Why aren't you people discussing this?

USA has global taxation most countries dont, thats a huge advantage the rest of the world has over US sailors

But that’s for those who make over a certain amount, which is, if I’m not mistaken, around 150k/year. The credits of taxes paid in the country of residence apply.

lol, living on a megayacht you are not resident anywhere so nobody pays tax.
Only Americans…
Just like when I worked offshore with 6 months out in any continuous year.
Thats one of the reasons the foreign drillers and boat companies wont employ Americans as now they have to do extra paper work for the crew and for American authorities when asked.

Write to your senators, especially in red states…it takes 2 seconds.

That is impressive. 2 seconds to write a letter to a Senator? That will be short, sweet and to the point. But well thought out arguments I guess? :laughing:

If you have enough money to sue a yacht owner you don’t need a job on a yacht. Most yacht “owners” are mail boxes in tax havens many times removed from the actual owner.
The fact that the USA has no health coverage for their citizens and the tax reporting is onerous is enough to make hiring US people for most positions with foreign companies not a good business move unless they have specialized skills and knowledge. But we’re talking about working on a yacht where guest service is important and US citizens are not known for that skill. Around this time of year the exclusive clubs in South Florida begin importing workers for the season. The current US president’s club imports a lot of them. Mostly from South Africa. They seem to work out well for the billionaires that belong to these clubs. So employing them on their yachts just seems natural. These billionaires also seem to love being waited on by people with a foreign accent that’s not Spanish for some reason.I guess they can’t bear the thought of their landscape guys’ family might be serving them their hors d’ourves Imported labor at less cost with an accent, checks all the boxes. :money_mouth_face:

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My state is split, but I wrote them both anyway. I already revived a cordial automated form reply…that part definitely only took 2 seconds!

I would add that most young Americans would consider working as servants beneath them no matter how swanky the surroundings. They’d be more inclined to tell an abusive customer to eff off than youths of other nationalities at the bottom of the social ladder who see that job as a step up.

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Yeah, but when we all start off we are all working for a customer, whether in the military, a bank, a manufacturing plant or a ship. Your boss is the customer. Telling the boss to eff off generally doesn’t work well. If you have money to fall back on you can do that but then why are you working?

The Americans could also avoid taxes. They would have foreign-earned income for the time spent in foreign ports and territorial waters. Time spent in international waters would not be tax-exempt.

This is what airline pilots need to do to claim the exemption. Careful logs for the time not spent in international airspace.

That’s true. I’ve done some of the jobs you mention but except for the military, none of them approached the level of servitude I saw when running a private yacht. It feels like a medieval system where the owner owns you. In my case, it was the owner’s wife’s treatment of the servants, me included, that sent me back to the commercial sector.

Well of course it is a medieval system. F. Scott Fitzgerald who knew them back in the 1920s them wrote this:
“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we
are. They are different. ”
The 21st century is like the 1920s on steroids, wonder what he would think now?

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I heard on some of the bigger private yachts with better owners crew do a resonable rotation like 3 months on 3 months off or something, but on some of the smaller ones which are owned by companies and chartered to different rich people they can do some insane trip lengths like 12 months on 1 month off.

It’s probably mostly young single people with no family that do these 12 month trips, but I heard they usually get a lot of time off in nice ports in between charters so it’s not too bad doing that long a time.

Nice to see this potentially impactful and meaningful OP topic has thoroughly died in the forum Senate just as HR4447 most assuredly will…

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Charter yachts are different than yachts owned by a family as they are managed by companies where there may be rules and opportunities for recourse. In an family owned yacht which is not used for charters, you answer to the owner, his wife, his kids and their friends. All of them are your boss.

Of course it will die. Its in the House which like the senate is dysfunctional.

It is not in the House, the House was actually functional enough to pass it. It is now up to the Senate to pass it, a Senate which has lately sat on every bill sent its way rather than even putting it to a vote. Hence writing your Senators.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/4447

There always seems to be a 50/50 chance.

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Also to note, I don’t expect the Republican Senator in my state to necessarily embrace this entire resolution, as it has to do with energy and was passed by a Democratic house. But I wrote to both Senators simply highlighting the importance of the Garamendi Amendment contained in therein and what it means for American Jobs and the Merchant Marine in general. Whether it passes as part of this bill or as part of future legislation, I think its worth pointing out it should receive bi-partisan support.

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