Quote from: forever-d on June 06, 2011, 11:28:18 PM

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Oh man... now I want to move to Switzerland. They've got good skiing too.

And quite an active Bitcoin community. The first ever IRL Bitcoin meetup was in Zurich, although I missed it unfortunately.

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This makes me wonder what the laws are for people with dual citizenship.

Do you have to pay taxes to BOTH countries?

I'm not Swiss, but I don't have to pay taxes in my passport country if I don't live there.

If I earn in income in Switzerland while living in my passport country, then yes, I pay the difference.

Unfortunately, the US is unique in its US=World attitude of taxing its citizens wherever they live.

actually, you're mistaken.

now me, i certainly plan on paying my (US) taxes - always have, always will. but in the US, one of the earliest SCOTUS decisions regarding taxes was this: it is lawful to arrange one's affairs for the sole purpose of reducing one's tax burden.

and where you're mistaken, forever-d, is in this: a US citizen owes no federal tax (and obviously no state tax) on the first $90,000 of income in a year where said taxpayer/citizen lived for the entire year in a foreign country. think about it.

if Bitcoin works out and i cash out, it would make sense for me to tourist around and rent a studio apartment in a bordering canadian province for $400/mo - and cash in $90,000 USD worth of Bitcoin. maybe do some traveling in other countries as well. as long as i didn't live in the US for that entire calendar year, $90k of my income would be tax free. and - since i would not be living in any state or territory, i would owe no state taxes. either.

i would still have to pay Social Security taxes, but i don't mind that at all; since it is not an entitlement program of any kind. and this little experiment in democracy known as the United States has already seen the terrible result of ignoring the elderly and unable to work. Social Security is easily the most successful program in our history - and it took a class-traitor who saw his own class for what it was to ram it down our throats.