Wealthy Americans Jumping Obama’s Ship

Wealthy Americans aren’t just leaving tax-heavy states like New York and California, they’re leaving the country.

U.S. citizens are defecting at record levels in order to escape high taxes, the New York Postreported. About 8,000 U.S. citizens are projected to renounce their citizenship in 2012, or about 154 a week — versus 3,805 in 2011, or about 73 per week, according to immigration officials, the Post reported.

They want to avoid tax bills resulting from the proposed 55-percent hike on the wealthy and the anticipated expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts at the end of the year, the Post reported.

“High-net-worth individuals are making decisions that having a US passport just isn’t worth the cost anymore,” Jim Duggan, a lawyer at Duggan Bertsch, which specializes in protecting assets of the wealthy, told the Post.

“They’re able to do what they do from any place in the world, and they’re choosing to do it from places with much lower tax rates," he said. "Some are philosophically disgusted at the course our country is taking in all kinds of ways. They’re making a strong protest of, ‘Enough is enough.’ But largely it’s an economic decision.”

But to leave means finding a new country and obtaining citizenship and there are many that are eager to welcome wealthy Americans, such as Australia, Norway, Singapore, Cayman Islands, Costa Rica, and Antigua, according to the Post.

These countries tend to offer a fast track to citizenship and protections from the Justice Department and IRS.

Source:  Newsmax. Sunday, 24 Jun 2012

Comments:

The same thing continues to happen from state to state and will continue.  California’s high taxes have prompted moves to other states. We have an obligation to keep taxes as low as possible and ensure that tax dollars are spent on core services that include roads, bridges, sewers and water and nothing else.  The free market can provide everything else we need.  We have allowed government to expand its footprint beyond its competence, encroach on the free market and choke it with unnecessary regulations.  

Georgia politicians are pushing T-SPLOST, a plan that fails to address traffic congestion that is full of outrageous overcharges.  This was prompted by pressure from Obama to spend money on unnecessary, unsustainable sand holes and unelected, regional governance that undermines cities and counties..  

Our only hope is a No Vote T-SPLOST on July 31.  Google concept 3 Atlanta transit   This is a planned $75 billion expansion of public transit.  We don’t need any of it and we certainly shouldn’t squander our tax dollars on public transit and the creation of a slush fund for CIDs and tax subsidized commercial development that will fail. Private-Public Partnerships are scams to transfer our tax dollars to politically connected developers.   Voter should be determining where roads are built and fixed, one at a time, by their elected city and county officials.  This should not be done by appointed, unelected boards controlled by the Governor.  If this passes and regionalism survives, people will move from Georgia.

Norb Leahy,  Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader