Posted on 06/28/2006 3:27:23 AM PDT by Oshkalaboomboom
Globalization is sending tax rates tumbling across the world, as jobs and capital migrate across borders in search of lower and more equitable taxation regimes. That makes it all the more imperative not only to roll back the recent tax increases on U.S. expatriates, but to eliminate double-taxation of overseas Americans altogether. Thankfully, there's a new bill in front of the U.S. Congress to do just that.
The U.S. is one of only a handful of countries that insists on applying an onerous system of "world-wide taxation." Since U.S. citizens living overseas are already, in most cases, paying local taxes in the countries where they work, that means they end up being taxed twice -- thus violating one of the most important principles of good tax policy. Most other countries, by contrast, have the good sense only to apply "territorial taxation," confining their taxation systems to income earned inside their national borders.
America's policy makers have tried to mitigate the adverse impact of world-wide taxation by exempting Americans living overseas from paying U.S. taxation on up to $82,400 annually. This is the "foreign-earned income exclusion" in Section 911 of the U.S. tax code. Thanks to a last-minute amendment inserted into a recent comprehensive tax bill, the foreign income exclusion will be slightly raised, but other benefits, such as housing exclusions, will be cut -- resulting in a huge spike in tax payments for many American expatriates.
While the foreign-income exclusion is better than nothing, it still leaves any overseas Americans earning more than this at a substantial competitive disadvantage, along with the U.S.-based multinationals that employ them. Such companies commonly foot the bill for ensuring that their American expatriate employees pay no more taxation than they would at home.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Given that jobs and capital are migrating across the borders, one might want to look at tax rates for those that remain in this country. Perhaps the US needs to quit creating an environment where the mix of exorbitant taxes and unwieldy regulations have forced companies to seek safer haven in other countries.
The Fair Tax eliminating business to business taxes(VATS) will encourage businesses to return to the states. Fair Tax ping!
Wonder when all the whining over obesity is going to result in a reduction in Uncle Sugar's waistline... Rather than being depicted as the lean, bearded old gent of days gone by, perhaps it would be more appropriate (and certainly more realistic!) to show him as Jabba the Hut.
Exactly. A NRST would begin a chain reaction of business, residence, job and manufacturing migration to the US. We would become, in effect, a nation of investors. A no brainer!
That and a few hundred other things makes one wonder why the FairTax isn't already the law of the land instead of the communist inspired income tax that we currently suffer.
Multiple taxation is almost as heinous as the general invasion of personal privacy an income tax (progressive, flat, or otherwise) entails.
Wages-of-Sin: An employer pays a tax on wages for the sin of hiring you, You pay a tax on wages for the sin of working, and yet anofher tax on your wages so some another guy can go fishing, drink, and sin some more.
If anyone would like to be added to this ping list let me know.
John Linder in the House(HR25) & Saxby Chambliss Senate(S25) offer a comprehensive bill to kill all federal income, SS/Medicare payroll, and gift/estate taxes outright replacing them with with a national retail sales tax administered by the states.
H.R.25,S.25
A bill to promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national retail sales tax to be administered primarily by the States.Refer for additional information:
Capital and jobs are not fleeing out of the US, they're flooding to the US. The huge flow of capital into the US is one of the big reasons Pat Buchanan and Co. are convinced that America is doomed ("foreigners are buying up America"). Unemployment is now at an historic low (Unemployment Rate: 
4.6% in May 2006).
Do you have any source of real information (facts and figures) that shows your point - or only Pat Buchanan's rhetoric??
LOL! Some people accept Buchanan's rants as being more reliable than gov't stats, and some don't.
Capital is flooding into the US. If you don't believe P. B., maybe you'll accept the BEA (latest PR mentioning all capital flows "Foreign-owned assets in the United States increased $491.6 billion in the first quarter" and direct investment "2005, outlays by foreign direct investors to acquire or establish U.S. businesses were $86.8 billion"), I got more sources if you want but if you don't like either Saint Patrick (/sarc) or federal stats then you got to tell me just what the heck it is you do accept.
Here's an interesting link to private capital flight.
You've decided to think that capital is leaving and there's nothing that you'd be willing to look at that could convince you otherwise. Talk about mind over matter --just don't pull that with the IRS because they will mind and it will matter.
Just the same, I do thank you for the link. FWIW, the only stat about capital flight was that in 2003, 370,000 Americans left --and his mind also conjures up a private reality system:
| Granted, not all of those 370,000 expatriates were rich. But, think about it. How many do you really think were poor?... How many do you think were even middle class? Personally, I think that it would be very conservative to expect that 80 to 90 percent were, at least, somewhat wealthy. But, don't use my estimates. Use your own. |
OK, my own numbers say that in 2003 the US population increased by 2,685,000, and the total private wealth increased by $5.6 trillion . Maybe that 370,000 leaving didn't make as big a hole in America's private capital as it did in John Gaver's head.
You've won me over and I agree with you completely. All that bad old real estate, bank accounts, stocks, bonds, and currency aren't any way at all to measure true wealth. Let's throw ours all away. You first --I'll even help you haul away the trash because that's just the kind of guy I am.
LOL!
Apparently you also believe your home to be "wealth". That's fine, too. Perhaps you haven't lived long enough to find out that things go down as well as up (despite government or Federal Reseerve efforts).
That's fine, too. I suspect you'll eventually learn that as well.
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