Two minor finance notes and a footnote

[DFW]

With me, at least, my Social Security is still showing up on time. For how long, I don't dare hazard a guess, but it's there.

My wife has just gotten €800 worth of medical bills for doctor-ordered exams (EKG, heart, cancer follow up, etc. etc), which I paid, of course. The only silver lining is that in Germany, medical bills that insurance doesn't cover, like these (sorry, Bernie and friends, far from all medical care is "free" here), are tax-deductible, which I find only fair. As far as I know, this is not the case in the USA, but it sure as hell ought to be! By the way, I would very much like to hear I'm wrong about that. Any tax experts out there?

[Silent Type]

1. Good point. US tax law allows deductions if the medical expenses exceed 7.5% of adjusted income.

[DFW]

2. Now, that is interesting.

A law that makes it easier on low income folks than on high income folks.

[dsc]

3. but they aren't a separate line deduction so if you don't have a bunch of other deductions

then you still can't write them off. The year I had my heart attack and bought my house I did go over the line but not by a ton. But even with mortgage interest, property taxes and the rest I am close to the line and often on the low side of it.

[DFW]

4. But you are probably only taxed by one country

I am double taxed, both by the USA and Germany. There are only two countries in the world that do not recognize residence-based taxation: Eritrea and the USA. The USA does have double taxation treaties with most countries, but they are woefully outdated, and permit the country of residence (in my case Germany) to try to double tax income that was already taxed in the USA. All of my income is in the USA, and plenty of it gets taxed there before I see a cent of it. Then come the Germans and want to tax it again. When I made my Roth IRA conversion, I paid the taxes due up front, as the rules require. But the Roth IRA didn’t exist when the DT treaty was written, so the Germans are saying there is no such thing, even though I was still a full-time resident of the USA when I made the conversion. They don’t care. If I take $10 out of it, the Germans want $5. The fact that I already paid $4 doesn’t interest them in the slightest. “That” mentality is mostly gone here, but not entirely.