[WildUtah]

Remember that no other developed country besides the USA requires that local companies pay local tax again on foreign profits already taxed where they are earned. Most nations recognize that that would make investing locally costly and undesirable. It would also put local companies at a competitive disadvantage worldwide.

The politics of government greed in the USA has created a tax system where the USA government charges the highest business tax rates in the world and enforces punitive triple taxation of foreign profits. That's why USA companies are keeping their money abroad instead of investing in jobs at home. (The USA tax rate was second in the world until a recent Japanese reform, but Japan never triple taxed profits abroad, so the Japanese rate was always effectively lower.)

Corporate taxation is one of the few tax issues where Congressional Republicans are often more sensible than Democrats, from a purely technical tax policy perspective. Obama is willing to work with them, too, but nothing seems to get done. It's one small part of the ongoing failure of Washington.

[freehunter]

And god forbid you're a US citizen living and working overseas. You still have to fill out US tax forms for both state and federal tax. The federal government won't charge taxes on anything under ~$90,000, but the states sure will expect you to pay your share of their taxes, even though none of that money was earned or spent in the US.

[mahyarm]

Wouldn't you not be resident in any state in that case then? Or could pretend to just be in a non income tax state?

[freehunter]

I hear a lot of ex-pats who move to a non-income-tax state (like Texas) just before they move overseas. If your US residence is still in a state with income tax, even though you don't live there you still get taxed on your overseas income because as a US citizen you still have residence in your state even if you don't live there. It doesn't matter if you're physically there or not.

The only other alternative is to renounce your US citizenship if you never plan on coming back.

[makomk]

From what I recall, they wouldn't have to pay tax twice, they'd have to pay the difference between the US and Irish taxation rates. Other countries don't do this, but other countries also have huge tax evasion problems as a result.