Why the Well-to-Do
Are Escaping America
By Bob Bauman
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November/December 2007
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spite of the many disturbing trends I often write about in America, I still
maintain a small glimmer of hope that our nation will endure and prosper.
But that won't
happen if we don’t clearly recognize our problems and address them.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem likely with the current crop of American
presidential wannabes. While many Americans are still willing
to stay and fight the good fight, many Americans have had enough.
And they’re leaving.
Millions
of Americans Say “I’ve Had Enough!”
A 1999 U.S. State
Department survey suggested 4.1 million Americans lived overseas.
Every year, about 250,000 U.S. citizens and resident aliens leave America
to make a new home in some other nation.
In 2005, the
U.S. Bureau of the Census upped this estimate. They guessed that
over 350,000 U.S. citizens and resident aliens would leave the United States
permanently. Many of these emigrants are wealthy people who want
to escape what they see as the excessive taxes and political tyranny of
the United States government.
John Gaver
of Action America.org notes: "The problem is that increasingly, the wealthy
perceive that they are under attack by their own government and they are
taking the only rational option left open to them. They're taking
their wealth and leaving."
Figures Don't
Lie
The well-known
pollster, Zogby International, recently conducted in-depth surveys on this
subject. They asked adult Americans if they had ever considered moving
outside the United States.
With more than
115,000 respondents, the remarkable survey excluded anyone relocating offshore
for less than two years. They also excluded anyone who relocated
because of government requirements, the military or their jobs.
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The Zogby results
are shocking – especially compared to the entire U.S. population (now about
303,116,000). The numbers below are for households, not individuals.
• 1.6 million
U.S. households already decided to move offshore and are headed in that
direction.
• Another 1.8
million households are seriously considering moving and are likely to do
it. Many have taken preliminary steps.
• 7.7 million
households are "somewhat seriously" considering moving and "may" do it.
• Nearly 3
million households are seriously considering buying a vacation home or
other property outside the United States. Another 10 million are
"somewhat" seriously considering it.
This means
that almost 10% of U.S. households are considering leaving the country.
Another 10% are considering living outside the country part-time.
Most analysts are ignoring this silent massive emigration.
These would-be
emigrant households plan to spend an average of US$260,000 on buying or
building a house. They’re also planning to spend at least US$36,000
annually on living expenses outside the United States. In total,
they represent hundreds of billions of dollars leaving the U.S. economy
each year.
One eye-opening
fact: These emigrants include younger Americans. In fact, the single
largest group that already made the decision to relocate offshore is households
where the adults are 25 to 34 years old.
The Soaked
Rich
The severe tax
burden is just one of reasons why wealthy Americans want to live offshore.
Yet, U.S. politicians and their allies in the news media continue the constant
false drumbeat of class warfare that "rich" Americans do not pay their
fair share of taxes.
Only last week,
would-be president Hillary Clinton proposed increasing estate and other
taxes on wealthy Americans. She wants to transfer money to individuals
who earn less by setting up government sponsored retirement accounts.
The late U.S. Senator Huey P. Long of Louisiana used to call this type
of calculated “robbing the rich to pay the poor” his plan to "redistribute
the wealth."
You often hear
the myth that the rich don’t pay their fair share of taxes. In reality,
the IRS’s latest figures reveal that the top-earning 1% of U.S. taxpayers
earned 21.20% of the income, but they still managed to pay 39.38% of the
taxes collected. In other words, the rich paid almost double their
share, based upon the income they earned. In addition to paying double
their share of taxes, there are other good reasons for this offshore exodus
of the wealthy.
Well-to-do
Americans face frivolous lawsuits by the greedy, in ever growing numbers.
They, like all Americans, have lost any semblance of privacy in their personal
and business transactions. Their business dealings are saddled with
onerous PATRIOT Act and Sarbanes-Oxley Act requirements that consume time
and money. And they have little defense against having their property
confiscated under civil forfeiture by the government money police.
We Can Help
The Sovereign
Society exists to give advice and direction to those interested in "going
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offshore freedom, including legal ways to protect assets, lower taxes,
expand investments and how (and where) to move your residence and/or citizenship
offshore. If a move offshore interests you, whether older or younger,
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P.S. Are you
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income? Ready to seek your fortunes elsewhere? Click
here for some more accommodating locations offshore.
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