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US expats thinking of giving up their citizenship.

Discussion in 'The Stump' started by Owen, Sep 27, 2013.

  1. KodiakBeer

    KodiakBeer Member

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    Alaska doesn't have a state income or sales tax. Back when oil was discovered and the population was only about 200 K, they took the windfall profits and invested them in the stock market - mostly in oil and other industries that directly benefited the state. Blue chip stocks. The dividends from those investments are used to run the state. A separate smaller fund was set up to pay dividends directly to state residents.

    Every year at dividend time (right now as a matter of fact) you see wharrgarble about the government or the oil companies sending money to Alaskans, but of course they don't. That money is all dividends paid to stockholders from an investment portfolio owned by residents and administered by the state. I love capitalism!

    Would I give up my citizenship if I was double taxed living in another country? I suppose I would. I don't make enough to afford a double income tax.
     
  2. green slime

    green slime Member

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    Australia is far from the most taxed nation on Earth. Try the Scandinavian countries. Their tax offices are efficient and methodical. Australia is a muddling backwater johnny-come-lately.

    Sweden taxes you on foreign earnings. If you own a house overseas, you better pay tax on the value of that property. You pay tax on wealth (total, including foreign holdings), on home ownership (on and off shore), on profits from selling your house, on profits from selling shares, the progressive income tax can go up to 50% or more, and VAT/GST is 25% on most goods and services.

    IF you should be required to pay tax in another country, you can, however, reduce your tax burden in Sweden by up to that amount, provided you declare that income.

    On the other hand, you don't find Swedes bombarded with advertising for "Funeral Insurance", nor find new moms back at work after a few days. The cost of a University Tuition is minimal. We're talking books, room, board, and a minor fee less than 100$ Compare to England's skyrocketing costs for tertiary education.
     
  3. urqh

    urqh Tea drinking surrender monkey

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    Gaines, if you could afford a UK decent house in Devon and still pay US taxes...Your a rich man osld chap...You certainly would not like our version of a variable mortgage these days...Buying outright would would certainly help as you should remember, over here we cannot just hand the keys back on failure...we keep the debt around our necks until death. Failure is not an option on UK mortgages. Devon is nice...I'm thinking around a million dollars for a nice house with a view of a beach in distance..or some hills...Unless you want an estate 3 up 2 down...with kids on your drive instead of sheep.
     
  4. urqh

    urqh Tea drinking surrender monkey

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  5. Karjala

    Karjala Don Quijote

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    Here's some information about the taxation in the Nordic countries:

    https://www.nordisketax.net/main.asp?url=/files/suo/eng/i07.asp&s=&m=&w=

    In Finland an individual pays taxes on earned income as follows:

    - to the state, 0-31,75 % of your net income, depending on how much you earn, the more you earn the more you pay, the max percentage is for net income over 100.000 euros / year
    plus
    - to the municipality, 16,25-21,75 % of your net income, depending on where you live
    plus
    - to the church (if you belong to a one), 1,00-2,20 %, depending on where you live

    So - if your earned income is more that 100.000 euros net, you live in a poor municipality and belong to a church you might pay 55,7 % tax in total...!

    In addition there's also tax on capital income, which is 30 % up to 50.000 euros income, after that 32 %

    Naturally we have VAT (up to 24 %) and such too...but no wealth tax any more, which we also used to have...
     
  6. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    The highest tax rate for Federal income tax is nominally 40%. However someone who makes say $100,000 yearly will end up paying about 10% + or - of that for Federal taxes (after deductions and such.
    See:
    http://taxes.about.com/od/Federal-Income-Taxes/qt/Tax-Rates-For-The-2013-Tax-Year.htm
    Here in Michigan we pay 4.25% on "federal adjsted gross income" which lowers the effective rate. Again the individual makeing 100K above would likely end up paying around a bit over 3K.
    Then we have a 6% sales tax that doesn't apply to groceries but does apply to food bought in resteraunts.
     
  7. gtblackwell

    gtblackwell Member Emeritus

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    "Gaines, if you could afford a UK decent house in Devon and still pay US taxes...Your a rich man osld chap...You certainly would not like our version of a variable mortgage these days...Buying outright would would certainly help as you should remember, over here we cannot just hand the keys back on failure...we keep the debt around our necks until death. Failure is not an option on UK mortgages. Devon is nice...I'm thinking around a million dollars for a nice house with a view of a beach in distance..or some hills...Unless you want an estate 3 up 2 down...with kids on your drive instead of sheep."

    Well I was looking in 1980, north of Bovey Tracey, miles from the Sea and the cottage was 40,000 quid ! Still beyond my budget but within dreaming distance. A wee place but next to a sheep farm !! To tell you how long ago that was the owner of the farm was retired military and taught a shooting school on the property.
    We had an arsenal of various weapons to select from. I shot a Russian Vostok 22 LR Olympic pistol while there. Great pistol subsidized by the Soviet government to get them into the hands of shooters. The owner sent me to a gunshop in Mortonhampstead and they wanted 140 Q for a near new one, boxed and were willing to sell it to me but told me I might have trouble clearing customs. To this day I wish I had tried as customs waved me through and X rays were way in the future.

    Gaines
     
  8. mcoffee

    mcoffee Son-of-a-Gun(ner)

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    Federal tax on $100K is closer to 20% when social security and medicare taxes are included.
     
