Why More U.S. Expatriates Are Turning In Their Passports

The 16th amendment was never ratified by a sufficient number of states, therefore to all intents and purposes you can wipe your ass with it.

I'm afraid I am in no way knowledgeable regarding the tax-related matters you are discussing so I have no idea whether it would make sense to hand in your passports based on any type of benefit you may or may not receive in return.

You certainly should be morally inclined to do so though...

[edit on 21-4-2010 by D377MC]

reply to post by D377MC

Aye mate,
that is all it's good for.
And, in fact, people DO become "unincorporated", but why try to convince hostile citizens to do likewise?
Foolish.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


The question is, do people run like rats from a ship or stay and save the ship.

As to freedoms, its worse in most of the industrialized world than it is here. The grass is not greener. If a person leaves they save some money but give up freedoms and jump right into the fire because most countries have higher taxes.

Where do you go to escape where it is one bit more free. Canada maybe but then your taxes go up, not down. Opportunity goes down not up.

In my mind, if you love this country you stay and fight to change it back to what it was, if you do not, you do not love this country. When the going gets hard the weak run for the hills.

reply to post by rnaa


Good on you for being in the higher tax brackets. You've done well. You're probably almost immune to upcoming changes, such as declaring your wealth if you bank more than $USD 10K. You DO declare that right? Right?

Part of the rest of the truth is that the IRS goes after easy targets. Those are often not the rich -- who can "protect" their money -- but the average person who has for whatever reason, decided to live abroad.

I know a 79-year-old man who was once a physician in the U.S. He goes through all manner of hell living here, as the IRS conTINunally wants to audit him and his business. he just wants to coast out his remaining years without strife. He's PAID his frickin' dues, but because this country has a reputation for tax sheltering, he has to suffer the chains of ongoing IRS woes. let me tell you something: Hope and pray that you never get noted on the IRS hit list of people to screw with. There is no recourse, nor any higher authority to appeal to. If they say you are a criminal, then it is so. You cannot take the fifth and you are guilty until proven -- within their own slanted framework -- innocent.

Count your blessings. I hope you continue to not be plagued by the ghosts of your former country. I hope you never have to prove you aren't a criminal under the guise of a newly created definition.

Be well and safe

Originally posted by D377MC
The 16th amendment was never ratified

Who told you that malarkey? Sufficient States ratified by 1913 and the rest of the 48 States ratified it also before it was done.

That old lie was spread by crooks trying to get out of paying taxes. It has never been true.

It still is spread by crooks.

[edit on 4/21/2010 by Blaine91555]

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
reply to post by expat2368

 

The U.S. may have its problems and I cannot ever envision myself being back there permanently until I get shipped back to Florida in a cardboard box but I am still loyal and extremely disturbed about the direction the country is heading.

I never thought I would see Eastern European countries and even Russia as bastions of freedom and a haven for Christians however it seems to be heading in that direction.

It would seem that the real outcome of the Cold War, borne of the threat of Mutually Assured Nuclear Destruction led to at first a compromise and then metamorphosis of ideologies, with each side, at the end heavily embracing the other’s philosophies and governmental styles.

China today has the second larges population of Billionaires in the World; the Old Communist East has become progressively more and more democratic, and more capitalistic, while the United States has become more and more socialist and fascist.

It is almost as if the roles will end up being completely reversed at this pace.

Thanks for posting and sharing your insights what life is like abroad.

Hope to see you one day here in Sunny South Florida minus the cardboard box!

We have become so because of one big reason, we are a broke country pure and simple. And when countries are reaching insolvency, they try by hook or crook to take money from its citizens anyway it can in order to keep going. I wish our politicians had any brains in their heads, I truly do. They have to see what future is coming for this nation, if they don't they are so naive that they shouldn't even be in office. I love this country, I truly do but we have allowed the crazies both politician and citizen to have to much say over what is an american. Crazy people don't look realistically at the future and think as long as I have an attitude or yell the loudest or hold my bible, it will pass. I feel sorry for our society in this country, because when the hammer comes down on all of us it will hurt and hurt bad. Because how can a people who have been told for decades that they are exceptional and the best at everything, that the govt. doesn't have money for you for your old age or won't give you money. Then your sitting under a bridge with your ipod and your bible and your attitude cold and without a roof over your head. What happens to that exceptionalism that you thought was your birthright.

Our leaders have played a game with our citizens and didn't help them into being one people. Instead they decided to promote hate and intolerance and prejudice on anybody that is different. We deserve the fate that comes to our nation. I stay because I want to see this little game that has been played come to an end and hopefully people will get it through their head that we are 300 million people out of a world of 6.5 billion.

