Archive for April 30th, 2010

2010.04.30

American Ex-Pats Giving Up Citizenship

More and more expats are giving up their citizenship. This is not a good thing, but I had no idea we still had to pay Federal taxes when living abroad, nor did I realize that various recent (post 9/11) laws make it very difficult for us to live abroad, especially if we just happen to need a bank.

Stringent new banking regulations — aimed both at curbing tax evasion and, under the Patriot Act, preventing money from flowing to terrorist groups — have inadvertently made it harder for some expats to keep bank accounts in the United States and in some cases abroad.

Hopefully something is done about this in our government, but I’m certainly not holding my breath. It makes me rather happy I earned so little money (relatively speaking) when I was in Prague; they can’t come after me for tax evasion!