this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
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Most people aren't even living there, they're just buying into citizenship and a tax haven.
How is it a tax haven? Even when becoming a citizen in another country the US still requires you to pay taxes.
If "capital gains not taxed" didn't leap off the page at you, you are a poor slob who must actually have w-2 income? Keep up the good work while the wealthy sleep soundly on the tax code they bought and wrote.
The article is referring to Caribbean taxes not US taxes. If you have US citizenship, you have to pay taxes to the federal government regardless of where you live, work, or earn your money, and don't lose your US citizenship just because you become a citizen of another country.
You can in fact, simply give up US citizenship.
If own the lottery tomorrow, and needed a “no capital gains taxes” state to be a citizen of, this would be sorta tempting.
Also noteworthy, the IRS doesn’t come after international citizens. Sure they can go after you domestically, but if your accounts are not American accounts and your assets are in other nations, you can just live your life not filing taxes without going back to the US as a citizen.
You can also just go back to the US. It's only working in the US, paying and subsequently filing taxes, that would cause the IRS to start looking into you.
Apparently if you're in such a situation you need a tax lawyer, not an accountant. Accountants are mandatory reporters to the IRS, so if you tell them you've not filed taxes they have to report you, while laywers have client confidentiality and would be able to help you try and smooth things over with the IRS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relinquishment_of_United_States_nationality
It's not simple at all and while you can just not file taxes, that's no guarantee you'll get away with it much like someone living in the US not filing taxes.
Also lottery winnings is not capital gains income it's gambling income and they typically take the taxes out before paying you your winnings. Even casinos do this if you win over $1500 at once on a machine for example.
Lastly, the premise being put forth here is that someone is using the Caribbean citizenship as a "tax haven" while still living and earning money in the US, not someone leaving the country and never looking back.
Even if you do file with the IRS while overseas, it's much more difficult for them to check things. And it could also be that you don't have to file the capital gains exempt things in the overseas territory, which would give you a clean tax bill from there to give to the US.
Either way, it's the article that made the claim that this was something of a tax haven. I don't think anyone here is a tax accountant with enough knowledge to know how that works.
Wouldn’t that only qualify against a 186 day rule?
Check out the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion…
"Earned income" means W2 wages not capital gains or any of the other avenues rich people make their money.
Yeah essentially it's just a set of agreements the US has with other nations, each of which is different. But basically your overseas income up to certain amounts will be tax exempt in the US. This is to account for the fact that you're also paying overseas taxes and using overseas social services instead of US ones. You still have to file your overseas income, but you don't end up paying any taxes on it, unless it crosses the threshold.
I don't see how that would apply to someone not actually living outside the US as this sub-thread suggests.
This reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer kept insisting that companies "write it off" and Jerry asks if he even knows what that means.