The question is, do people run like rats from a ship or stay and save the ship

...the weak run for the hills...

Actually the ship is beyond saving now so you can be romantic and melodramatic about it if you like but common sense dictates you get your ass on that life boat.

As for the idea that the weak run for the hills... well, I think the wise and the prudent certainly should at this stage.

reply to post by Blaine91555


I feel your patriotism Blaine, and I honor it. We left. We didn't flee from our government, nor flee at all.

We simply left for a place that is largely forgotten by the rest of the world, and we hope it will always remain so. I feel like I paid my dues to the U.S. and got jack for it. That's fine, truly. I didn't expect that I would garner any points for my deeds, but I did expect that I could willfully choose to live a hard lob of a rock from the sea and eat coconut and fruit alongside fresh fish and perhaps live on an island that places more value on being able to spot booby birds at sea (a sure drift with fish) than being able to work differential equations.

DE serves no purpose here, and that's just fine with me. I look for booby birds........and eat lots of breadkind and coconuts.

Originally posted by expat2368
Anyone who is seriously considering the expat life U2U me.

[edit on 21-4-2010 by expat2368]

I don't understand. Your answer to when things go wrong is to leave and let others fix things? It's somebody elses problem? It's that attitude that allowed this in the first place is it not?

Traveling as you are is not cheap. You are not poor. Most of the world can not afford a single airline ticket within their lives unless somebody else pays for it. One ticket from here to Russia for instance would feed and house a large family for a year in most of the world.

Originally posted by rnaa
reply to post by Josephus23

 

I won't go into your nonsense about 'sovereign' vs 'citizen', because it is just that and why bother?

But...

The 16th Amendment is blatantly unconstitutional.

Ok, this is sillier that the 'sovereign' thing, but I am intrigued about how you can make a statement like that and still be breathing (that is a Bob Dylan reference, use your imagination... oh, wait...)

How on earth can the Constitution be even slightly unconstitutional, let alone blatantly unconstitutional?

I am not too sure where you are getting your information from, but here are some references.

Here is a link to the Supreme Court decision in Pollock versus Farmers' Loan and Trust that states that any taxes imposed directly must be apportioned.
(In case you can't grasp what this decision is stating, then I will tell you. It means that a direct unapportioned tax is BLATANTLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL)

I would suggest that you cease with the ad hominem attacks and do a bit of research before showing your ignorance of US constitutional law.

Just in case you want to continue arguing a point of which you have obvious limited knowledge, then I would suggest watching this movie.
Pay special attention to the interview of the ex head of the IRS

Google Video Link

As for your statements regarding double taxation and US citizens abroad, you might want to pay attention to the little bit o' trouble that our TREASURY SECRETARY ran into while working abroad and NOT paying his taxes.

Here is a link.

If you want to call people names, fine.

If you want to spread lies, fine.

But you are only making yourself look like an amateur.

[edit on 4/21/2010 by Josephus23]

If I was not planted like an Oak Tree, I would renounce in a heartbeat and move.
Americans are pathetic. Look at the top searchs or "trends" on the internet, it is ALL about STARS, and their pathetic lives (lies). Clueless Americans walking around with a phone stuck to their ear or eye or hand. Could not CARE LESS about anyone else.
SHALLOW.
Walmart specials slowly dying from happy meals, and they really don't care.

Meanwhile, we bomb. We blow up people overseas, and we dare not look at the images. We are patriotic though. We like to look at badass airplanes that are built to destroy life. We Americans have killed more people than anyone else! Proud?

Why, because WE, the majority of us, not here on ATS I must add, but Americans are STUPID. Often, I feel like I am living in a nightmare, where my garden is the only reality. I make things grow, my kids will never go to some overseas, soul-killing assault, and I have influenced a few people to be better people.
It is not enough. Americans really do not deserve...
America.

reply to post by Blaine91555


Well it's your lucky day then. All you have to do is collect :

www.inlibertyandfreedom.com...

If you would like some advice, don't quit your job in anticipation of your newfound wealth....

[edit on 21-4-2010 by D377MC]

reply to post by argentus


I understand. The problem is however, the only solution is new people in government and people to vote them into office.

I support seven families with my little business. I can not right now afford even a vacation to a tropical island unless I fire one of them and double my workload.

The only time I get really upset is when I deal with people who were raised in luxury instead of poverty as I was. People who got free rides at Ivy League schools while I worked full time at Truck Stop to pay for mine in the best school I could manage. Then they run off to a tropical paradise with tons of cash in hidden accounts and blame it on the system. A system they never contributed anything too.

reply to post by rnaa


If you want to know the difference between a sovereign and a citizen then here is a movie that might help you as well.

