The Glade 4.0

According to the latest Internal Revenue Service report, the number of Americans renouncing their U.S. citizenship (or terminating their long-term permanent residency) has increased nearly ninefold since 2008.

In the first quarter alone, 499 Americans expatriated through the IRS, meaning they probably won’t have to pay U.S. taxes anymore. That compares with a quarterly average of 384 in 2010. And 2010 marked a significant jump from 2009 and 2008, with quarterly averages of 186 and 58, respectively.

These are small numbers of course. With 300 million Americans, 499 expatriates is hardly a drop in the ocean. Yet the trend is almost a straight line up.

Why is this happening?

The IRS doesn’t tell us why people expatriate, or who they are or where they go. Lawyers say most are wealthy Americans who have expatriated to all manner of countries.

One argument is that they are leaving because of President Obama and the nation’s leaders.

“There is growing concern, particularly among the wealthy, about the future financial direction of the country,” said Paul L. Caron, Charles Hartsock Professor of Law at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. “This President constantly demonizes the wealthy, who undoubtedly are concerned about the tax policy that would emerge in 2012 if a re-elected Barack Obama, unconstrained by re-election concerns, finally confronts the budgetary train wreck that he has done so much to exacerbate.”

Other attorneys who specialize in helping the Americans expatriate say the reason is that the IRS is cracking down on overseas bank accounts and offshore income. There is a population of U.S. citizens who live overseas and may never have paid U.S. taxes on their non-U.S. earnings and non-U.S. accounts. Now that the IRS is enforcing the rules, with criminal penalties for scofflaws, the overseas residents would prefer to expatriate rather than pay.

“I think this is coming to the forefront because of offshore reporting and banker reporting issues,” said Peter Connors, a tax attorney in New York. “there is a price to being a citizen of the U.S. and at a certain point the price may not be worth it.”

Whatever the case, the numbers are clearly headed in the wrong direction.

Why do you think Americans are expatriating?

Uh.

The gist of that article is 'People who were avoiding their taxes by offshoring them, are now being forced to pay them by more stringent regulation, and are thus in some cases giving up citizenship to avoid it.'

So, if they were offshoring the wealth anyway, (or, by one reading, actually breaking the law) who cares? Whatever residual tax was being paid presumably wasn't significant.

Uh.

The gist of that article is 'People who were avoiding their taxes by offshoring them, are now being forced to pay them by more stringent regulation, and are thus in some cases giving up citizenship to avoid it.'

So, if they were offshoring the wealth anyway, (or, by one reading, actually breaking the law) who cares? Whatever residual tax was being paid presumably wasn't significant.

19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

Shhhh. Righteous indignation isn't interested in facts and logic!

19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

Still don't buy that the rich are being oppressively taxed. The top 10% of the country owns 50% of the total wealth, the highest proportion in history. If oppressive taxation really was taking them apart that percentage would be dropping.

Not to mention, you also would like me to believe that the politicians in Congress, who are both dishonest and composed entirely of rich people, and oppressively taxing themselves into oblivion. Right.

I'm not making the argument that the seperation of wealth itself is bad, only that it doesn't make sense that the rich would be increasing their share of the wealth while at the same time taxation of the rich becomes significantly more oppressive. Are the rich significantly better at making money today than they were 50 years ago, that they can do so much better in spite of an increased tax burden?

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

Do you know what happens when an American Liberal opens a dictionary and looks at the definitions of "wealth" and "income"?

19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

You think those people paid no significant amount of taxes on their wealth in the US outside of what they were able to off-shore?

You have lost your damn mind. European liberalism, and it's lack of second tier logic, never cease to amaze me.

Note: defining economically significant as 'we should care' and not 'they should care'; if I'm earning 30k a year then a 15k tax burden is pretty damn significant, but the loss of 15k to the exchequer really isn't.

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.