Re:Second Citizenships, Residencies, and/or Temporary Reloca...
by ericmay on Sunday February 21, 2021 @09:05AM
(#26213498)
“Look at this link to see how poor you are”
What am I reading? No wonder the OP is frustrated. Rightfully so.
Just because the median citizen is “only” in the top 25 countries in the world, doesn’t mean that what the OP said is incorrect.
It’s also difficult to do proper comparisons. Notice anything out of the ordinary in that list? Check out the population of the countries. Of course Australians are wealthy, they live on a continent nearly the size of the US with the population of L.A. county. That’s a lot of resources to go around for a small number of people.
I echo the OP in the constant anti-American sentiment I find on the internet being frustrating. “Your healthcare sucks, your taxes suck, look at how poor you are because of this chart”.
A lot of that doesn’t even reflect reality for many people. Let’s talk about healthcare. My experience in healthcare is I schedule an appointment at the university medical center, get extremely high quality care, and that’s that. I pay $0 for co-pays, or for medicine. Other people with health insurance can do that too. Obviously we have a healthcare problem in the U.S., which is why even to my own personal detriment I support UHC, but the experience people have in the U.S. varies widely. The U.S. government is responsible for like 70% of U.S. healthcare expenditures.
Ask yourself, why does the U.S. make citizens file taxes if they live abroad? I wonder if it has anything to do with people becoming massively wealthy and then conveniently living in another nearby country so they don’t have to pay taxes? Or maybe someone works at a company and that company can just relocate them somewhere cheap so they can avoid taxes? I’m not sure, but I hear a lot of “people in America need to pay taxes” but then they also get mad when the government makes people living in other countries pay income taxes. Why should it matter if you live in Japan as an American? You’re still a citizen. If you don’t want to pay taxes then give up your citizenship. How are we supposed to pay for healthcare for example if we allow lots of people to exempt themselves? And the U.S. exempts the first $108,000 of that income. What’s the big deal? That you have to report it? How can we fight corruption if we don’t even make people report their income?
What am I reading? No wonder the OP is frustrated. Rightfully so.
Just because the median citizen is “only” in the top 25 countries in the world, doesn’t mean that what the OP said is incorrect.
It’s also difficult to do proper comparisons. Notice anything out of the ordinary in that list? Check out the population of the countries. Of course Australians are wealthy, they live on a continent nearly the size of the US with the population of L.A. county. That’s a lot of resources to go around for a small number of people.
I echo the OP in the constant anti-American sentiment I find on the internet being frustrating. “Your healthcare sucks, your taxes suck, look at how poor you are because of this chart”.
A lot of that doesn’t even reflect reality for many people. Let’s talk about healthcare. My experience in healthcare is I schedule an appointment at the university medical center, get extremely high quality care, and that’s that. I pay $0 for co-pays, or for medicine. Other people with health insurance can do that too. Obviously we have a healthcare problem in the U.S., which is why even to my own personal detriment I support UHC, but the experience people have in the U.S. varies widely. The U.S. government is responsible for like 70% of U.S. healthcare expenditures.
Ask yourself, why does the U.S. make citizens file taxes if they live abroad? I wonder if it has anything to do with people becoming massively wealthy and then conveniently living in another nearby country so they don’t have to pay taxes? Or maybe someone works at a company and that company can just relocate them somewhere cheap so they can avoid taxes? I’m not sure, but I hear a lot of “people in America need to pay taxes” but then they also get mad when the government makes people living in other countries pay income taxes. Why should it matter if you live in Japan as an American? You’re still a citizen. If you don’t want to pay taxes then give up your citizenship. How are we supposed to pay for healthcare for example if we allow lots of people to exempt themselves? And the U.S. exempts the first $108,000 of that income. What’s the big deal? That you have to report it? How can we fight corruption if we don’t even make people report their income?