Another great thread Proto, I have several Russian neighbors who are working on going back to Russia. It's funny I never thought I would be invited to move to another country let alone Russia!! I think I'll stay here I have great seats for the coming # storm.

It does seem a little tempting, it's apparently a crime to grow anything NOT organic, and they say it's harder to get arrested there etc..

Originally posted by D377MC
reply to post by Blaine91555

 

Well it's your lucky day then. All you have to do is collect :

www.inlibertyandfreedom.com...

If you would like some advice, don't quit your job in anticipation of your newfound wealth....

[edit on 21-4-2010 by D377MC]

This is the link from that challenge to the source that is supposed to pay the $300,000.00. It leads to a 404 which defaults to links to sell insurance. You should not let people fool you like that so easily.

I looked up the facts and the needed 36 States ratified by 1913. 4 more ratified after that. An amendment to the Constitution is the law, not some site set up by tax resistors.

Originally that site was likely used to scam people into buying books and tapes or donating to a fake cause. If you click on the home page it begs for money to save animals.

[edit on 4/21/2010 by Blaine91555]

reply to post by Blaine91555


I understand you too, Blaine and applaud your efforts to keep the whole system, of which you are the head, employed and stable.

People like you are what keeps the system rolling, and from the sound of it, several souls depend upon you for their daily bread. I think that's much of the heart of America -- I just wish more goods were actually MADE in America.

I think that's where the U.S. wandered astray -- the farming out of production and services and goods to other nations, and meanwhile the few that actually produce American goods don't do real well because they find it difficult to compete with low-paid imported stuff.

I am very lucky. We live extremely simple, by the stardard U.S. yardstick, and yet we are happy here. A good day for me is when I can work my tail off in the hot-hot sun and have a beer or two afterward, followed by a cleansing in the sea.

We went back to the U.S. in 2005 for a Dave Matthews Band concert. yes, there was also shopping involved at the clearance stores in Tampa. Anymore, I'm somewhat afraid to travel to the U.S. I love Her, and always will, but the government scares me. I shouldn't have to look over my shoulder for doing no more ill than choosing to live somewhere else.

It's not the country I signed up for to defend, but that doesn't mean that it's terminally broken. Things change. I try to change with them. I hope nobody comes looking for me because they think I've lived the high life at the expense of the loss of revenue from my end. It simply isn't so, but I couldn't prove it.

reply to post by Josephus23


The difficult thing for so many Josephus is they have been trained to utilize collective peer pressure to validate their own desire to submit to it.

For many such people individuality and divinity has been completely submerged and secondary or third to notions of God and Country.

Even though very few people can well or consistently define just what God or Country is? Ask 20 people and you will get 20 different answers.

If you aren’t first and foremost a human being, but instead an American, then you are such a person whose individuality has been submerged through brainwashing and peer pressure.

America is a Corporation, and we don’t owe it anything other than what we choose to freely and willingly give it.

America did not make the land, nature made the land, the Government didn’t generate individual wealth or success for those not directly employed as an officer of it, we made our own individual wealth and success.

Ultimately the peer pressure arguments of be a good this, or be a loyal that, are really slaves not wanting others to have or enjoy the freedom they are unwilling to take responsibility or initiative for. Master takes care of us, Master loves us, Master gives us everything, we must be loyal to Master.

To thy own self be true!

We are on the edge as we speak. America it about to either erupt in to revolution, re-birth, or be a comofacist nation. This is in our hands now! EXPATS run if you must. But I myself am willing to fight for the future of mine and your childrens and grand-childrens future. I will exhaust every legal and constitional way of restoring America back to the way it once was before the war of Northly Agression.

I, and many other do have our lines in the sand that no man should cross. Will we learn from our own history and not repeat its mistakes? Will our fate be that simular to Germany Pre/Post WWII?

I don't know.

I do know this no matter how dark it gets here in the USA It can always be much much worse. I have traveled abroad to many countries and I can tell you we have it made in comparison with some of the places I have been.

I will not trade my Liberty for security. I provide that on my own.

Our Founders once said Don't Tread on Me...

I pledge when they do, I will show them the face of Satin himself as I will show no mercy.

So I say to you: Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death.

If its death they seek I will bring as many as I can with me.

OORAH!

reply to post by Blaine91555


Congress may ratify amendments, but they can still be unconstitutional.

Watch this little flick on the concept of jury nullification for a better understanding.