Merriam-Webster raised the hackles of stodgy grammarians last week when it affirmed the lexical veracity of "irregardless."
The word's definition, when reading it, would seem to be: without without regard.
"Irregardless is included in our dictionary because it has been in widespread and near-constant use since 1795," the dictionary's staff wrote in a "Words of the Week" roundup on Friday. "We do not make the English language, we merely record it."
Merriam-Webster defines irregardless as "nonstandard" but meaning the same as "regardless." "Many people find irregardless to be a nonsensical word, as the ir- prefix usually functions to indicates negation; however, in this case it appears to function as an intensifier," the dictionary writes.
> "We do not make the English language, we merely record it."
Which is an evasion, because they know they are respected as an authority on the language and therefore they do actually make the language, or at least legitimise mis-use.
“Small businesses who stepped up to fight COVID-19 should be applauded by their government, not taxed for doing so. I’m pleased to announce we have directed FDA to cease enforcement of these arbitrary, surprise user fees. Happy New Year, distilleries, and cheers to you for helping keep us safe!” an HHS spokesman said in a statement provided to The Hill.
As a rough approximation, if you’re a US citizen, then You must file a US income tax return. The US taxes your worldwide income regardless of where it’s earned. BUT under most circumstances you would get a credit against what you owe the US for what you pay the country in which you earned the money and also wanted to tax you (no double taxation in theory)
It’s kind of a pain for someone living in say Kenya which doesn’t have a tax treaty with the US, but it’s not totally absurd to think you owe something to a country whose citizenship you continue to benefit from.
> but it’s not totally absurd to think you owe something to a country whose citizenship you continue to benefit from
Yes it is honestly. The US is the only G7 county (and one of the only countries worldwide) to engage in extraterritorial taxation.
It is absurd. If you are gaining from services in that country, you should pay taxes to that country. If you have moved abroad and aren't gaining from any services if that country, you should not. Because you are effectively not a member of that community anymore and should be contributing your taxes to another society. To even have to handle the double taxation accounting is ridiculous. It's that simple.
Does someone gain benefits of being an American even when not living in America? Potentially, but many of those benefits could be connected to more targeted taxes than simply worldwide income tax.
This is clearly not about justice and is instead about the long arm of the IRS seeking their pound of flesh anywhere they can get it.
I know Americans who left the US 40 years ago and have lived and become fully integrated citizens of other countries. Yet simply to retain the right to return the US at some point, they must pay taxes every year in the middle? And trying to give up their citizenship isn't that easy either.
If we want to prevent tax havens, I'm totally fine with that. Force sensible global tax regimes and prevent countries from being havens. But the solution isn't extraterritorial taxation.
“The Exit Tax that you, as a covered expatriate, would have to pay is calculated as if you have sold all of your assets at Fair Market Value on the day prior to your relinquishment, and the associated capital gains are subject to this tax. The Internal Revenue Code provides that the first $699,000 of this capital gain will not be taxed. The tax payment is due within 90 days after giving up your U.S. citizenship. Expatriation is considered to be effective for tax purposes, even if you fail to file the Expatriation Information Statement (form 8854). The exceptions from the main rule are certain deferred compensation items, specified tax deferred accounts, and non-grantor trusts.”
“You can still become taxable in the U.S. under the normal U.S. tax rules if you continue to have U.S.-sourced income.”
Of course. Your capital gains would be taxed upon sale if you didn't leave; should fleeing the country allow you to avoid that?
Letting people take advantage of all the US offers while paying no tax on their growing wealth, and then letting them retire elsewhere without having put in their fair share makes no sense. Of course, we could stop taxing capital gains so favorably, as an alternative.
It makes perfect sense. It's just not the only viable or legitimate way to do things. As I said above: people are free to give up their citizenship. They'll pay the taxes that have been deferred (and then, only above a high threshold) and they can go about their lives.
The US Marines have been known to evacuate US citizens from foreign countries if war breaks out. Think of your taxes as an insurance premium for global personal safety.
Country's passport has a value in itself. The one from the US enables you to leverage international travel treaties and visa arrangements. Just answering your question, not making a point on whether taxation is the correct way for US to "cover" for those benefits.
Well, in the US, one benefit is being able to freely travel to many other countries without needing to go through a months long visa application process.
Your social security benefits are derived, in part, from how much you paid in on your top earning years. Thus, if you didn't pay in you would have very very very little social security (which is already too small of a benefit to live off of). Thus, I don't think there is a moral hazard of social security that would cause people to return to the US for those benefits. They could amend the law (not sure if it's specifics) that you have to pay in a minimum amount if you want to be paid out while living in another country. Simple fix to remove any poorly aligned incentive.
Medicare is much trickier as every American over 65 is entitled to it, but I'm not sure how that coverage works if you live outside the US.
Social Security is not tied to US citizenship. A foreigner who has worked in the US enough years (and paid into Social Security during those years) can move back home and receive Social Security benefits upon retirement.
Well, this statement may be valid in Cold War era, but anyone leaving US will probably go to a cheaper safer country where the possibility of this is close to 0
It is absolutely absurd for me. I do not live in the country i was born at, it never contributed to me earning anything. I dont see why i would owe any tax to them
Through June 2021 they’re treating groceries and gas the same as travel towards the $300.
Also, the rewards points can be redeemed for statement credit with the same 50% travel bonus on this “pay you back” thing against grocery and restaurant purchases
Call independent repair shops in the Bay Area that specializes in Macs. I could not get the name of the GPU repairer because the repair shop earned a hefty fee being the middleman.
No joking, just this morning outside my house in a residential neighborhood it’s raining heavily and a fully loaded prime van is gunning it and peeling out and fish tailing. I thought the driver was gonna crash for sure!
Schools think it's enough anonymization to call pupils by their initials while mailing back and forth grades and sensitive data and characterizations about them. It's a rampant problem.
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