What do you do for a living?
- Thread starter Mr Silver
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You'll save money on food by going anorexic.
I'm on my second Passat, so I've done my part.
That's a better result than most of us get; sometimes they do what the people that made/bloated/sold them told them to do instead of what us lowly users tell them to do.
WHAT? -no Dave Allen?
I'm a pensioner which is a pretty good job if you can get it -plus you have no irritating colleagues or ignorant know-it-all bosses.
Yay! I have a job again! I now work in the electronics department of my local Target. Not exactly what I would prefer, but I'm happy none the less.
I'm currently in the running for a few IRS jobs, but it will be a few months before I really know for sure one way or another. I sure could use a nice paying job like that, I could start making larger payments on my student loans for one thing.
I'm currently in the running for a few IRS jobs, but it will be a few months before I really know for sure one way or another. I sure could use a nice paying job like that, I could start making larger payments on my student loans for one thing.
Yes!
I've been hearing a lot of those sly comments, will have to get used to it. It taxes my patience though
Yes!
I've been hearing a lot of those sly comments, will have to get used to it. It taxes my patience though
I see what you did there...
Hope you land it, maybe you'll be a bit kinder and gentler than
the average IRS functionary..!
I think its the American tax office.
Is this some kind of joke that I'm not getting?
Good, just a mind-hand-coordination (typing) glitch then -I am relieved.
Well, I'm sure the IRS would tax everyone in the world if they could...
Exactly 
on to the conspiracy thread...
on to the conspiracy thread...
I'm a Project Engineer for a processing facility. Currently working as (Interium)Engineering Manager for the site. Trying to make that my perminate position, but time will tell. Currently have 4 Engineers and a Draftsman working for me.
Q2UnME
And ..... I got the promotion, effective on the 16th.!
Right now I don't know if I should laugh .... or cry...
Q2
A very bitter joke, sadly, as the typo is more accurate than RoJo might think.
If you'll permit an off-topic rant...
Most countries base your tax liability on where you earn your money and where you live. The USA is highly anomalous in that your liability is based on citizenship. The only other country that does this is Eritrea, IIRC.
This leads to the ridiculous situation that if you live abroad - even for years, even holding no assets & earning no money in the USA - the IRS still requires you to file annual returns.
Even more stupidly, if you live and earn abroad, you're generally paying taxes to your host country, so the actual amount the IRS can tax you on is very minimal. If your tax affairs are anything but completely straightforward, this means that you incur accountancy fees of hundreds (if not thousands), in order to be taxed cents.
It's a complete joke and a waste of everyone's time and money, including the IRS' since it costs them more to process the returns than they get back!
Add in extra stupidity in recent years like the FBAR and other assorted regulatory junk, and it's not surprising that increasingly large numbers of US expats are choosing to renounce citizenship rather than submit to the ongoing interference of the IRS. I renounced mine a while ago, and the embassy staff confided to me that waiting lists to do so have skyrocketed in every major global financial centre as a result of this interference. They've had to add multiple extra dates to their schedules to process all the applications (even so, waits are 6+ months, though I got lucky as I could take a last-minute cancellation slot).
This international interference is designed to catch tax avoiders, but in practice, any US citizen with truly serious money who has been living abroad for a while, will tend to simply renounce instead. And instead, it catches all those moderate earners like myself, and forces us into making a very hard choice about whether to spend hundreds-to-thousands annually, effectively simply to maintain our citizenship. I did for a while, because I rather liked having both US & UK nationality (I still feel proud to be connected to both nations). But with the added incremental bureaucracy & costs of recent years, I eventually gave up.
Holdfast is correct, although the immigration consequences for someone who renounces citizenship to avoid tax liability are unfortunately quite severe. It's certainly a problem that gets mentioned more and more often since the number of renunciations are on the rise. It really should be reformed. But probably the areas with the lowest amount of political capital are tax laws and immigration and this is kinda the nexus between the two (via citizenship).
Yeah, if I ever wanted to live & work in the US, I'd be an alien and have to go through all the associated palaver. And the system would be very disinclined to be generous at any stage, to put it mildly!
I had to take that into account when weighing up whether to renounce or not, but realistically, I couldn't ever see myself wanting to live or work in the USA. I like lots of things about the UK too much for that. But renouncing was a very serious and irrevocable decision, and it should be viewed in that light.
It doesn't affect me as a tourist as I'm still a British citizen and still able to meet all the visa waiver programme requirements. I checked that out before renouncing and the consensus legal advice was just to carry a copy of my certificate of renunciation, in case of any bureaucratic overzealousness (read: stupidity) at US passport control. It might mean a slight delay as the case is passed up to someone who actually knows the law.
The Reed Amendment has never been enforced, and isn't likely to be. Unsurprising, since it would require the Attorney General to declare a specific renounciation was for taxation purposes and there's no system for doing that. And if the Ex-PATRIOT Act, or something similar, ever gets enacted in a way that actually impacts me and can't be argued out of ("legitimate reason" exemption), well I guess that means no more holidays in the US. I'll survive.
As you say, it's an area of law should be reformed. It hits all the wrong people, in all the wrong ways. The waiting list to renounce is through the roof. The USA is losing revenue and wasting money through these supposed revenue-raising measures.
Everyone hit negatively by it is - almost by definition - part of an exceptionally mobile and exceptionally highly-skilled workforce and therefore exceptionally well-placed to sever US tax liability the way I did if they need too. And if they opt to remain citizens, they're probably super-rich and therefore able to arrange their tax affairs to minimise liability through other mechanisms as the incremental extra accountancy cost to do so is minimal to them. Laffer curve in action.
(it does markedly decrease the efficiency of investment decisions though; for example it creates ridiculous taxation implications when investing in mutual funds through trusts, for a simple example. This doesn't generate any extra revenue for the IRS; it just means one has to diversify in other ways that aren't so negatively impacted. In fact, the effect of the legislation is to make the US seem like it has a major case of sour grapes: "we can't get at your money, so instead we're going to make damn sure you can't invest it in the way you'd like".)
In some ways, my decision was relatively simple as my only connections with the States are sentimental rather than practical. I pity anyone in a similar position with more practical ties to the US (eg close family still there).
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