Why Americans Are Going Abroad

https://medium.com/migration-issues/why-are-americans-leaving-75fe530ce49d?sectionName=suggested

by misiti3780 • 11 years ago

49 52 11 years ago

I wonder how increases in remote work acceptance will affect emigration. If you allow remote work from anywhere it would seem like moving to another country on some sort of visa would be an instant pay increase using the foreign earned income tax break.

davidw8• 11 years ago

Except that you have to pay taxes in that foreign country. Many of them have higher taxes than the US, and in any case, having to file taxes twice is not fun.

reuven• 11 years ago

Many countries (including Israel, where I live) have tax treaties with the US. You still need to file US taxes every year, but any money you pay toward your country of residence counts toward your American taxes, up to a certain ceiling.

The fact that US income tax is lower than those in most other countries means that such people will almost never paying any actual tax -- and, believe it or not, are even entitled to a tax refund from the US government.

So yes, it's a pain that the US makes me file tax forms every year. Or more realistically, the US makes me pay an accountant to handle this for me. But the odds of my having to pay income tax to the US are pretty slim, until/unless I'm making a ton of money, in which case I'm sure that my accountant will think of new clever ways to avoid doing so.

sschueller2• 11 years ago

The US taxing citizens abroad, the irony: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolution#1764.E2.80....

atmosx2• 11 years ago

Nah, of course not. It's not even practical... The amount of jobs that could be done remotely (e.g. programming, design, etc.) are just a tiny fraction.

lotsofmangos2• 11 years ago

For comparison, when asked in the UK Parliament, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs gave an estimate for the number of British nationals living abroad of around 13 million people. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/v...

Which given the UK population of 64 million, is a massive diaspora and completely dwarfs the 7.5 million foreign-born residents in the UK.

edit - these figures led me to the sobering conclusion that here in the UK we should really be keeping quiet about immigration and hope nobody notices

dataker4• 11 years ago

Wow. Do they count UK population as unclaimed UK citizens(sons, grandsons,...) ?

I had no idea there was such a massive diaspora going on.

pjc50• 11 years ago

It's the legacy of colonialism. There is an assumed right for Brits to go anywhere we want. It looks like a majority of the Brits abroad are in Commonwealth countries, which is sort of what I'd expect. Over a million in the US!

If you look closely at UK newspaper comments/letters complaining about immigration, quite a few of them are from people living in Spain. And one of the more notorious anti-immigrant columnists lives in Florida, IIRC.

kjjw2• 11 years ago

What I find particularly funny is that:

- a positive net immigration rate into the UK has been critical in continuing to develop our economy,

- those people from the UK living in Spain will, mostly, be retired people,

- those newspaper comments will complain bitterly about immigrants not contributing, stealing welfare, and so on. Which is exactly what those people complaining are doing, and exactly not what the people they complain about are doing!

dataker4• 11 years ago

Italy makes it remarkably easy for descendants of Italian emigrants to claim citizenship, for example

Hm... No.

It took me 4 years to obtain my Italian citizenship(from my mother). We almost had a court battle for them to accept a missing letter(literally).

davidw8• 11 years ago

It took me 4 years...

As a resident of Italy, I'm going to say: yes, that was easy by Italian standards :-)

IkmoIkmo• 11 years ago

Friend of my dad's moved to Italy, learned to speak the language fluently and spent every day of his 20 years or so there working hard and being an upstanding citizen. He started a family there, but because he missed some paperwork early on, his kids never became Italians and neither did he or his wife.

So yeah his kids were born in Italy, all grew up in Italy, speak Italian fluently (natively), went to school there etc, but eventually they all moved away as they don't have citizenship. They're now mostly in the US. They run businesses and all have advanced degrees.

My dad spoke with him a few times about getting citizenship but it'd be a very long process. They've essentially committed to a life elsewhere.

In other words, there seems to be absolutely no reason for them not to be Italians, other than some kafkaesque messed up bureaucracy that servers no actual purpose.

davidw8• 11 years ago

kafkaesque messed up bureaucracy

This kind of describes immigration bureaucracy anywhere and everywhere.

Here's Linus Torvalds on some of the hassles he had: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/3655 (search for green card). That's the kind of person you should be laying out the red carpet for.

dataker4• 11 years ago

For my own experience, it helps if you are physically 'applying' and, even so, trying regions that are 'more efficient'.

I'd given up on foreign consulates and southern Italian comunes before finally getting it.

atmosx2• 11 years ago

Weird, where you from? I got both (Greek and Italian) citizenships the moment I was born (my mother is from Sicily) and I was born (and currently live) in Greece.

dataker4• 11 years ago

Reside in the U.S and was born in Chile, so it's probably a bit harder if one is outside the EU

misiti3780• 11 years ago

i have been working on it for 3 years now .... they just started charging 350 EU for the appointment at the embassy, even if they do not give you the citizenship

bruceb3• 11 years ago

Immigration is complex but what I hate is the BS and half lies that are told like this author does. "We debate immigration and border controls for Mexico ad nauseum, yet, on the whole, the typical immigrant isn’t Mexican."

