Employment for Americans

Loose your nationality. It is the ONLY way for an American to be free. Funny, no? Oh, but the "land of the free" has massively raised the barriers to renouncing. I have no idea what barriers are in place to stop you taking work in Europe, but you have a massive enemy when you try to leave the USA. It's the USA.

Do you speak Dutch, French, even German? If not, there are large numbers of well qualified people on the jobs market who don't need work permits and still find it difficult to find work.

And even if you get a work permit, you will find that an increasing number of organisations including most banks won't touch American citizens with a barge pole thanks to restrictions and obligations imposed from the other side of the pond. (That's what Mike is referring to, it's called an "own goal".)

First you'll need a job offer from a Belgian firm for atleast 40K annual salary which qualifies you for work permit B which your potential employer needs to apply for (Its free for them to apply and basic paperwork needed). Then they send you the physical WP B along with that you need a marriage cert (if married and spouse joining you), if married then legalized Birth Cert for the spouse, translated health cert, FBI clearance (police clearance takes 90 days for it to come through, maybe faster nowadays, not sure though) with which you apply for a D-visa and then come here.

It is impossible for an American to live a normal life outside of the USA and remain an American. It's really that simple. Obama enforced the taxation slavery that was introduced as a punishment for dodging the draft in the civil war when he signed the HIRE act and FATCA contained within in 2010.

The fact our own governments not only agreed to help the Americans hunt down and persecute the people they have decided will be US tax payers, but have allowed the US to make us pay to do it is one of the greatest scandals in history.

Unfortunately, it's a scandal that few even know about or understand. Renunciations pretty much doubling year on year, to which the Americans responded by making it much harder and much more expensive to do.

The "land of the free" has resorted to imprisoning it's people. Sickening.

"It is impossible for an American to live a normal life outside of the USA and remain an American."

Isn't it amazing what absolute rubbish some people spout on this site!

The only difference between an American living outside the US and say a Brit living outside the U.K. is that the American has to file a US tax return once a year. That's hardly difficult.

Depends. What do you plan on doing in Belgium in regards to employment?

I live just fine here as an American. Agree with Anon.

Earlier I said it's impossible for an American to live a normal financial life outside the USA, described as nonsense. Well, if you are clever enough to fill out what has to be some of the most complex tax reporting on earth and don't have to pay $800 to have it done for you, I'm happy for you. If you can live with life destroying fines over your head for as much as a simple mistake, I'm really happy for you.
The truth of the matter is most people cannot do the reporting themselves and I don't think anybody thinks the fine structure is anything other than monstrous.

Family life.....How well do you reckon it goes down with partners when they too are dragged in to the US tax system? How well does it go down with partners when the USA taxes the sale of your Belgian home, particularly if that "gain" is a phantom caused by exchange rates?

Work......No company is going to hire an American in to any position of signatory power over the books, because the company is now required to report the entire company books to the USA.
A whole range of financial services are either closed to Americans or are rendered useless due to taxation by the USA. Double taxation is all but inevitable as no tax treaty covers all cases and while it's true there is an overseas earnings exemption, much unearned gains are still considered taxable by the USA, even if that gain is your tax deferred pension. And again, these taxable "gains" can be entire phantom gains.

Go tell the US/ Canadians about how it's not a problem when the USA demands a slice of their Canadian born Canadian disabled child's disability because the parent is American.

And let me give you an example I just saw myself in black and white. Increasingly companies in Belgium are paying an employees bonus payment in to a SICAV from which the employee can withdraw at a preferential rate compared to via payroll. Entirely voluntary but you would be daft not to do it.

Guess what? Right there in the bullet points in this company designated SICAV (investment trust) in bold, NO US CITIZENS US INDICIA. So, the American gets to pay more tax to the Belgian state than anybody else.

Anybody not suffering ill effects from US nationality must be living a very simple life indeed. More likely, they are not reporting correctly and so are running up a world of hurt if they ever return to the USA, or maybe before now the world is setting up Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters, which Belgium will sign.

There is a good reason for the 2000 percent increase in renunciations.