Quote:
Originally Posted by LDM Talent
One thing I really love about Europe that sucks about America is the transportation. Over there you can jump on a high speed train and go pretty much everywhere. Here in the States we have to either spend a ton of money to fly or jump on a bus full of smelly people, or on amtrak that is a horrible bumpy, broken down, slow, expensive way to travel. In most cases its actually cheaper to fly than to jump on the train.
I guess like one of you said the best thing to do would be to spend some time over sea's first and get a feel for how things work. I guess worst case I can live in the USA but spend most of my time staying else where.
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Another thing you have to take into consideration for long term stay is their visa regulations. You can't just plop your American ass down anywhere you'd like and call it a day. Most countries have a maximum amount of time you can stay there as a "tourist" before you have to leave, or you can jump through whatever hoops they make you jump through to get a visa to stay all year. This is what has kept me from spending a few years in a few other places.
It is also getting more difficult for Americans to open bank accounts abroad. Not impossible, but more difficult. The IRS is so fucking scared you may get a penny over on them, the US gov strong arms foreign banks to hand over ALL their US citizen accounts to them or they will lose the right to invest in the USA and will get fined. It is ridiculous. Then if you get another bank account, you have to declare that bank account when you file taxes or they can fine you $10,000 for not telling them about it. To sum it up, so long as you hold that US passport, you are a labor slave to the US government no matter where you go.
They do give you a nice tax break once you've been gone for a while, but you still have to file, claim your accounts, and pay taxes on money over the amount they permit every year, which is $95,100 for 2012. So if you make less than $95,100,
you don't pay anything, but you still have to file. If you make more than $95,100, you pay tax on whatever amount is over. So if you made $100k, you pay tax on $4900. That is a crude example, as there are creative ways of legally doing things, but you get the idea.