Bonjour dear reader\u00a0:\u00a0 Have you ever dreamed of being an expat\u00a0? Living in \u00a0\u00a0– not visiting \u2013 Paris, London, Rio de Janeiro\u00a0? Doesn\u2019t it sound exotic, glamorous, fun-filled\u00a0?\u00a0 Would you be tempted?<\/p>\n
Sure you would\u00a0! But first, please answer a few questions about matters you may not, but certainly should,\u00a0 know before you consider the idea. If by the end of my little questionnaire you still want to be an expatriate, please do it \u2013 at your risk and peril.<\/p>\n
Here we go\u00a0!<\/p>\n
Did you know that the U.S. government taxes its citizens wherever they live\u00a0? With the exception of\u00a0 Eritrea, I believe, it is the ONLY country in the world to do so.\u00a0 What does that mean for you, my future expat\u00a0?\u00a0 You will pay taxes both in the country you live in AND declare your income to the U.S. government whether you owe money or not.\u00a0 If you\u2019re over a certain threshold, you\u2019ll pay in both places.<\/strong><\/p>\n Did you know that a 2010 law called the Foreign Tax Account Compliance Act (FATCA,) requires all foreign banks to declare assets held by American citizens\u00a0? And that if the bank refuses, it will then be liable to a 30 per cent withholding tax\u00a0? What does this mean for you, my future expat\u00a0?\u00a0 It means that financial institutions are not accepting American clients and are getting rid of the ones they have.\u00a0 <\/strong>Simple as that\u00a0!<\/p>\n Did you know that as an expat you now have to file a new form called the FBAR (Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts)\u00a0? This is a report of every single financial account that you\u00a0 possess or have signature authority on, what it is, where it\u2019s located, how much you have on it.\u00a0 Of course this means that Uncle Sam now knows what your spouse, if foreign, has on his or her accounts if he or she was dumb enough to give you a proxy.\u00a0 Seriously speaking, in my book, the ability to peek into the acount of a non-U.S. citizen is called spying. The FBAR is an egregious invasion of privacy and totally discriminatory.\u00a0 And, last but certainly not least,\u00a0 do you know to whom we expats file this FBAR form\u00a0? We file it to \u2013 are you ready\u00a0? –\u00a0 the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network at the Department of the Treasury<\/strong>.\u00a0 Did you get that\u00a0?\u00a0 Financial CRIMES\u00a0!!<\/p>\n Did you know that\u00a0? Of course you didn\u2019t\u00a0!\u00a0 Why would you\u00a0? You are a \u00ab\u00a0good\u00a0\u00bb American living in America whereas we expatriates are, in the eyes of our government, traitors who have chosen to abandon \u00ab\u00a0the greatest country in the world\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n In its own peculiar way our government has placed its citizens abroad on its Most Wanted List.<\/p>\n Just a couple more questions and then you can decide if you still want to be an expatriate.<\/p>\n Do you seriously think that a terrorist would have a bank account in his\/her own name or fill out these tiresome forms\u00a0? Get real\u00a0! A bona fide tax dodger is smarter than that\u00a0!<\/p>\n Do you think that the Average Joe and the Average Joan should be set apart and discriminated against by the U.S. government \u00a0because they are living abroad\u00a0? (If you answer yes, I\u2019ll take you off my mailing list\u00a0!).<\/p>\n Do you still want to be an expat\u00a0?\u00a0 I doubt it.<\/p>\n And, now, here’s the \u00a0question many expats are asking :\u00a0 in light of the scandalous way we are treated by our government,\u00a0do we still want to be American citizens ?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bonjour dear reader\u00a0:\u00a0 Have you ever dreamed of being an expat\u00a0? Living in \u00a0\u00a0– not visiting \u2013 Paris, London, Rio de Janeiro\u00a0? Doesn\u2019t it sound exotic, glamorous, fun-filled\u00a0?\u00a0 Would you be tempted? Sure you would\u00a0! But first, please answer a few questions about matters you may not, but certainly should,\u00a0 know before you consider the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":783,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/783"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":283,"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions\/283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}