The extreme privilege of being forced to pay a major portion of all income you make, regardless of where you earn it, to the us gov indefinitely. And they make it hard for you to apply to do this. Crazy.
> being forced to pay a major portion of all income you make, regardless of where you earn it
If you're a US citizen living abroad you get a Foreign Earned Income Exclusion of $130,000 for 2025 taxes. So if your income was $130k you'd pay zero in US taxes. You potentially also get to deduct housing costs and get a credit for foreign taxes you already paid among other things.
If you're paying a "major portion of your income" as a US citizen living overseas you're probably pretty dang wealthy. Go wipe your tears with your bands of $100 bills.
The FEIE and foreign tax credits are just there to limit the scope of double taxation, and often they can't even do that much. Then you have to consider the cost of compliance, requiring specialist tax advice encompassing two countries; the difficulty of obtaining financial services because of FATCA; the frequent impossibility of saving for retirement because of the way the U.S. treats foreign investment funds (PFIC).
There's a reason no other country on earth tries to do this.
Boo hoo double taxation. Normal people get double, triple, quadruple taxed all the time. I get (at least) double taxed every gallon of gas I pump. I get quadruple taxed just having a roof over my head. My labor gets FICA taxes (a collection of multiple taxes), payroll taxes, federal income taxes, and potentially state income taxes. Your million dollar stock trade hit a few different tax jurisdictions, boo hoo. Miss me with crying about "double taxation" nonsense, it's a phrase rich people use to make poor people feel sorry for them.
> consider the cost of compliance
Oh so sad wealthy people have so many bags of money they can't keep track of them all themselves. Sounds terrible. Maybe they should sell all those assets and give the money away and rid themselves of such hardships. Send me a message, I'll take those struggles off your hand and relieve you of such burdens.
> the frequent impossibility of saving for retirement
You're already clearing more income free and clear from a US tax basis than most US households do. If you find it impossible to save for retirement after making probably far more than $130k (remember, the standard was "a major portion" of your income) then you should really think about how fucked the vast majority of your fellow citizens are.
It's pretty tone deaf complaining about how heavy all these bars of gold are.
If you're a US citizen living abroad you get a Foreign Earned Income Exclusion of $130,000 for 2025 taxes. So if your income was $130k you'd pay zero in US taxes. You potentially also get to deduct housing costs and get a credit for foreign taxes you already paid among other things.
If you're paying a "major portion of your income" as a US citizen living overseas you're probably pretty dang wealthy. Go wipe your tears with your bands of $100 bills.