Enjoy This Letter I Sent my Representatives
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April 21, 2023
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April 21, 2023Everyone is in a bad mood on Tax Day, because it’s Tax Day. F*ck taxes, man.
But I was in an especially bad mood, because I realized that next year, when I file my taxes, the IRS will be expecting to pocket a nice chunk of change out of my income. . . that I am MAKING IN A DIFFERENT COUNTRY.
Yep! You read that right. The US is one of the only countries in the world that taxes based on citizenship, so any money I make (and pay taxes on) in another country is, as far as they’re concerned, fair game.
It’s bonkers. Insane. Rude. Grubby. Entitled. All of those things and more.
So I wrote my representatives about it.
Please enjoy the letter.
Dear Representative,
I’m writing to you as a foreign national in the UK, having married a UK citizen and moved to England. As today is Tax Day, I thought it was a fitting time to bring up the issue of paying taxes on income made in foreign countries– in other words, taxation based on citizenship. Did you know that the only other country in the WORLD that taxes its citizens on income/assets made abroad is Eritrea, a country whose civil and human rights abuses could fill a library?
Let’s be honest with ourselves and call this practice what it is: greed. It doesn’t take a radical anti-taxation libertarian to acknowledge that demanding returns on the fruits of labor that effectively have nothing to do with the US government is wrong. I understand that the IRS offers the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE) and the Foreign Tax Credit (FTC) to reduce the burden of paying taxes twice on a single income, but surely these are just extra steps to achieve what almost the entire rest of the world understands on principle: a government has no claim on the fruits of labor conducted outside of its jurisdiction. The UK government, after all, demands no cut of the freelance work I do, and pay taxes for, in the US.
I’m calling on you (and my other representatives) to put an end to this ridiculous practice. My husband and I are not wealthy; we can’t afford to pay double the income tax. Nor are we blessed with ample free time to navigate the complicated tax system and jump through the arbitrary hoops to rid ourselves of this unamerican burden. Perhaps this policy was designed to address the wealthy owners of international corporations, but it affects far more people than that.
Please pass legislation to ensure that the only taxes collected by the US government are on activities that happen in, for, or through the support of said government, and said government alone.
Kind Regards,
Rachel S
8 Comments
I liked it when President Trump extended Tax Day until July. As for the amounts that’s extracted from taxpayers, if 10% is good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for Uncle Sam, (h/t Ray Stevens).
Flat tax, flat tax, flat tax. Simple flat 10% or 15% rate, no special treatment of anything, No hiding of income necessary, no screwy tax code that Congress and others have been mucking with for decades. No gotchas by the IRS. For most people you just fill out a post card to see what you owe:
– how much did you make?
– subtract 1.5 times the poverty level amount
– subtract $3000 per “real” dependent
– Multiply the result by 0.10.
– That’s your tax. If you haven’t paid it yet write a check to the Treasury. If you paid too much then you’ll get a refund (unless you are a millionaire like Bernie Sanders and are willing to donate your refund).
I 100% agree with flat tax for all citizens living in the US, but demanding taxes from an ex-pat working for an employer in their country of residence is ridiculous.
If the IRS is reading this, I love to pay the taxes I owe.
I have a Master of Law in Taxation. My wife and Turbo Taxes does my taxes.
If collecting taxes from lower income Americans overseas is like anything else the government does an exercise in fortuity, they are probably spending more to collect the taxes then they are collecting. It was like that with federal estate taxes for years and may still be that it cost more to collect then they collect.
Should have been, “an exercise in futility”.
I took a season job doing taxes and all I learned was that the entire system is complicated for the sake of being complicated as that is how they maximize profit.
I really want to go back to the system before income tax was made legal.
Simple and well said. You do know that this does not have a snow ball’s chance in Hell of going anywhere with our congress? They are all greedy pigs. If they figure out a way to tax the air we breath, they will.
Oh I’m well aware… But it sure did feel good to send!