As a permanent resident, you have a "do or die" date in your life.

If you have the green card "in" at least 8 of the last 15 years, you have the privilege of paying the exit tax when you give up the visa status. (Well, you pay extra tax only if you are "rich" for certain definitions of "rich". You will certainly have a giant mountain of tax forms to fill in.)

If you terminate your green card before that magic moment of holding the permanent resident visa "in" 8 of the last 15 years, then you can exit the United States cleanly and easily, with minimal paperwork and no risk of extra tax.

That's why I tell people who want to come to the USA to avoid getting the permanent resident visa and get a different visa status instead.

Disclaimer. I am a lawyer. I am an international tax lawyer. My office does a LOT of expatriation cases where we log people out of the U.S. tax system and the U.S. nationality system.

Can you explain the exit tax thing or give pointers? Does it apply to people on visa's like TN or H1B?

No those are nonimmigrant visas.

Why is it absurd? Or, from the other angle, why does it exist? (real answers please, not "becuz money-grubbing gub'mint")

Considering you get to deduct $100k of your foreign earnings, it's not like they are trying to rake John Doe Expat over the coals.

It's absurd because no other country does it that way - the United States, despite the rhetoric, treats its own citizens worse in this aspect than any other country the rest of the civilized world.

If other countries behaved the same way, it wouldn't be so ridiculous- but they don't, so it is.

I agree with you, but there is actually another country that is taxing foreign income of nonresident citizens: Eritrea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_taxation#Individu...

It's not that simple. If you want to live overseas long term you may end up paying quite a bit in tax, for example on retirement savings and distributions, investing, running a business. These things are all COMPLETE nightmares for a US citizen living abroad, even in a country like Australia.

You mean to imply that being double-taxed after your first $100k is fair and reasonable?

Are you double taxed? Many countries have reciprocal taxing agreements with the U.S. whereby you get credits for foreign taxes. That's how it worked when I was a U.S. citizen in Canada.

If you own two houses, just because you aren't living at House A right now doesn't mean you don't need to pay upkeep, and doesn't mean you aren't deriving benefit from it.

Thought of differently- expats expect to be able to vote, right? Is it fair and reasonable for someone who is categorically excluded from paying taxes, to be allowed to vote?

I am a tax payer in the United States, yet I am not eligible to vote ... Green Card holder!

Why should someone living outside the united states, with no houses in the united states, still pay US taxes, just because they have US citizenship?

This implies taxes are fair, that paying taxes is a requirement for voting, like buying your voice, and that voting would give any benefits in return. Yes, of course it is fair to vote when the vote could indirectly decide laws that make you a criminal in some way or another and no, it is not fair to be taxed, especially if you don't use the majority of infrastructure that taxes are supposedly needed for.

I get where you are coming from, sure there are arguments for it, but it's not like there are none against it, either.

As a UK expat, I don't expect to be able to vote in the UK. I don't live in the UK. Why should I vote there? Why would I feel entitled to?

Why not? Voting was implemented in the USA long before income tax was.

As for the theoretical 2nd house. You would pay property tax on it.