London Mayor Boris Johnson to renounce US citizenship

[theOAP]

These regs are a burden, that's for sure. They are affecting too many individuals that don't contribute meaningfully to the tax system.

There must be someone in Treasury or the IRS looking for a way to reduce the workload. For themselves, I mean, as neither has the workforce needed to ensure compliance, and the complexity here makes that a highly skilled labor intensive operation.

You make an excellent point MichaelB, but there seems to be a war on anything foreign. That's not unique to the US, the UK for example has tightened up residency rules for tax purposes significantly. What does make the US much more unique is its citizenship based taxation, the only country in the world to have this system of taxation.

The US Tax Payer Advocate has campaigned for a change specifically to current rules for expats for the last 3 years. Both political parties' overseas organizations are campaigning against current rules, and expats have literally (and I do mean literally) bombarded both the Congress and Senate with pleas for review of the system.

The problem is obvious. No Senator or Congressperson wants to propose a Bill that would do away with CBT. It would be political suicide. We also have had several Treasury/IRS Directors who are adamant on penalising anything foreign, with the knowledge that it is harming US expats abroad. It appears they're afraid of relaxing the rules even slightly will encourage the "rich" to take advantage.

CBT, for the near term, is here to stay and Congress keeps attacking the "rich" with no regard for expats. Look at the just passed, and signed by the Pres., Transportation Bill. It contains several tax aspects, with the revocation/cancellation of passports for those with a tax liability. Not necessarily difficult for someone living in the US, but of extreme difficulty for an expat living abroad. (The threshold is $50,000, but the penalties relating to anything foreign can have someone there quite easily.)

 

[theOAP]

.... but that too can be overcome as many SAmericans maintain accounts in the USA (tax shelters)......

Most don't realise that the US is now the 3rd largest tax haven in the world, behind only Switzerland and Hong Kong.

US overtakes Caymans and Singapore as haven for assets of super-rich | Politics | The Guardian

 

[youbet]

These regs are a burden, that's for sure. They are affecting too many individuals that don't contribute meaningfully to the tax system.

There must be someone in Treasury or the IRS looking for a way to reduce the workload. For themselves, I mean, as neither has the workforce needed to ensure compliance, and the complexity here makes that a highly skilled labor intensive operation.

It seems it would also be wise for the USA to consider eliminating the practice of having all children born in the USA automatically be US citizens. I had never thought it, but apparently that practice turns out to be a horrible burden to many of those made citizens by birth such as Mayor Boris Johnson. It's costing him a ton of money and grief just to get the unwanted citizenship, slapped on him involuntarily at the moment of birth, undone.

Perhaps our rules could be changed so that the default status of the newborn is determined by the citizenship status of the parent(s) and would follow the laws of the parent's country.

 

[Ronstar]

Thanks for the discussion.