“A month after passing this tax law, Congress came down on illegal immigrants -and slipped into that bill a four-line clause meant to penalize supposedly odious emigrants. It makes Americans who give up citizenship to escape taxes”‘excludable. ”

That means banishment: Like terrorists and people with communicable diseases, renouncers can be barred from setting foot in the U.S. ever again. Even if they chip in all the taxes the IRS says they owe, the law allows the INS to banish them anyway. Regardless of what either agency does to them, their names will still appear on Rep. Gibbons’s list.

‘No one in my family, no matter how much money they made, would have ever renounced their American citizenship.’ Rep. Martin Frost, a Texas Democrat, said at the time. “We’re talking about basic patriotism and basic fairness.” And perhaps some national pique.

With the military draft long past, the thinking seems to go, what cost can a U.S. passport entail apart from a tax bill? A lawyer who used to work at a U.S. consulate in Africa remembers an American woman who would come in every few months asking to turn her passport in. She was sent away.

The law’s presumptions may seem presumptuous, though, in a mobile age when some Ameicans de-camp from Brazil to Korea the way others pull up stakes in Vermont and head for Arizona. Some who move in tow of multinational companies become true multinationalists. In a more romantic day, they would be called citizens of the world. Now, exposed in the Federal Register and faced with permanent exile, none are eager to tell their stories. But if tax avoidance really is their motive, it must rank with love and war as a driving force in unusual lives.”

The whole article is here: http://www.debito.org/naturalization2.html

I think the reason they got rid of the 10 year rule is that it’s too difficult to administer. It requires the U.S. government to hunt people down all over the world.

It’s not the first $3MM that’s exempt. The first $600,000 of capital gains is exempt when they mark your assets to market.

What I mean by “hellish” is that the U.S. can take as long as a decade to decide whether it will release you from citizenship. The decision is not yours, even if you meet all the requirements (renounce outside of U.S. borders, have another citizenship in another country and are willing and able to pay the steep fee), the U.S. government can still refuse to release you. If you are so much as upper middle class, the government automatically labels your renunciation as a tactic to avoid paying taxes. The actual reason doesn’t matter. As punishment the U.S. regularly banishes former citizens. They can’t get a Visa to visit the country. That makes visiting family and owning property here impossible.

For people who leave for ideological reasons (and that happens), this is probably not a big problem. However, for people who are simply married to foreigners and living and raising children in other countries it is a huge punishment.

I think it’s telling that the United States must got to such lengths to prevent people from leaving. Only totalitarian countries maintain such a grip on their population.

Actually, no. I have money, it’s my property legally, free and clear, I worked and paid taxes on it. I’d like it to be situated in accounts not in the US in a denomination other than dollars (I don’t trust ETFs that much). Turns out, the liquidity of money is vastly overrated (unless, as you point out, I take the speedboat route).

The funny bit here is, of course, that that was the same problem we had in China, a country that has a monetary policy purposefully designed to allow you to bring in the foreign reserves, grow a business but never legally move the money out again. (Hint: Hong Kong is the way out in this case – the US sadly lacks a similar port AFAIK)

Along with every $%&$&#&*#%*#& POS who voted for the House version, regardless of party.

>:-(

You know, I cannot quite grasp how it is that people constantly forget that the Really Rich Bastards already have hiding places for their money in plain sight. They call them “Foundations”. The provisions for these occurred — gasp!! Surprise, surprise, surprise!! around the same time there was a significant chance of an income tax being passed. Said income tax being sold on a “soak the rich” scheme, even as the rich were moving their assets into these tax-free foundations.

Go look into them — The Rockefeller Foundation, Carnegie, DuPont — all the old Rich Bastards have one where they hid most of their wealth all the while maintaining control over it via being on the board of directors. And that same bunch has been joined by the New Guard — Bill and Linda Gates, Jobs, Hewlett, Packard, and so forth.

That’s not a polemic against The Rich Bastards, though it sounds like it. It’s just calling attention to the fact that it’s not the Top Tier paying out, it’s the second tier — the ones with 5, 10, 15 million in assets — not enough to form a tax-free “charitable organization”.

