You're free to renounce American citizenship to escape future tax obligations.

Anyway it's not an issue for non-rich expats, you just have to file a tax return which shows you owe $0.

> You're free to renounce American citizenship to escape future tax obligations.

The hilarious thing about this statement is that it costs a few thousand dollars to renounce (as in a fee, paid to the embassy) and they reserve the right to come get you up to ten years later in tax cases.

And IIRC there is some law saying that if you renounce citizenship to avoid taxation, you might never be able to enter the US again.

EDIT: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_Amendment_(immigration) (Thanks, ChatGPT!)

You also have to be fully up-to-date with the IRS before you can renounce citizenship!

> You're free to renounce American citizenship to escape future tax obligations.

In theory, yes. I knew someone having a heck of a hard time doing so though. Here's the process:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relinquishment_of_United_State...

It's pretty expensive and difficult.

> You're free to renounce American citizenship to escape future tax obligations.

actually you are not free to do that. renouncing citizenship requires a reason other than "to escape tax obligations"

You can spout off "my way or the highway" as long as you think US citizenship is valuable enough that people are going to put up with it. People not expatriating is obviously the desired outcome of those rules, and the alternative is people renouncing their US citizenship (which is becoming more reasonable as the US passport gets weaker, among other factors).

You're missing part of the point, though. Almost no other country in the world has rules like this. The US government provides among the lowest level of services for its citizens out of any first-world government, so there's no reason it needs to be that much more strict. You should be asking why it's necessary if only from a competitive standpoint-- why are other countries able to treat their expats so much more respectfully?

> The US government provides among the lowest level of services for its citizens out of any first-world government, so there's no reason it needs to be that much more strict.

they provide you the world's premier military! That costs a pretty penny.

That's a 'service' provided by the government only if you are an oil baron.

God I hate this argument. This is such an unhelpful, useless thing to say. It doesn't provide any useful or practical suggestions, it's just a way of shutting down conversation.

I'm glad it was brought up though, otherwise other people might think it's as simple as that.

It is not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relinquishment_of_United_State...