8842: Taxes by citizens living abroad: Corbett replies to Senou

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

>From Bob Corbett:
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From: Senou <senou@yahoo.com>

Good point but what I got in return, fair question
I will go a step further the tax money should go
directly to that person hometown. I believe it can be
done for those Haitians who want to vote and double
citizenship. 

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As most of you know I am living in Austria this year.  My salary
is taxed in four ways by the U.S.

	-- money deducted for federal tax
	-- money deducted for Missouri state tax
	-- money deducted for St. Louis City tax
	-- money deducted for Social Security tax

I am quite happy to pay my taxes for all four even though I am
not living there now.  Many uses of the taxes money continue
to benefit me (citizenship protections, use of funds to keep
up infrastructures which I will benefit from in the future, my
future in social security and so on).

What is attractive to me is that the U.S. has a fairly sophisticated
system of both collection and distribution of tax monies.

The idea, were it transferable to Haiti would be attractive, but
there are quite a few current practical problems:

	-- since I am paid out of the U.S. (Webster University) even
		though my work is in Austria, the withholding state
		(U.S.) is the beneficiary state.  Austria gets none
		of those funds and I pay no Austrian tax.
	-- My money will be distributed to federal, state and local
		governments as withheld.  
	-- While there is always a significant waste in the use
		of tax money, nonetheless in the U.S. I get the
		sense that my tax money really does contribute to
		achieving useful things for the state.

I am not convinced that any of these procedures or safeguards are
in place in Haiti.  Until such safeties are in place were I
a Haitian I would be most skeptical of putting my money into
taxes in a system where so little seems to accrue to the citizens or the
nation from their tax monies.

Bob Corbett