Home country?
As a PR youโre just one felony away from being kicked out.
This one, any incident(even a misdemeanor)with police may get you kicked out of the country. Get neutralized risk is not worth it.
US passport allows Visa free travel to a large number of countries. Getting Visas can be a pain and expensive
For Indians. OP could be Canadian...
Still an advantage worth mentioning since OP is asking for benefits.
Can work for the federal government.
Pays peanuts, bunch of red tape, but job security though.
Pensions after retirement for the rest of the life
Can bring family members (parents, in the first place) to the US and give them GC. Deal-breaker for me as a single child who doesn't want to leave the US to take care of the parents
What do you mean by deal breaker? Bringing your parents to the USA for medical treatment would likely be much, much more expensive than having them stay wherever they currently live and seeking medical treatment there.
Oh yeah. I would never make my parents US residents. Way easier to get them residency somewhere else.
With citizenship you can vote for Trump and work for ICE. You could bring relatives to US or fiance. Your future kid will get US citizenship even if born abroad. US passport is good for travel, and you can easily get ABTC on top.
Multiple questions to ask: 1- Are you planning to retire in the US? If so then why not. 2- What is your other passport? If you don't plan to retire in the US then carefully consider the US Citizenship because worldwide income taxation while living abroad is a hell. (read about fatca, PFICs, fbar, double taxation even with a tax treaty, shadow capital gains on real estate etc). 3- how long do you intend to keep the green card? If 8 or more years out of the last 15 And net worth > 2M then you will be a covered expatriate and subject to the exit tax. Being a citizen MAY help you in that case. 4- whatch the irs medic youtube channel, he has a few videos about green card holders. 5- do you have or plan to have kids? Careful about the estate taxes and double taxation. I have done a lot of research on this, and being from a top tier passport country, I have made peace with the fact that getting us citizenship would be a liability in my case and will not apply for it. The US passport is an OK passport travel wise, but the rest is trash. Nomad Capitalists ranks it around 30th in the world, just because of the compliance and cost of taxation. PM me if you have any questions
Awesome reply! Do you have any other insights as to why someone from a "top tier passport country" (I assume Europe, Canada, Far East, Australia, etc) shouldn't get US citizenship?
Well you won't get any additional travel benefits. And it's more likely that you other passport have better soft benefits (hey who hates Canadian or Irish?). Other top tier countries do residency based taxation. So you just have to actually cut ties with your country and you can get down to 0% taxes in some cases. If you are American Overseas you will have the following benefits: - having trouble (or not being able) to open a checking/savings account in the country you live in because the IRS sees it as an offshore account (it's not foreign to you, it's YOUR bank a block away). - Not being able to get a mortgage because the bank does not want you on their books as they have to comply with FATCA. - Not being able to save for retirements as the brokers also don't want you as customers - You're thinking of hiding your US Citizenship (because your place of birth is not the US, so you could!) but that DOES NOT remove the obligation of disclosing these accounts in a FBAR form (compliance). - You can not invest in mutual funds /etfs outside of the US as their taxation is horrific (PFICS are deemed sold every year on 12/31 and you pay US taxes on it, even tho you are not selling) - You have to invest in USD and pay the forex cost two ways, while you live and bank let's say in Euros. - If you are a US Citizen but your spouse/heirs are not, then they are taxed at 40% above 60k of estate and then the rest is taxable to their country of residence. - You get the privilege of having to file tons of forms every year, just to be presented with a 0$ tax bill in most cases. - In some cases, you actually have d'oรน le taxation (used to be the case with France and CSG until 3 months ago). An example is you just sold your house in Australia, and this is tax exempt, but not to the US, or worse, you sold another house without gains in AUD, but there is actual gains in USD so you have to pay capital gains. Anyways, you would have to be nuts to take the US Citizenship route UNLESS you plan to always live and retire in the US. I laugh when people say that the US recognizes dual citizenship. In theory yes, in fact no. They punish their citizens for living abroad. And that is NOT going to change. As a matter of fact it will be worse. Some politicians (Warren) want to strengthen Fatca and even have Medicare for all being paid by Americans abroad as it will be included in the income tax. Yeah sure.... I'll be happy with a green card, but be sure as hell to watch our for the 8 years and 2M threshold. The US is shooting themselves in the foot. They will only keep some kind of people in the country and other aware people will flee.
You get the privilege of being taxed on your worldwide income no matter where you live, having to file a US tax return every year for the rest of your life, and having to do jury duty (if you're living in the USA), but you get the privilege of being able to live and reside in the USA for the rest of your life. Some say that the tradeoff is worth it. As a permanent resident, you have no legal right to reside in the USA if the USA doesn't want you. As a US citizen, that right cannot be taken away no matter what.
Not to mention that you can't leave the US for me than 6 months in a year, if you're not a citizen. * * exclusions apply
You're correct, although I think that you can get a waiver for two years, IIRC.