Quote:
Originally posted by ltl/fb
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.
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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?
