The US Citizenship pedigree is fast losing its appeal, both among U.S. citizen-taxpayers and among those citizens of other countries who once sought U.S. Citizenship as the route to a better future for themselves, their families. Our dilemma is a tough one -- education is becoming more expensive (while declining in quality, arguably), but domestic jobs and career paths upon graduation don't offer a great deal of promise or hope. The U.S. is a nation which is and will continue to experience a decline in the standard of living [except for the very wealthy minority] due to increased taxes, reduced income to service debt, increased costs for consumer items, ever-tightening credit and a lack of trust and faith in leadership and fundamental institutions.
As A Global Futurist, a writer for The Internationalist Page Blog and a contributor to The InfoSphere Business Alerts And Intelligence Blog I cannot deny what I perceive as a decline in the desirability of U.S. citizenship, and a decline in the United States' historically powerful influence on international affairs -- especially within the next two years. In the meantime, the brain drain continues as the exodus from U.S. Citizenship becomes an increasingly attractive alternative to remaining "cautiously optimistic" that America has turned the corner, and that a powerful, fundamental and continuous economic rebound is occurring, or is about to occur.
The article excerpt which follows appears courtesy of Reuters, one of the world's largest and most reputable news services. It bears goods new and bad news... after you've had an opportunity to review it, click back to this page and read the article which follows it, which talks about an even more recent hasty escape from US-citizenship plan by a fellow who is about to add some billions to his personal balance sheet. When you've finished that exciting story, please come back to read my Futurescape view:
A year ago, in Action Comics, Superman declared plans to renounce his U.S. citizenship. "'Truth, justice, and the American way' - it's not enough anymore," the comic book superhero said, after both the Iranian and American governments criticized him for joining a peaceful anti-government protest in Tehran.
Last year, almost 1,800 people followed Superman's lead, renouncing their U.S. citizenship or handing in their Green Cards. That's a record number since the Internal Revenue Service began publishing a list of those who renounced in 1998. It's also almost eight times more than the number of citizens who renounced in 2008, and more than the total for 2007, 2008 and 2009 combined.
But not everyone's motivations are as lofty as Superman's. Many say they parted ways with America for tax reasons.
The United States is one of the only countries to tax its citizens on income earned while they're living abroad. And just as Americans stateside must file tax returns each April - this year, the deadline is Tuesday - an estimated 6.3 million U.S. citizens living abroad brace for what they describe as an even tougher process of reporting their income and foreign accounts to the IRS. For them, the deadline is June.
The National Taxpayer Advocate's Office, part of the IRS, released a report in December that details the difficulties of filing taxes from overseas. It cites heavy paperwork, a lack of online filing options and a dearth of local and foreign-language resources.
For those wishing to legally escape the filing requirements, the only way is to formally renounce their U.S. citizenship. [read the entire article]
####
And now, for your consideration this article excerpt, courtesy of Yahoo! News which talks about an exciting and expedient exodus from the ever-rapacious Uncle Sam by a young fellow who is about to make a great deal of money and does not wish to award to the U.S. Government for its discretionary use (bailouts, handouts, stimulus schemes, governmental expansion, the war effort, and 'miscellaneous items'):
Facebook Co-Founder Saverin Gives Up U.S. Citizenship Before IPO
By Danielle Kucera, Sanat Vallikappen and Christine Harper | Bloomberg – Fri, May 11, 2012 1:51 PM EDTEduardo Saverin, the billionaire co- founder of Facebook Inc. (FB), renounced his U.S. citizenship before an initial public offering that values the social network at as much as $96 billion, a move that may reduce his tax bill.
Facebook plans to raise as much as $11.8 billion through the IPO, the biggest in history for an Internet company. Saverin’s stake is about 4 percent, according to the website Who Owns Facebook. At the high end of the IPO valuation, that would be worth about $3.84 billion. His holdings aren’t listed in Facebook’s regulatory filings.
Saverin, 30, joins a growing number of people giving up U.S. citizenship, a move that can trim their tax liabilities in that country. The Brazilian-born resident of Singapore is one of several people who helped Mark Zuckerberg start Facebook in a Harvard University dorm and stand to reap billions of dollars after the world’s largest social network holds its IPO. [read entire article].
####
Fast Forward Futurescape:
With jobs, wealth, consumer markets, opportunities for advancement, home ownership and many other critical components of the "American Dream" being exported aggressively from the United States, combined with the erosion of Constitutionally-protected liberties and civil rights and an ever-more desperate Treasury and Internal Revenue Service increasingly taxing a shrinking tax base, U.S. citizenship is not as highly-valued as it once was.
In fact, if there were an exchange for the open trading of various international citizenships, many a participant would be selling the U.S, Passport short in the current economy.
Expect this trend away from the once-coveted U.S.A. pedigree to continue for at least another 8 - 10 years. In the interim, expect real domestic employment, the purchasing power of the USD, and the pool of intellectual, managerial and professional talent to continue to decline, while slavery to consumer indebtedness, real percentage of all income paid to the government (federal, state and local), criminal and civil prosecutions (and draconian sentencing) for an increasing menu of criminalized activities, the cost of living and other important economic and sociological determinants to continue to rise.
This saddens me as an American citizen, but as A Global Futurist, a writer for The Internationalist Page Blog and a contributor to The InfoSphere Business Alerts And Intelligence Blog I cannot deny what I perceive as a decline in the desirability of U.S. citizenship, and a decline in the United States' historically powerful influence on international affairs -- especially within the next two years.
Douglas E. Castle
@DouglasECastle1 to follow me on Twitter
No comments:
Post a Comment