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Uh, "Vote Often and Early for Curley!"Edited to add: STP, Not Bob. Anyhoo, read "The Rascal King" by Jack Beatty to learn all about the guy.

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The "intuitive is crap" part is dismissable, but do please explain how the rape exception would work.

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If you live in Italy, earn money in Italy, and give up your US citizenship, you (probably) won't have to pay US taxes.

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Hey, it wasn't me who placed the 2000+ votes for Chicago to beat your 700 votes for Boston. Take it up with Google!

eta... check out "Boss" by Mike Royko to learn more about our guy. Maybe the two knew each other.

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Why should your citizenship have anything to do with it?

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Why shouldn't it? If you don't want to pay taxes to the US, you don't get to be a citizen of the US.

Are you a closet federalist libertarian small-gov't freak? Wow. I think I have to go lie down.

ETA, there are tax treaties with the vast majority of countries in which US people might work, so people don't end up double-taxed very often. I believe that for most Western European countries, a US citizen who worked overseas for a non-US employer wouldn't end up paying US taxes at all b/c European rates are higher. Or, they end up paying the same (higher) amount as they would have in the European country, but part goes to the US. I'm not really a tax person.

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Because that's the basis for taxation. Many (I think most) countries tax based on residency. The US taxes based on citizenship and (for people like me) residency.

eta - I'm not sure if your question was philosophical or asking for the legal basis. I went with the latter. Not sure what the answer is from a philosophical pov.

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The government taxes income from non-citizens in the country. I have no problem with that. I just see the justification for the taxation as relating to economic activity within the sovereign's jurisdiction, not a claim on the sovereign's part to reach into the wallet of its citizens wherever they may travel in the world. If I'm a U.S. citizen living in Milan and working in a factory there, I don't understand why the U.S. government should have a claim to take part of my wages. Italy, yes -- the U.S., no.

eta: I'm not hung up on the prospect of double taxation -- I just don't get the justification for the exercise of U.S. jurisdiction. What power should the government have to claim a share of economic activity in another country, simply because one of the participants is a U.S. citizen? I have the same problem with the idea that the U.S. government can send you to prison for deciding to smoke a Cuban cigar when you're in Brazil. Borders mean something, don't they?

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Most countries are now moving toward a worldwide system with a credit. There are a few holdouts - I think France is one and Canada may be another, but most of them are offshore tax shelter jurisdictions.

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By rape exeption I mean that even if abortion is made illegal it would not be absolute. It would be permitted for rape, incest, and other similar horrific events.

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People who live in countries where the taxation is based on residency are still taxed on their worldwide income. For example, if I live in Canada for 200 days out of the year, and yet I travel the rest of the time to third world countries as a sweatshop supervisor and make a bundle (and that's where all my money comes from even while I'm living in Canada), the Canadian gov't takes a chunk of that. Taxation based on worldwide income is the norm (I think). The US just claims a basis for taxation even if the citizen does not pass the residency test.

Anyhoo, this discussion is fascinating, but I'm going home.

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I get perverse joy in watching Ty argue against taxes

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I think of the rape exception as one that is based on both the mother and the child's interest. In regard to the mother, it would be far more of a distressing fate to have to carry the child of your rapist than it would to have to carry the child of someone with whom you had sex voluntarily. I think everyone would agree on that one.

In regard to the child, it is a very traumatic thing for a child to learn that he was conceived because his father raped his mother. I have a friend who was adopted and decided to find out who her biological parents were after her adoptive parents died. She found out she was concieved by a rape and she has been in psychological counseling and on anti-depressants ever since. It profoundly negatively affected her and she wishes now that she had remained ignorant of who her biological parents were.

If we are weighing the rights of an unborn life against the mother's right to control her own body, the psychological damage done to both the mother and child make the rape exception far more morally defensible than abortion after voluntary sexual activity that leads to a pregnancy.

As for implementing it, this could be implemented very easily. You would go before a judge and give sworn testimony that would remain sealed. If there was no reason to doubt your testimony, the judge would have no reason not to allow it. It would be an ex parte proceeding and reviewable de novo before an appellate court.

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It shocks me that you referred to me as the dumbass in this sub-part of the discussion. I mean, DUH.

The question I asked, which you said was overemotional or whatever, was how is the rape exception administered? How do you know whether someone's pregnancy is the result of rape? Same thing for incest.

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I'm not sure they do.

Should a US citizen be permitted to commit treason freely abroad? Smuggle drugs, as long as they stay outside the territorial limits?

Should US citizens have been permitted to trade with Germany during WWII, as long as they did it off shore?

I don't know of a constitutional provision that limits the ability of the government to act to its territory, and think when we are beyond our territory it is a question of whether international law restricts the ability of the government to act. I don't think it does unless the US agrees to a restriction (e.g., by signing a treaty).