If you are a US citizen or resident alien (i.e. green card holder), then, you are suppose to file taxes with the United States authorities, especially at the Federal level (IRS) even if you do not live in the United States.
The United States (and Eritrea, only two countries in the World) taxes its citizens based on your worldwide income. This is called citizen based taxation versus the most common method of residency taxation (you pay taxes where you live or where you spend the majority of your time).
Note that if you are living away, you can qualify to certain exclusions (i.e. foreign income exclusion which is $126,500 for 2024) and you are still entitled to foreign tax credits (credits for taxes to foreign authorities). Additionally, you should review the IRS international tax treaties. At the end of the day, you should ensure that you are not double paying taxes and taking all potential exclusions and deductions.
However, you could voluntarily refuse or waive in writing your right to these exclusions like a taxpayer did and then, you will lose those benefits being liable to more taxes as you are giving up tax benefits. The article linked below explains in details how the taxpayer signed the waiver agreement and this document was mailed by her employer. The Court considered that her waiver agreement was valid and then, she was not entitled to those exemptions.
Journal of Accountancy – Foreign earned income and housing exclusion denied
Then, how to avoid filing the United tax if you are a citizen? Well, probably you guessed it right, as many millionaires / billionaires renounce to their US citizenship. Probably the most famous case is Eduardo Saverini in 2012 saving him around $67m – $80m in taxes depending on the source. Since then, there have been amendments to the exit tax or formally “expatriation tax” per the IRS website.
