A nice fat Yacht registered in Seychelles. Keep your US citizenship and just stay in international waters while on the run. Set up "Liquidating" trusts to mind all of your property and assets. A Liquidating trust is afforded many benefits from taxes, creditors etc. and the trustee has no fiduciary duties or reporting requirements. The purpose of the trust is to liquidate assets over the remainder of your natural life. Many large settlements are structured as liquidations which go on for 20 + years until all of the money is gone. Go out and enjoy life
Man, I wish it were incorrect. It's part of the HEART legislation passed in July 2008. Before that, the U.S. would tax income for 10 years after renouncement. That became cumbersome, I guess. Now, they levy a cap gains tax on your worldwide assets (on anything above $600K) as a condition of allowing you to renounce. Then, they levy another cap gains tax on any U.S. assets when they are actually sold and you're not allowed to return for 10 years. Basically, if you are young, have family abroad, not a lot of assets but a lot of future income potential, now's the time to think about renouncing if you're thinking about it at all.
the above examples, while maybe doable, are all great ways of limiting your freedom to such an extent that it's no longer worth it. i can think of no better limitation of movement than placing my balls in the pocket of a woman, having to spend all the money i make, or constantly being on the run (yacht or not). the idea, is to be able to go and have the same freedoms you have now without compromise and there's VERY few ways to do that. re: the 10 year rule, yes Angrycat, that was actually rescinded with the heart act legislation in jun 08. expatriation law isn't quite so draconian now. you CAN comeback within 10 years now with no tax penalty. also, you CAN expatriate and become stateless, there's a guy on a blog out there that did it last year (in croatia i believe). possible due to something about an allowance due to a UN regulation. didn't make much sense to me as it would severly limit your options in any case and it severely did in his, but to each his own.
"The lengths to which politicians will go to penalize expatriates is demonstrated by a never-enforced provision of U.S. law, also enacted in 1996, that permits the Attorney General to bar from returning to the United States anyone who renounces their U.S. citizenship to avoid U.S. taxes. " I think it is a possibility but not automatic. By the way very few people renounce, the number is in the upper 100s annually. Some interesting info: http://www.escapeartist.com/efam/59/Taxes_OffshoreHaven.html "In 1962, John Templeton, respected international investor, businessman and philanthropist, surrendered his U.S. citizenship to become a citizen of the Bahamas. This move saved him more than US$100 million when he sold the well-known international investment fund that still bears his name." This one is by a lawyer: http://www.taxmeless.com/page4.html
Dominica citizenship for $75,000 which offers visa free travel to UK etc. http://www.goccp.com/ENG/second-pas...itizenship_and_Second_Passport.htm#advantages
Hmmmm I didn't know Malaysia was a tax-haven?? http://www.zyra.org.uk/taxhaven.htm (not sure how reliable the source is, came up on google)
Sadly, the United States is a lot less free than people think. This is kind of a depression article from 1999. If you dare to make something of yourself and create wealth, you are even more of a target. Apparently, as in socialist countries, the wealth does not belong to you but to the state. Property rights are weak and getting weaker and the IRS is the mafia enforcer. http://www.debito.org/naturalization2.html
I meant a depressing article. Momo, did you renounce your citizenship or do you just live in Canada as an American?