I think it's because there would be an uproar :-) Don't forget the UK is much smaller than the US - over there you can travel a landmass half the size of the whole of Europe and that law wouldn't bite you.
The equivalent law in the UK would mean that if you just moved 60 miles from the UK to France you'd have to pay tax twice. Much more limiting.
Edit: two people have now told me that you get an IRS tax credit for foreign tax payments. I stand corrected - never knew that!
> The equivalent law in the UK would mean that if you just moved 60 miles from the UK to France you'd have to pay tax twice.
To my understanding, that's not how the US taxes work. You have to file a tax return with the US, but you get a credit for the taxes you've paid to other countries [0] so you actually end up paying whichever tax is higher.
There is a significant degree of double taxation for overseas Americans, the credit only covers a subset of common cases. It is not uncommon to pay more taxes as an American overseas than you would pay to each country separately if you were only filing in one.
While FTC helps with most things, you can still get knocked for stuff that doesn’t fit into the US tax code. Like stamp duty - you’re taxed in the UK when buying property, then taxed in the US when selling (you’re exempt in the UK on your primary property).
That's correct. But it means even if you move from a high tax country/state to a low tax one (which may provide a very different level of services for the lower taxes--as is often the case with US states) you still get hit.
You don't pay tax twice under the (still ridiculous) American system, the IRS does credit you for whatever foreign taxes you've paid. I'm not sure if it's 1:1 but there is a credit.
The equivalent law in the UK would mean that if you just moved 60 miles from the UK to France you'd have to pay tax twice. Much more limiting.
Edit: two people have now told me that you get an IRS tax credit for foreign tax payments. I stand corrected - never knew that!