  9. KodiakBeer

    KodiakBeer Member

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    Tax rate for 100k is 28%, plus 6% FICA, plus property taxes, plus state and local taxes, plus sales taxes, plus a horde of hidden taxes on various licenses, fees, registrations, surcharges and so on. All that, plus paying all business taxes on every purchase because that too is all passed to the consumer. My income is pretty close to that 100k mark, and I certainly don't get to shave 18% off. I simply don't have the magic expenses needed to itemize - I'm not a failing businessman, I have no bad investments, my kids are grown, I'm not swamped in medical bills. My reward for not throwing my money down rat holes is to pay, pay, pay.

    Even if you can shave a few bucks off your basic income tax with some deductions, most people are blind to the tax burden they really carry. When you fill up your car, you're not just paying the state and federal tax on that gasoline, you're also paying the corporate tax on the oil company, the tax on the trucking company that brought the gas to the station, on the shipping company that brought the oil to refinery, etc, etc, etc. It's all passed down to the consumer - and the same is true of every other item you buy.

    All taxes are regressive. I'd prefer a flat tax, or a national sales tax or just about anything that removed the loopholes, but in the end the consumer will pay it all anyway, because all taxes are passed to the consumer in the form of higher costs on goods and services. The only real medicine is to cut spending - smaller government.
     
  10. green slime

    green slime Member

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    Don't get Europeans started on their petrol prices...
     
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  11. A-58

    A-58 Cool Dude

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    Just don't add any tax to the tea.
     
  12. Slipdigit

    Slipdigit Good Ol' Boy Staff Member WW2|ORG Editor

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    And to think, we started a new nation over less than 1% and we are putting up with this crap. We are getting soft in our old age.
     
  13. Takao

    Takao Ace

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    IIRC, the Tea Tax was 12.5% - 3 Pence tax on a pound of British tea the cost 2 Shillings.

    I would agree that the American Colonies were one of the least taxed portions of the British empire. However, just as the British government did to their own citizens, they were trying to crack the door to introducing new taxes in the colonies. Although, it was not until the tail end of the 1920's through the early 1930's that the overall taxes paid by American citizens really began to climb.
     
  14. KodiakBeer

    KodiakBeer Member

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    It's interesting (to me) to speculate on the psychology of the rift between the colonies and the mother country. The Atlantic was a much larger barrier then, than today. It must have galled people to pay taxes to some distant government in the same way that an American living in say, France, is galled to pay taxes to Washington today.
     
  15. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    I thought it wasn't so much the amount of the tax as the fact that they had no say in the tax where an English man in England at least had a representative in the House of Commons.
     
  16. A-58

    A-58 Cool Dude

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    Yes, the "taxation w/o representation" thing was a rallying cry back in the old days. I always thought that "Tipacanoe and Tyler too" was a much catchier saying to say the least. "Fifty-four forty or fight" was pretty good too.
     
  17. urqh

    urqh Tea drinking surrender monkey

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    I never notice any price rises or discounts...or rate of fluctuating petrol taxes...I use diesel for one...And it always costs me 30 quid...Hasn't gone up or down for 20 years from my wallet...apart from yesterday..30 quid and a penney...I held hose too long...
     
  18. Karjala

    Karjala Don Quijote

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    And some more taxes in Finland...:

    - a car tax of 12.2 % - 48.8 %, depending on the CO2-pollution (usually equal to the consumption), added to the price of your car - plus the VAT of course...
    - an annual car usage tax, depending on the CO2-pollution, from c. 100 euros upwards
    - a fuel tax, about 57 % of the price of fuel. A US gallon would cost in Finland now abt 6.06 euros = USD 8.18
    - an annual real estate tax of 0.32 % - 0.75 % (of the market value) for the municipality, depending on where you live

    Of course there're the benefits too:

    - free education - in university too. The school meals and books are also free for the first 9 years, the meals also in the high school
    - "free" health care for everybody, except you pay e.g. in my home town 13.80 euros to visit a doctor for the first three visits per year, after that no fee. There're also some other fees, but the maximum you can end up paying in total in a year is 636 euros
    - a paid mothernity leave for abt. 11 months, after that you can get nursing leave and money until the child is 3 years. The money is abt 340 euros / month for the first under three year old child, 100 euros for the other under three year old ones and 65 euros for the other under 7 year old ones
    - unemployment benefits according to your last job/pay for the first 500 days (too much for too long, if one asks me...)
    - annually paid holidays for 5-6 weeks
     
  19. A-58

    A-58 Cool Dude

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    I think that a flat tax would work well for us here in the US. It's got to work better than the nightmare of a tax program we have in place now.
     
  20. Poppy

    Poppy grasshopper

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    If I have this right: Canadians pay 15% federal tax on the first 43000. Then another 23% on the next 43000. Then we pay 10% more[Alberta] Provincial tax on the same income we were already federally taxed on- does that mean 48% tax for someone making 86000?. ..The world should know we also pay waaaay more for our cars, internet, cable, cell phone bill, utilities, liquor than the rest of Earth. It is an injustice, and something has to change. It's friggin cold here boys, and we are taxed to the nuts.
    Then we could talk about paid vacation. Canada ranks close to the bottom. Check out Australia's paid VAC rules...Hello Canadian government - do you give a rip about the hard working folk, or maybe I should go on the dole and sit back and relax. How about Mike [fat ass] Duffy, or Pamela [entitled] Wallen?... Disgusting state of affairs here.
     

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