What does this legislation mean to those who leave for moral reasons? What about those who leave because they don't want to live in a country with metal detectors in schools, with white racist dragging a black from the back of a truck until he is broken into pieces, with black racists hanging whites in downtown Los Angeles, with anti-Jewish fanatics shooting children in nurseries, with teenage kids machine gunning their classmates?  Will those that leave be required to take some kind of test to show they are moral expatriates and not tax expatriates?  What kind of test?  If I find the actions of Congress in this matter repugnant and immoral, and I do, would that qualify me as a moral expatriate?

Despite these congressional efforts to create a jurisdictional prison, leaving America hasn't lost its popularity. Far from it. Most of those leaving are simply leaving without saying good-bye - (see IRS Loses Bid To Track Overseas Tax-Dodgers in a previous issue of this magazine. -  Click Here -) Tens of thousands of Americans have left and the US government has no way to track them. However some are still going to the trouble of renouncing despite the straw watchdog Congress created. Several thousand people have turned in their citizenship or green cards within the past few years, and over half of them did so after Congress tried to create it's jurisdictional prison.

The law that Congress created states that if the purpose of avoiding taxes is among our principal motives for renouncing, then they can collect estate taxes and income taxes on U.S. earnings and investment income for the next ten years. They don't have to prove we were motivated by tax purposes. If our net worth is over $500,000 or our income tax bill is over $100,000, they presume our motives are tax related. Libya and the United States are among the small number of nations brutal enough to tax their citizens on all income worldwide to begin with.  Now Congress would like to extend their worldwide taxation clause to include a taxation in perpetuity clause.  Those scientists who claim that a perpetual motion machine is an impossibility should turn to the U.S. Congress for answers.

How does this effect those who aren't worth a half a million and don't have $100,000 tax obligations?  As stated elsewhere on this website most Americans have decided to slip quietly away without saying good-bye.  Most often when an expatriate goes abroad they are effectively off of the radar.  Those we've talked to simply restart their lives abroad, get a second passport and drop out of the American system. Those that are intent on returning should read the article Expat Tax - U.S. Taxation of American's Living Abroad in this issue.  Most expatriates I've talked to have lowered their taxes to zero.  As mentioned in the book Escape From America the structuring of one's expatriate tax obligations can be done in such a way as to reduce them to zero in most cases. If you can do this for ten years and not spend more than 30 days in the USA during that period you can then renounce without presumption of guilt.  If you hold dual citizenship from birth you can return to the other country without presumption of guilt. If you or one of your parents was born abroad you can become a citizen of that country without presumption of guilt and so on.

For those who do feel the necessity to renounce, there are enough loopholes to prevent the virtual prison legislation from being much more than a scare tactic. Everyone who has legally challenged the presumption of guilt clause has won. The Immigration & Naturalization Service so far has not barred anyone from returning to the U.S. after renouncing. It is clear that the laws that Congress wrote were written to prevent a massive exodus not to go after those who have the courage to renounce.

It is a brutal and ugly piece of legislation and it is a disgrace to the U.S. Congress. If people no longer want to live in a country, any country, they should be allowed to leave with their possessions. That Congress should try to create a virtual prison is clear sign to us of what America is now becoming.  It is an undeclared war zone where most elderly people have to lock themselves inside their homes in order to feel safe. Forty million Americans are murdered, maimed, raped, mugged, or robbed every year. Tens of millions of Americans live in an American prison. America has the highest prison population in the world. It is one of the most violent countries on earth. People are tired of paying so high a rate of taxes into a system that is spiraling downhill - a system that does little to increase their freedom - and into a society that is becoming morally bankrupt and vehemently wants to pretend that it is not. Could the doors suddenly slam shut trapping millions of American's inside, just as people were trapped inside the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany?   It's a question worthy of speculation. When the ether wears off and more and more American's discover they've been hoodwinked there could be a massive exodus.  What Congress will do to stop them is open to conjecture.

Since this article was written the US Government has made 'agreements' with numerous foreign nations regarding Americans seeking residency in those nations.  The US Government has 'obligated' many nations to force those Americans seeking residency to send an Interpol generated letter to the FBI stating that they are seeking residency in a foreign nation.  Several readers have written in stating that they've been obligated to report to the FBI that they were seeking residency in a foreign nation.  We asked officials of several nations why they were agreeing to this invasion into to their private affairs.  One official summed it up by saying, "...we are more or less obligated to comply, even though it is not on our law books, we have to do what the US Government requests."     ...now you know.  You have to do what the US Government requests wherever you are, even though the President of the USA has a 91 IQ and has committed crimes against humanity.  What an irony - - it would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.