Ok, that makes sense. I do pay SSI in China, but I'm sure I'll never see anything good from that. Would have been nice to at least get a 401K or something. Retirement funding is also another huge pain in the ass for expats.
> Now, a tax return can cover multiple people and some of the Americans living abroad are children. I'll be generous and say that some one million people aren't following the law, compared to a few hundred people who are doing what the law says in order to avoid the extra hassle.
Everyone who has an accountant doing their taxes is following the law, and that is much of the high end (sans those who are explicitly dodging taxes, of course). I do see my friends who have accountants paying more than me, but I think this is because the accountants are very conservative in how they deal with double taxation.
Most of us are mostly following the law.
> Has that reporting rate gone up or down? How much revenue has the US gotten from its ex-pats because of the heightened reporting requirements?
Many of us are just normal worker bees who already pay enough taxes in the country we are working in. It makes no sense for us to renounce our citizenship to not pay taxes we don't need to pay anyways.
> Before I moved here, I visited often for work. I would rent a business apartment for a month or two. Most work on P.O.s and the giro/SWIFT system, not by credit card or cash. I also had difficulty purchasing some things online because sites wanted a Nordic bank card.
I have the opposite problem: I don't have a US credit card and get lots of pain because of that. The Chinese system is quite limited.
> You could not file your income tax. It seems that over 1 million people don't do so. It would help if you never wanted to return to the US. (A friend of mine lives in Shanghai, and has for almost 10 years. I'm pretty sure she's not paid US taxes during that time.)
She probably doesn't have to pay US taxes if she's paying higher Chinese taxes. Anyways, she should file tax forms just to put $0 on that line.
> She probably doesn't have to pay US taxes if she's paying higher Chinese taxes. Anyways, she should file tax forms just to put $0 on that line.
I completely agree, but given the circumstances around her leaving, I'm rather certain that she's never coming back to the US. At this point, given US law, is it reasonable for her to start filing again? A quick check now suggests that it isn't - she should wait until she knows she wants to return to the US. I don't think the fines or other penalties gets any worse by waiting longer.
> You do not have to pay payroll taxes if you are employed abroad
Correct. But as I started off, I'm self-employed.
Quoting from elsewhere: "If you are self-employed and you live overseas, you may still be required to pay self-employment taxes in the US, including Social Security. This would need to be paid before the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion so it is an actual out-of-pocket expense, not something that would be offset on your expat tax return."
The exceptions are those countries which have a totalization agreement with the US. "This covers Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea (South), Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom."
> It really isn't that big of a deal
If you focus just on that number then I agree. As that's what this linked-to page discusses, then yes you're right.
I think there's a more interesting numbers lurking. From the article, "I.R.S. data for 2012 shows just over two million tax returns filed in 2012 by overseas Americans, compared with an estimated six million Americans living or working abroad."
Now, a tax return can cover multiple people and some of the Americans living abroad are children. I'll be generous and say that some one million people aren't following the law, compared to a few hundred people who are doing what the law says in order to avoid the extra hassle.
Has that reporting rate gone up or down? How much revenue has the US gotten from its ex-pats because of the heightened reporting requirements? How much has it cost those Americans? I pay about $600/year for my CPA, for me and my wife, so assuming $100/return gives an unfunded mandate, as it were, of $200 million.
Before I moved here, I visited often for work. I would rent a business apartment for a month or two. Most work on P.O.s and the giro/SWIFT system, not by credit card or cash. I also had difficulty purchasing some things online because sites wanted a Nordic bank card. I figured that opening a local account would make things easier for me. Had I been any nationality other than US, I could have done so. But US banking laws prohibited me from doing so.
Again, not a big deal. But little deals * 6 million become large.
> what are the other choices?
You could not file your income tax. It seems that over 1 million people don't do so. It would help if you never wanted to return to the US. (A friend of mine lives in Shanghai, and has for almost 10 years. I'm pretty sure she's not paid US taxes during that time.)