Expatriation Tax

Categories: Tax, Econ

You start spending a lot of time in Papua New Guinea. So much time that you decide to move there permanently. You're going to give up your U.S. citizenship and apply to become a Papua New Guinean, despite it being the perennial winner for Worst Crime Country in the world.

Among the many bureaucratic concerns you'll have to deal with when you make the transition: the expatriation tax. It applies to people who give up their U.S. residencies to live somewhere else, more or less permanently.

The amount of the tax is based on value of the person's U.S.-based property. However, the tax only hits people with a relatively high net worth (more than $2 million). So if you're selling the car you've been living in so that you can afford the plane ticket to Port Moresby, you probably don't have to worry about it.

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