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I do not belong to one of the “mascot classes.” I work overseas, and the government retroactively ended two safety provisions that kept me from being nicked badly.

First, when you work in a remote location overseas, the company needs to house your somewhere. That cost should be a business expense for the company, but it ought not to be considered taxible income to me. I have a house back home that I have to maintain and pay taxes on. This one I live in in order to be able to work means nothing to me. It isn’t mine, and it isn’t my home, but for the privilege of living in it, I now have to pay tax to uncle sam. That’s a few thousand a year.

Second, to make sure that we aren’t further disadvantaged, there is a “foreign earned income exclusion”. It used to come off the top, but as of last year it started coming off the bottom, making the exclusion almost meaningless.

As a result, I had to use foreign tax credits I had accumulated when I lived in a country with a higher tax rate then the US (accumulated under the OLD rules) and they were sucked up and used in a single year, rather than the expected two years worth of shielding I should have had to equalize things out. That little wrinkle cost me a one-shot $20,000.

But, as I say, I don’t belong to a voting bloc.

To make things worse, other industrialized countries do not tax their citizens on their earnings overseas. That makes Americans like me less competitive. I see the number of new employees coming onto jobs and the ever increasing numbers of Australians, Brits, Kiwis and others, and the reason is very obvious. These guys demand less pay because they aren’t required to share with a rapacious government back home.

I am one of a dying breed.