Unpatriotic-Their Allegiance Is To Wealth

This was first published in June 2012, but now, in 2017, Trump and Republicans will begin a drive to give big cut taxes to billionaires, with likely consequences for average and poor folks when the budget cuts come.


In case you missed this story, there is a growing number of wealthy "Americans" giving up their American citizenship, often to avoid paying taxes. Since the administration of George W. Bush U.S. tax officials have made an effort to locate Americans living overseas who make or hold large sums to collect taxes on their incomes.* Last year nearly 1800 of these very wealthy folks gave up their American citizenship in Switzerland.** Many have become "stateless," as they are not citizens of ANY country. And some people dare to call Occupy Wall Street protesters "unpatriotic." Reports suggest there are more than 4500 of these stateless super wealthy folks worldwide, worth nearly 6.5 trillion; that's with a "t." Understand, there are many Americans living overseas for a wide variety of reasons: military service, a spouse and children of military personnel serving overseas, government positions, business positions, education, etc. Do not confuse these people with the super wealthy, unpatriotic former Americans.

* It is complicated, but hey, this is about taxes! From what I can come up with, Americans overseas earning over about $100,000 are those who get hit, but even then, there are credits deducted for paying taxes to other countries. In other words, if you live in another country, make a half million, for example, you may pay little or no American tax because you paid tax in country XYZ, or to several countries, as some of the super wealthy have homes in numerous countries.

** You don't think they went to Switzerland because of secret Swiss bank accounts, do you? Ah c'mon now! You mean they'd try to hide money? Haha Laws passed in the 2000s have pried open some of these "secret" accounts, however. 

WORD HISTORY:
Patriot-This word traces back to Indo European “phater/phter/phaeter/pater,” which meant "father." This then gave its Greek offspring "pater," which then spawned "patris," "fatherland," which then produced "patriotes," meaning "from the same country." Latin borrowed the word as "patriota," "a countryman." This gave French "compatriot" and the shorter "patriote," both with the meaning "fellow countryman." English borrowed the word from French in the late 1500s, when the word was already developing the additional sense "loyal supporter of one's country."