Every year when April 15 rolls around I find myself wondering if this is going to be the time when I finally get fed up and renounce my US citizenship.

I'm a natural-born US citizen and a naturalized EU citizen. I haven't set foot in the States in over a decade. I receive nothing from the US government[1] and I cost the US government nothing[2]. My only source of income is my salaried job. The very idea that I should be subject to taxation by the US isn't just ludicrous but downright offensive.

Don't get me wrong: I am by no means an anti-taxation libertarian. I'm a leftie pinko who loves the high-taxation welfare state and pays into it uncomplainingly. But there is - or should be - an implicit bargain in all taxation: the citizen pays something and the citizen gets something in return. For an expat like myself this bargain doesn't pertain.

Now, my circumstances are such that I don't actually pay any US taxes. This is the main reason why I haven't yet gotten fed up and renounced my US citizenship. But I still have to spend at least a full day every spring collecting paperwork and putting together pointless tax returns, and I need to pay for an expensive US tax accountant if I want some reassurance that I'm not unintentionally violating any of the expatriate tax and disclosure laws. (Not that that's any guarantee. A lot of overseas tax accounts aren't even fully up-to-date on the constantly changing regularions. And the penalties for missing or messing up an FBAR are downright terrifying.)

If my financial affairs were any more complicated I would end up having to pay US taxes. For example, if I bought a house and then sold it for a profit, the IRS would hit me with an absolutely unjustifiable capital gains tax.

Now the US is imposing such intrusive reporting requirements on foreign banks that many of them are starting to refuse to do business with US citizens - expatriates are starting to find it difficult to even open a bank overseas.

And spare a thought for my daughter, who will end up in the same situation a035bb942 described above: she's a US citizen through no fault of her own. She might well spend her entire life in Europe, never setting foot in the United States, but if she doesn't file an FBAR every year of her adult life Uncle Sam may come after her with all guns blazing.

Faced with such insanity, renunciation is a perfectly rational way out. What am I really getting in return for this heavy and unwarranted US intrusion into my life?

Of course, the US gets you coming and going: renouncing costs $450. They might also hit you with an exit tax before they let you go.

[1] There's always somebody who wants to argue this point: look at all the wonderful intangible benefits I get from being under the protection of the world's greatest power! Bollocks. Being American doesn't protect me from anything; if anything it exposes me to greatly increased danger in many parts of the world.

[2] Someone will say that my very existence as a US citizen imposes a certain administrative cost on the US government. Again, bollocks. I impose an administrative cost on the IRS/Treasury only because they require me to. I pay for my decennial passport renewal. This is the full extent of my interactions with the US government.