Wednesday, 16 May 2012

Expats dumping US Citizenship

We got to face it, the government is beholden to special interests: Bankers, Giant Corporations and Unions. Government is scaring us into forever expanding their credit line (the debt ceiling) and to pay for an interventionist foreign policy, while Entrepreneurs must work with one hand tied behind their back.  We are in decline!  There is no way out, because we are too scared to take on the government.  So the best talent will leave for countries with more economic freedom like Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, New Zealand or Australia. 


Furthermore, Congress is forcing US Citizens to give up their citizenship, if they live abroad and want to have a banking relationship there.  The new FATCA law requires all foreign banks to report all US person owned accounts.   These banks don't like the cost of reporting assets of USA clients to the IRS and do not accept the legal risk of being sued by the US.  Since the US Government sued UBS, many foreign banks already refuse American customers .  By 2013 (FATCA implementation), they are all going to refuse to do business with US persons.