Like many newspapers the author is trying to blur the line between legal and illegal immigrant. The reason we are talking about border controls is because yes most come from Mexico. The typical person who is here illegally is Mexican, over 60% are from Mexico. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_the_Unit... Add in central America and around 75% of people coming illegally are from southern border. I can understand their motivation. What I can't stand is trying to present BS.

When they author is trying to obscure facts one must wonder what other stats he is omitting or only half presenting.

As for taxes. Yes taxes suck. They also fund a ton of things that make American #1 in many areas. Should Americans abroad pay as much as American at home, of course not. But they clearly should still pay. You have a great passport and can come back to a country that has a wealth of opportunities that are not available in most other places and in some cases no where else. Why should you get to pay nothing while the rest of Americans maintain the great country for you to come back when you please? Maybe we should make it cheaper for people to renounce their citizenship, they are not needed.

Note: I should have made two post splitting comment on the immigration stats and taxes in to two posts to see the up/down vote difference based on the issues.

timoth2• 11 years ago

It seems part of the problem is that:

You have a great passport and can come back to a country that has a wealth of opportunities that are not available in most other places and in some cases no where else.

could be said about many other countries which don't tax non-residents on their financial affairs in the country in which they've chosen to live. So I think some find it hard to see how the US can justify it.

bruceb3• 11 years ago

Except the passport obviously not all of it as I said. If you are paying that much tax then paying $2k to not be American isn't that high.

ddebernardy• 11 years ago

Three reasons:

1. The US is the only country in the world whose citizens must declare and pay taxes even when they're living out of the country.

2. The paperwork involved is a royal pain in the neck.

3. Failure to do it subjects you to ridiculously high fines.

lotsofmangos2• 11 years ago

Even if you are Mayor of London and haven't lived in the UK since you were a child. - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30932891

Fuxy2• 11 years ago

You seem to be putting the US on too high of a pedestal.

Reality is the US is not all that and you can get most if not all the opportunities you're talking about somewhere else maybe even better healthcare and unemployment benefits without having to pay tax to a country you're not even using the public services of.

I have multiple citizenship and I would find it unacceptable if any of the countries demanded more then their fair share or charges.

Having to pay to renew you passport or processing other paperwork is acceptable paying tax to a country you don't live in isn't.

Having to pay 2K to renounce you citizenship is crazy and the fact that a lot of people still do shows how bad the policy and taxes are.

Reality is owning a US citizenship in a foreign country when you have no intention of coming back is detrimental to your financial well being.

I'm not much for patriotism and other such niceties looking at it as a cold business transaction it is detrimental to the owner with very few benefits compared to other countries.

yodsanklai2• 11 years ago

Having to pay to renew you passport or processing other paperwork is acceptable paying tax to a country you don't live in isn't.

One could argue that growing up in the US gave you a lot of benefits (infrastructure, education, healthcare, security and so on...), and that paying tax (even if not living there anymore) is a reasonable price for this.

jkot• 11 years ago

I understand that major problem with taxes is how complicated it is. Accountancy fee could be thousands dolars even if yoy pay zero taxs.. Some foreign banks even refuse to open bank accounts to US citizens, because of complications.

kjjw2• 11 years ago

What exactly is US 'number 1' in? Income inequality? Incarceration rate? Yes, I suppose those things do need a lot of money to fund.

US passport a great passport? I don't think so. Is it a schengen passport? No. Does it allow easy movement to commonwealth countries? No (it isn't a UK passport.)

Tharkun• 11 years ago

Bloody immigrants. Go back to your own country.

Oh wait, sorry, Americans aren't immigrans, they're expats. My bad.

Double standards on immigration are pretty shitty.

bruceb3• 11 years ago

Most people don't say that. But nice strawman you building.

Millions of people want to come to America. Most countries don't have open borders I am not sure why America is expected to.

netcan• 11 years ago

I know quite a lot of first generation immigrants who call locals "foreigners." Seems especially common among east asians, I always assumed it's just a translation of language that makes sense in (eg) China (non-chinese = foreigners) that doesn't make literal sense in the new context but just stays a part of the language. Not everything is malicious.

seivan• 11 years ago

I know you were just trying to be frivolous and sarcastic, but it doesn't help the debate.

You're just as bad at treating immigration as a homogenous group like genuine xenophobes.

You do realise there are valid points to being against certain parts of immigration - which most people are, they're against certain parts of it.

For instance, these people aren't refugees, they are however treated as refugees https://m.facebook.com/MissionDawahSverige Even though they openly support ISIS.

I call them invaders or invasion force, but that's for a lack of a better term.

However Sweden treat them as refugees and count them as "children" - (yeah even with the beard)

tallanvor• 11 years ago

I consider myself an expat at the moment because while I have no plans to move back to the US, I also don't plan on renouncing my citizenship. But I use that definition for people from other countries as well - I know people from Australia, the UK, Germany, India, Japan, etc. who I consider to be expats. If you're willing to give up your citizenship, then you're an emigrant in my eyes.

But I'm also getting much closer to being willing to give up my US citizenship... The only benefit is that I can decide to go back to the US if necessary, and given the political crap there, that's an increasingly depressing thought.

vorg• 11 years ago

there was only one country that had received more historic migration from the US than the US had received from it: Australia

In NZ we call Australia "the 52nd state", but perhaps it's now taken "the 51st state" title from Canada!

Why Americans Are Going Abroad

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