Hi JWR,
Here’s another one for your readers. I’d heard of this “exit tax” a few months ago and it was completely ignored by the mainstream media (MSM). At first blush, it doesn’t appear to impact most people, i.e. only those over $4 million USD net worth for couples who renounce U.S. citizenship and leave. However, we all know how well the alternative minimum tax (AMT)–the so-called millionaire’s tax–worked out. It was supposed to affect only several hundred tax “scofflaws”, and now because of inflation, millions of citizens are affected. A few years of 50% inflation will put most professional couples into the realm of exit tax eligible.
I’m sure many of your readers will agree that it is making more and more sense to go off the financial grid, as well as the electric grid. Rendering unto Caesar is getting pretty darned expensive, even if you want to leave!
Take a look at this post over at The Ron Paul Forums. Here is a snippet:
“Europe’s Economist magazine refers to this new tax as, “America’s Berlin Wall.” They also point out that, along with North Korea, the United States is already one of the few countries in the world that taxes its citizens on their income regardless of the country they earn it in. As most already suspected, the IRS is a hard master. A government that is bankrupt by any honest accounting accounting standards will eventually be forced by its creditors to turn over any real assets it still has at its disposal. Unfortunately, in most courts of law, those assets can include the full net worth of all U.S. citizens and residents. The ability to tax this net worth, to extinction if necessary, is the ultimate backing behind the guarantee U.S. debt holders know as”the full faith and credit of the United States.”
Yikes! – CK