Last year the U.S. experienced something that hasn’t definitively occurred since the Great Depression: More people moved out than moved in. The Trump administration has hailed the exodus—negative net migration—as the fulfillment of its promise to ramp up deportations and restrict new visas. Beneath the stormy optics of that immigration crackdown, however, lies a less-noticed reversal: America’s own citizens are leaving in record numbers, replanting themselves and their families in lands they find more affordable and safe.
I’m an American immigrant in Germany. It’s infuriating how many Germans complain to me about immigrants, then when hearing that I’m an immigrant, wave their hand and say I’m not like the others. I’m now a German teacher and married to a German, so they’ve always got plausible deniability that it’s about language or integration, but I wasn’t always good at German and I only met my husband after a few years here. It used to be much more fun to push back on why.
Try immigrating to Canada from the US. Nobody here would ever consider me a ‘true’ immigrant, even though that is quite literally what I am.
I moved for school and never came back. All my family and personal ties were left behind in the states. Except for my family and the annoying need to file taxes every year for some fucking reason, I have no ties left to the US.
But Im white and culturally similar enough that the label ‘immigrant’ would feel funny to people here. It really is wacky.
Why pay taxes to the US? Is it an extraditable offense?
You have to file taxes with the US, most people with US citizenship living outside the US don’t actually have to pay anything.
As for why to keep filing:
Let’s say you have no plans to ever live in the US again. Does that mean you never want to visit friends or family you left behind? Does that mean you’ll never go to a sporting event, concert or professional conference in the US ever again? If you’re flying internationally, will you always be willing to pay extra and do extra work to avoid being on a plane that makes a stopover in the US?
For most people it’s a few hours of work, and/or a hundred bucks or so once per year to keep their options open and avoid major headaches.
Thanks for the well laid out response. I learned a lot, and my assumption on renouncing citizenship were along the same lines as:
Yeah, it’s more: “Oh, you want to renounce? Guess we better audit your last 5 years of tax returns with a fine-toothed comb.” In addition, you have to do two separate interviews with US officials, plus pay a $2.5k USD fee. Plus, you might be hit with an exit tax if you have any wealth – and that includes retirees who are counting on using that wealth for their retirement.
It’s rather simple, they see you as sharing their same culture, so they consider you part of their tribe, while others appear to them as being too different, implying cultural friction and danger.
You aren’t a Turk?