brin_bellway | (no subject)

[cw: poverty, first-world problems, government bullshit]

So, uh, my brother was looking stuff up and apparently if you're non-rich the fee for renouncing U.S. citizenship is only about USD$2,300.

I am...very conflicted about how to react to that idea. It's...things would be so much easier, so much *simpler*, if I weren't a U.S. citizen. I could just...invest? like a normal person? without it being a fucking minefield of tax-law clusterfucks?

(I never actually posted that earlier draft, did I. The one complaining about how my meta-boss accidentally attached my wages for one shift to the paycheque *after* the one it was supposed to be on, and I couldn't even really be annoyed at him because my current time value of money is *zero*, so what does it fucking matter if I don't get it as quickly as I should. Let him hold onto it for an extra fortnight, maybe he can actually put it to some good fucking use.)

There *are* possible futures where having U.S. citizenship has strong upsides. But in almost *every* future--indeed, in the present--it has moderate downsides. And the possible futures with the strong upsides aren't among the more likely futures.

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(My family is very fond of having a US citizen in our family because it might offer a chance to more easily refugee if/when Indonesia and/or china invades, which feels increasingly plausible as a war-scenario around here).

This seems like a weird decision to make if you're living in the US, but I'm sure you've considered the legalities to a far greater extent than I have.

>>if you're living in the US<<

I'm not. Haven't in over a decade, have no plans to ever do so again, currently pursuing a career path that AFAIK is not easily portable between countries and especially not portable to the United States. If I *were* living there I wouldn't be tempted by this: having U.S. citizenship wouldn't be a problem if I also had U.S. *residency*, because then I would have easy access to American forms of investment, and wouldn't have to be careful not to run afoul of laws restricting foreign investments.

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>>I'm sure you've considered the legalities to a far greater extent than I have.<<

I haven't previously let myself consider the legalities because I thought I couldn't afford it (the price is *much* higher if you have a net worth of $2mil or more or made an average of >$160k/year for the last five years, and since renunciation tends to be a Rich People Thing the stuff I'd previously heard about renunciation was aimed at them and didn't clarify that most people would have an easier time), but I probably *could* manage $2,300. This post is me wondering if maybe I *should* think it through in detail, and how to even go about thinking it through in detail when things like "what if future-me's life takes an unexpected turn such that it becomes a good idea to move back to the United States" seem very hard to quantify. I'm still fairly young, after all: there are many opportunities left for unexpected turns to occur.

(also one of the more likely unexpected turns is that I end up becoming a U.S. tax preparer specialising in [U.S. citizens living in Canada], which probably *would* be a pretty portable-to-the-US job, plus maybe Form 8621s are less terrifying if you already fill them out for a living, and come to think of it I wouldn't be surprised if the process of becoming one involves spending some time in the United States)

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P.S. See this post for more on me struggling not to end up on the IRS's shitlist.

(The trouble with RRSPs, upon reflection, is that once you *withdraw* money from them you can never put that money back (with a couple exceptions for certain kinds of home and school purchases). I'm not financially stable enough to really be able to tie up money for decades: I need a liquid investment, even if it means getting 2.3% instead of 4%.)

Edited 2019-05-14 02:36 (UTC)

Ah. Given that, I think looking at the option, at least, is worth doing then.

... I should really invest my money into *something*. But that involves brain-power and effort which I need to be spending on class-work and more urgent paperwork any time I can get up the willpower.

I know very little about Australian finance, but in the countries I *am* more familiar with, people lacking in spare brainpower--as long as they are also lacking in Weird Tax Shit--can just walk into a bank and say "here is some money, tell me how to invest it".

They'll steer you towards higher-fee options, but those are almost certainly better than nothing, and you can change it later if/when you acquire enough spare brainpower to figure out what the local low-fee options are.

The last time I tried that, the solution was non-liquid on the order of years, so I don't want to do that again. Probably still worth it.

When I tried it, they asked me "how risk-averse are you" (risk scares me, but suboptimal moves also scare me, so I guess that balances out to "moderately") and "how liquid do you need it to be" (must be available at any time).

(...and then they gave me advice that, if followed, would cause me to break the law, and I learned not to trust them when it comes to myself. But they can still be useful for people with less complicated tax obligations than mine.)

((I dream of one day being able to afford an investment advisor competent to handle my situation. But I only really have a couple thousand dollars to spare right now--to be completely honest, *any* interest I could hope to earn on it is probably immaterial; I'm doing this mostly because *not* earning interest has been eating away at me psychologically--and all the expat-competent advisors I know of charge at least some money upfront rather than a purely "share of the profit" fee like the regular banks do, and pretty much *any* upfront fee is going to be too large for me to safely handle at the moment.))

(((so really, even if renunciation is a good idea I probably can't do it *just* yet: the thing I would do if I decided to do it is place it on my list of things to save up for, next to the porch repairs and more fuel-efficient car)))