The Off Topic Topic

[Caliga]

Thank God I stopped getting calls for Branson packages.

What a country... 

[Ed Anger]

Seedy's Jamacians try to threaten me. I tell them I'll blast 'em to hell. They don't like that.

[CountDeMoney]

I miss my Jakes.

[Syt]

[DGuller]

Suspenders?  Another Gordon Gekko wannabe.

[Liep]

$300.000.000 for this:



I think maybe that's a bit overpriced.

[Josquius]

I heard an interesting story yesterday.
I was speaking to a Swedish guy. He is 100% Swedish and prior to finishing university lived there all his life.....except for his first year,  due to his dad's job he was born in the US.
He wanted to go to the US for some reason (think he had a job offer there, can't remember) so he went to the American embassy in Stockholm to sort out a visa. The lady at the embassy looked at his papers and said "OH! You were born in America! You could save a lot of trouble and just get a passport!"
He thought fair enough, can't hurt to have another passport, he had always joked about his being American on account of his birth so even his trip aside it would be cool to have an American passport.
He went off to the US and had a nice time there for a few years then moved home. A few months later, a letter appears at his house..."YOU ARE AMERICAN! YOU MUST PAY TAXES!".
For several years now he has had to put up with this crap.

[Liep]

That went from being somewhat detailed to not being at all clear about what the crap actually is.

[Josquius]

That went from being somewhat detailed to not being at all clear about what the crap actually is.

Americans make their people pay taxes even when they're abroad,.

[Ed Anger]

tough titties. pay up.

[Liep]

That went from being somewhat detailed to not being at all clear about what the crap actually is.

Americans make their people pay taxes even when they're abroad,.

Pay taxes on what?

[Sheilbh]

Pay taxes on what?

Their income abroad. It's a weird quirk that was, I believe, instituted in the Civil War to tax draft-dodging 1%ers who fled to Europe. They've never got rid of it despite, again I think, every proposed tax reform plan since trying to abolish it.

From what I know it makes America one of only three countries in the world that tax their citizens abroad even when they're not tax resident - the other two being the PRC and Eritrea, both with less success than the US

[Liep]

Right, so that is a bit weird. I can't imagine them being particularly successful in that though.

[Ideologue]

It's not even totally true.  The IRC is a bit more complex on that count that "Americans abroad must pay income tax."

[Josephus]

Israel has bizarre, slightly unsettling political adverts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmac71R5Br8

That's a great commercial.  Too bad he hates blacks.

And Jews.