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One answer is one that so many are still unaware of, though in these post FATCA days, more and more are.A normal overseas middle class lifestyle with mortgages, savings, investments etc is simply incompatible with the US tax code, a tax code that is applied to people who do not and sometimes never have lived in the USA.This tax code is extremely punitive of foreign finances owned by Americans, but of course ALL your finances would be foreign.The tax code is not only punitive of all foreign to the USA, but it basically treats all finances foreign to the USA owned by Americans as attempted tax evasion with the onus on you to prove it’s not tax evasion, and failing to prove it will unleash penalties that beggar belief, simply for failing to file a form where no tax was avoided or evaded.Example…For many years, million of Americans have failed to file FBAR, or FinCEN form 112. It’s not surprising for one main reason, most have never heard of it. It’s not even a tax form and nobody in the USA has been reaching out to the rest of the world to tell their residents and citizens about it.Note, FinCEN.Financial CRIMES Enforcement Network.A financial crime to have a bank account in your home town?!The penalties start at $10,000 per account(including your local pension) and apply for the last six years IF you can persuade them that you didn’t know. Note, this is not for tax evasion, it’s for failing to fill in a form.If they determine you did know that you had to file, the penalty is $100,000 per unreported year or 50 percent of the account balance, which ever is the greater. For failing to file a form which no homeland American has to file, and where no tax was avoided or evaded.This is the crap that the USA has been heaping on citizens for living overseas and I just touched the tip of the iceberg.The main way of dealing with this has been simple…..Ignore it. Vast majority of US citizens living overseas have not been in full compliance with the USA tax system, because they can’t live with that tax system.2010 Obama signed the HIRE act and contained within, FATCA. FATCA started going live end 2014 and is still rolling out now.FATCA requires every single financial institution on the planet to scour it’s client databases for any sign of “US persons” and to report those persons back to the USA, no matter they might never have been there, no matter they never saw the USA in fifty years and even if they are citizens of the country where they live.The US tax code does not just harm the US citizen, it harms his family, his business, his job prospects.The reality for the US person abroad post FATCA is that more and more people are aware of this and are treating the American as the “toxic citizen”.Don’t marry one, don’t have joint finances with one, don’t allow one to have signatory powers in your company and don’t have them as clients.Americans are renouncing in exponentially increasing numbers to protect themselves and their families from a vicious enemy that is hounding them to the ends of the earth and is forcing the world to help them do it, and that enemy is the USA.So the simple answer is Americans CAN’T live full and normal lives outside of the USA and comply with the US tax code, and the option to do so without complying has gone.USA, biggest open prison on the planet.

Because the USA is “exceptional” and therefore its own actions cannot be a breach of human rights, because the USA does not breach human rights. Human rights abuse? Not possible, it’s the USA.OK, let’s go with human rights as an example of truly epic hypocrisy that can only come from the “exceptional” USA.The USA is an architect of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and so you would think, a country to uphold those rights for all. You know, the old “world policeman” spin. If not, at least their own citizens, right?Wrong.The truth?The USA is a serial human rights abuser and get this - Against it’s own people.Americans are no longer free to leave the USA, a flagrant breach of the UDOHR.But of course the USA does not see it that way, the USA is simply discouraging unpatriotic behaviour and encouraging fiscal responsibility, so all must pay their “fair share.”The fair share for a country where you do not live is zero, so says the entire civilised world with the exception of the USA. Oh look, there goes that exceptionalism again!The result of this?Let me tell you what now happens to an American who tries to leave the plantation -While still being expected to be a full card carrying US tax payer, he will be stripped of most of his constitutional protections, will be presumed a criminal who must prove his innocence annually with a detailed report of his entire financial life with no due cause required, no reasonable suspicion and with no warrant required.Should any mistake be made with this extremely detailed and complex unconstitutional reporting, you then move on the utterly insane penalty structure applied to any error made in the reporting of international finances by an American. Yea, unconstitutional confiscation for missing a form where no tax was evaded or avoided.Anyone want to add up how many constitutional protections were violated there, simply because the American tried to leave the plantation?Then we get on to the punitive tax treatment of all that is foreign to the USA and the impossibility of merging two tax systems while not making a mistake, getting taxed in to oblivion or having to pay a substantial portion of your net income to a specialist international tax expert.Sure you can live outside the USA. You just have to live in fear as a second class American stripped of constitutional rights and presumed a criminal with an expensive annual obligation to prove your innocence.I’m not even going to get in to punitive US taxation of your local pension, investments, savings, business (google PFIC regime) but Suffice to say that this is yet another minefield of possible