From an SF book by James P Hogan:
================================================================================
[The Federal Reserve Act] was created to launch the national debt into
orbit — obviously you want big debts, because it means big interest
payments. But what good is being able to run up the debt unless you have a
mechanism for collecting the dues? … Two months before the act was passed,
the amendment was enacted to impose a progressive income tax on the
population. It was sold on a soak-the-rich hook, but in fact some of the
wealthiest supported it. Probably some of them were being genuinely
altruistic, but the main reason was that the escape hatch for superwealth
had been provided by legislation that enabled the creation of tax-free
foundations. Thus, the big monopolies, such as in oil and steel, that the
anti-trust acts were supposedly passed to break up, could continue to
consolidate their holdings without hindrance, while the competition took the
brunt of the tax system. Neat, eh? So that gave us the instrument for
raising the debt, and the means to collect. All we needed then was a reason
to escalate it. And the fastest way to get a country [in debt] up to its
ears, of course, is war. [i.e., World War I].”
– James P. Hogan, ‘Mirror Maze’ -

Folks, the underlying purpose behind this bill is to create another giant slush fund from which the Dems can spend, spend spend!!

And, just like SS and Medicare, as the bills come due and outweigh the taxed income, the solution is going to be to increase taxes to cover the shortfall as well as to lower services, deny services, and otherwise obfuscate and interfere with payouts.

THAT is the underlying purpose of this: Yet another Ponzi scheme.

Remember this, when it comes time for the revolution — one thing that The Next Government MUST have as a part of its inherent rule base is that it MUST adhere to GAAP — Generally Accepted Accounting Practices — when it does its business, and this should be demanded of all the underlying state and local governments, as well.

===============================================================================
That lack of true accountability — in every sense of “accounting” — is one of the chief matters at the heart of this problem in the long run. The government has pulled trick after scam after swindle after con after hustle, over and over again, via their various bookkeeping BS.
===============================================================================

I think it’s far, far too late to fix it. We’re just going to have to let it fall then pick up the pieces after the fact — but remember it, remember it well — for the next time around, so it can’t happen again.

You can’t trust politicians, period.

There’s a “Septic Tank Rule of Politics” that is every bit as true as the Septic Tank Rule of Management.

.

So taxes get raised on top earners right away, but expenses don’t start getting paid until something like 2014. Does this mean that stand-alone budgets for 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 look better with lesser deficits because of the tax raise.

If so … Holy double counting, Batman!
December 22, 2009, 6:03 am

………………
Link,
No, they’ll put the $$$ into the lock box next to the Social Security lock box. .. .. … haha[Simpsons]

This will be non-beneficial, even to those who were targeted as the beneficiaries.
I want all who voted for this piece of merde run from office, any elected office.
At least the drunken sailor is spending his own money, which cannot be said for the bribes proffered by Reid & Co.
tom

I suspect we’ll see significant increases in plan costs next year. When Congress writes legislation there’s always devils in the details, with substantial wording ambiguity that provide ‘opportunities’ for providers (as well as increased cost dealing with these!). My guess is that the practice will prove surprisingly different than what the authors intended (excepting highly focused provisions that tend to be carefully crafted to meet specific ends) and that it’ll result in increased coverage costs and effective rationing at the point of service.

I currently plan to ‘cherry pick’ across my workforce, deciding which employees I can ‘afford’ to cut loose from coverage, and who I really need. The latter I will continue to cover decently, even if I have to do so at the expense of the former, who I’ll move into non-coverage groups, or even cut loose entirely, if needed to ensure I keep key people while controlling costs. There’s not much choice as margins simply won’t allow any increased cost to be passed along under current market conditions.

I’m afraid it’s likely some people will lose their jobs as a result of these changes. It’s a shame, but I don’t see a lot of alternatives. Increasing costs will force greater labor efficiency. I’ll have to ask more (and pay more) to high performers, at the expense of less critical people.

‘Change’ isn’t always good.

If so … Holy double counting, Batman!