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How can a US citizen invest outside the reach of the federal government?
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this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2025
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you can avoid paying earned income taxes altogether by living outside of the US for more than 330 days out of the fiscal year.
this is called foreign earned income exclusion.
investment income is different; investment income is not excluded by the FEIE, only earned income, so you wouldn't be able to avoid paying investment income tax to the US unless you immigrated to to another country.
Important note about this (though I don't know how much you earn): you can only exempt up to 120000 dollar equivalent per year, and you must still file your taxes every year with the American government even if you don't live there. Non-US bank accounts and investments also must be declared, even if you no longer live there.
I'm not American myself, but a colleague of mine is and she has mentioned having trouble with American agencies because some of these points (specifically the bank account point if I remember correctly).
Edit: corrections to my info in comment below.
i can clarify and correct those points for you up here as well
the max excluded income is variable, so this year it'll be $126,500. the cap is regulated by the irs and goes up each year.
the FEIE(foreign earned income exclusion) form is form 2555, which you fill out with your regular taxes. it's a very simple couple of pages that you fill in the blanks with the dates you were out of the country and your total earned income for the year, usually takes me fifteen minutes.
the declaration of foreign investment you mentioned is called the FBAR, an online form that takes less than a minute to fill out If you have more than 10,000 invested overseas.
If you have more than 10,000 USD invested overseas, you have to annually declare how much and which financial institutions your savings are in via the FBAR.
as long as you take the 10 to 15 minutes to fill out the FEIE, you won't have any problems with the IRS excluding earned income.
Thank you for the corrections! I had no idea it was so simple. I think my colleague had problems because she wasn't aware of the FBAR for a few years.
oh yeah, that'll do it.
it's funny, there's actually a built-in option in the form for filing the fbar late because you didn't know about it, I assume because late filings happen so often.
I file late just about every year...
Yeah - I’ve claimed it before. This isn’t really a tax avoidance question though.
It is, in a way. You want a strong 4th amendment, I think.
But there's not much left of it (1), to "make sure everyone pays it's fair share" and later to "keep you safe from terrorists"
Yup. I think you’re right.
I was very confused at the responses I was getting here at first, but after reading them and thinking about things a bit more it does basically come down to taxes even if it isn’t explicitly taxes I was trying to avoid.
TIL
All the perceived privacy, constitution weirdos and early crypto enthousiast advocating for privacy laws start to make more sense when you don't consider your government as a perpetual force of good :)
Whoa whoa whoa - let’s not get tooooo crazy here…
😜
Just experience what you're feeling. The angst, despair, uncertainty. Imagine it accumulating for decades. All whilst the majority of people at best dismiss your experience, telling you to chill out, proclaiming your feelings aren't valid. Or worse, call you evil and anti-social :)
That's the emotional context in which the US was born, and why some people are attracted to it's constitution. It's an exceptionally intelligent response to those feelings.
But to people who can't empathize with those feelings: the colonies ceded from England due to taxes, they just didn't want to contribute their fair share into the commonwealth. They're evil and anti-social.
oh, so what did you mean by "outside the reach of the federal government" rather than tax avoidance, just foreign investment opportunities?
Seizing/freezing.
then all you have to do is file the FBAR and pay your taxes every year and you can invest anywhere you want, however much you want.
How so? You think reporting accounts to the IRS keeps the US from seizing/ freezing accounts?
Not following your train of thought
I assume you are afraid of a political act causing this and not because of a debt or criminal act? I don't think the other poster gets that
⭐️
Yes, reporting foreign income and paying taxes is exactly what keeps the US from seizing and freezing accounts.
you said you don't want to avoid paying taxes.
If you report your accounts and investment income and pay taxes, then you're in no danger of the US government seizing or freezing your accounts.
I don’t know if you’ve been following the news but I’d say that’s wishful thinking at this point.
i have.
you want to be part of the US tax system while being "out of reach of the federal government", two aims you should understand are incompatible.