disaster with the USA quite able to ruin your pension just as you come to take it as they change rules (or enforce old ones) on a whim with no consideration for your local tax regime.Yes, leaving the USA can leave you destitute in old age.Not looking so free to leave the USA here, is it!?I could add a lot more to the above, but let’s move on -In 2010 Obama signed the latest and greatest assault on US citizens that dare live off the plantation, FATCA. The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.Americans who leave the USA are no longer only second class US citizens stripped of their constitutional protections and presumed criminals by the US government, Americans are now second class citizens of the countries where they reside, and where they are frequently citizens.How so?Because FATCA demands that these countries, one way or another, report Americans bank accounts back to the IRS. Note, only Americans. This means that Americans have had their local privacy and anti discrimination based on origin laws thrown in the bin, only Americans.So - You're free to leave the USA as long as you don’t mind being stripped of your constitutional protections while still being expected to be a US tax payer. As long as you don’t mind being a second class resident of where ever you go. As long as you can afford the reporting, can sleep nights knowing the results of a mistake, can handle the double taxation, the inability to save, invest.Oh wait, it’s not over yet!If by now you are getting the feeling that you have owners that don’t want to leaving the plantation with your money, you are not alone. The rest of the world is becoming more and more aware all the time, and we are becoming aware that having anything to do with escaped US property is dangerous.Banks don’t want Americans, because they too are being threatened with business ending penalties by the USA for failing to breach the Americans privacy and to report him back to the plantation in exactly the manner demanded by the USA with FATCA.Basic accounts can usually be found, but business accounts, business loans, brokerage, mortgages?Mostly you’ll be told to go away, nicely.It’s not over yet -This reporting and penalty structure extends out to all the American touches financially. so -Post FATCA, who the hell would be stupid enough to marry an American? Of course, millions have married an American and post FATCA they are going to find out the hard way about 8938, 3520, 3520A, 5471, 720 and of course good old FinCen 114.Failing to file the above (incidentally amounting to over 200 hours of specialist compliance work) means devastating penalties that can wipe out an entire foreign family, because one of the family members is an American.Oh, and for those foreigners who married an American that have managed to live with the tax regime(most have ignored it) I wonder how many know that as an “alien spouse” they cannot inherit from the US partner tax free on that partners death, even if the man source of wealth was not the American who was a stay at home mom?Again, I’m only touching the tip of the iceberg here, the problems wreaked on a foreign family because one is an American are simply never ending.Business and employments.Only a fool is going to go in to business with an American for the same reasons only a fool will marry one, the whole non US business and the non US business partner get dragged in to the whole invasive and punitive tax net of the USA, and the banks will not want to know the business.Employment.Only a fool is going to let an American in to a role that has any signatory power over the finances, because the entire foreign company has to be reported to the USA!So far…..You will be stripped of constitutional rights and be treated as a criminal by the USA.You will be a second class resident citizen of where you live.Because people are now afraid of dealing with those who try to escape the plantation-Only a fool will marry you.Only a fool will go in to business with you.You can’t get a mortgage.You cannot run a business.You cannot get that promotion.You cannot invest properly.You cannot save properly.You cannot plan for retirement properly.Succession planning becomes a problem because your family (if any!) are “alien”.Since about the civil war the USA has punished expatriation and instead of coming in to line with the rest of the world, the USA has upped it’s jihad on it’s diaspora year on year.Beginning with FBAR in 1970, Reed amendment 1996, HEART act 2008, FATCA 2010, the Ex Patriot act 2012 (thankfully defeated but only just) and of course, extraterritorial taxation itself, the USA has repeatedly violated not one article of the Human Rights act but nearly every single one of all 30 articles!Americans are the property of the US government, and the US government has made it very clear to the world that we had better not assist them if they try and leave.A couple more bits of epic hypocrisy-The USA says FATCA is also a war on tax evasion via tax havens, but guess which country is exempt from FATCA and contains states such as Delaware, Nevada and Wyoming?Yes, the USA has lliminated the competition and made the USA the new Switzerland!Now, for my favourite bit of US hypocrisy -In 2011 the USA was the biggest mouth at the UN in demanding sanctions on Eritrea ( the only other country to use citizenship based taxation, great company USA!) if it did not cease using threats and extortion in order to impose a two percent income tax on it’s diaspora, because such taxation was immoral and could be used to fund wars.The USA went on imposing FATCA on the world financial institutions on pain of a crippling penalty if they did not comply. Once the USA gets that information, they will use it to extract taxes from their diaspora under pain of penalties for failing to comply that would make the despots ruling Eritrea blush.And of course, the USA funds wars with bring-and-buy sales and lemonade stands.The hypocrisy of the USA makes me sick to the stomach.