't realize you were supposed to proactively report the details of each account to the US Treasury each year, you now owe the US Treasury and IRS a huge percentage of your financial wealth. Ignorance of the law does not excuse you. You assume the IRS and US income tax policy towards its non-resident citizens and other US persons is reasonable and fair. It's not!
Second citizenship and eventual renouncing of US citizenship is a real and practically viable solution for a significant number of middle class expats these days who wish to pursue a life offshore. But permanent residency status doesn't mean squat. Even if you live the rare country with no extradition or tax treaties with the US (eg Taiwan due to unique political situation vis-a-vis China), you are not shielded. All the US has to do is inform immigration policy of country you reside in that your passport has been revoked. In most cases, you will be arrested and quickly deported directly back to US.
Firstly about taxes. Even with the recent changes in the laws, if you make less than $92,700 you do not have to pay federal income tax. The other only requirement is spending more than 320 days outside of the country.
Second part first. That is easy if you maintain a residence outside of America and you have the usual, you know wife, children in school, etc.
Lastly on this issue; if you create various tax shelters like corporations do which you can do as an individual in the country you reside in. Besides why is important to dodge taxes anyway? You'll be paying taxes in the country of residence anyway. So you're exchanging a tax rate of 23% (which is the all taxes calculated for somebody that earns between $175K-$400K) for maybe 20% taxes because if you make six digits in any developing country you are in rarified air, IE top 2-5% of income earners.
That said most countries do not have infrastructure to chase around tax dodgers and then there's the way officials spend taxes usually lining their own pockets and other issues.
Paying taxes is the least of my concerns, it won't stop me from purchasing the things I want, even if I was paying taxes to both countries, its not a concern.
I would be making an investment in the country by starting businesses and providing jobs. I know banks have been threaten by Americans and don't want their money because they don't want the scrutiny. Umm kay now is that because you legitimately have investments or because we have a bunch of tax dodgers in both the United States and Europe because these people are greedy????
Everybody situation is different, I call renouncing an extreme case because most do not bother with it. The people I mentioned only seem to be big fish, the I know of lesser folk caught up with the IRS and SEC.
You're welcome to revoke yours, but given that Black life is worth less than zero; that is not my first choice, sorry.
