UK to deport Californian with 48 years in country

[subextraordinaire]

Thanks. I think CPAs earn their salaries just for knowing all this crap!

[celesteh]

This is why I’ll be applying for citizenship as soon as I am eligible. It’s expensive, which might be why he skipped it, but it’s cheaper than fighting a court case.

[redesigned]

@Boundegar

I’m pretty sure if your income is taxed abroad it won’t also be taxed here, but the paperwork to claim the exemption is kind of scary, precisely because you know some Mitt Romney type would claim every single penny was earned in Narnia

You still have to file US taxes as a citizen living abroad, and pay double taxes on anything over 40k, the USA is the worst in that regard.

[shaddack]

@redesigned

You still have to file US taxes as a citizen living abroad, and pay double taxes on anything over 40k, the USA is the worst in that regard.

In the Eastern Bloc, the commies stupidly forbade people from leaving. If they just excessively taxed them for that, many would be more likely to willingly stay.

…or run anyway, don’t pay, claim oppression, and wait for the revolution.

[celesteh]

Worse, they have gotten much more demanding in recent years, so everyone abroad needs to file even if they are well under the threshold. The person upstream worrying the deportee may face audits upon his return is possibly correct.

[LemoUtan]

I think you’d have to go somewhere like an airport, somehow get yourself on the ‘wrong’ side of the border by sneaking around a bit (possibly committing an offence whilst doing so), and get hold of some fake travel documents to assist in your pretence that you were just arriving from foreign parts.

Easy!

[NickSay]

I guess nation states can be assholes

[jsroberts]

@nojaboja

However, if you are German / French or citizen of any other EU country and live in Britain this crazy rule doesn’t apply, there are various other nice benefits to having the protection of the EU over arbitrary British rule making /breaking.

I had this issue with my son, who we adopted in China under the British system. We couldn’t take him to the UK for the 9 months it took to get a passport (even though he was technically a British citizen who apparently could legally live in the UK, just not legally enter the UK), but there was no problem for him to come as my (German) wife’s dependent.

[nojaboja]

@celesteh

This is why I’ll be applying for citizenship as soon as I am eligible. It’s expensive, which might be why he skipped it, but it’s cheaper than fighting a court case.

It has only recently become expensive and cumbersome. Even 10 years ago it was considerably cheaper than today.

More likely he didn’t apply, because he didn’t expect Kafkaesque crazy from the UK government, which still pretends to be at the heart of some glorious empire… and historically extended citizenship to all those far away lands whose population they had ruthlessly subjugated.

Point being that unlike many other European citizenships, which are based on a hereditary principle, British citizenship was based on residency and it was reasonable to assume that decades of legal residency he was fine to stay for the rest of his life.

The bit I find outrageous is that if he had a few £ Millions the whole shenanigans would be resolved in no time.