Former 4 year expat in Tokyo here.
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by PremEx:
Biggest headache for me being an expat? Doing the taxes.</font>
The USA is one of 3 countries worldwide requiring its citizens abroad to pay taxes (one of the others being the Philippines).
One of the advantages of being in Japan as a non-US, non-permanent resident (work visa renewed every year) was that one never sees a tax return form. The employer deducts income tax (quite low), health insurance, and retirement fund payment (reimbursed after departure) from the paycheck.
No tax on assets, property abroad, capital gains, etc
