“The exercise was held from May 8 to 9, 2024, at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, and at a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) site in Denver, Colorado.”
Article refers to a PDF of the report it’s based on:
https://www.jhuapl.edu/sites/default/files/2025-04/Space-Weather-TTX-Report-Summary-v3-FINAL.pdf
If it makes you feel better, even if you migrate to another country and gain citizenship, you still have to pay income taxes to the US.
If the country has a bilateral tax agreement with the US and your income is not high by middle-class standards, you can deduct the foreign tax from the US tax. Foreign tax is typically higher if you’re anywhere in Europe of the developed world (leaving out the Gulf countries and Saudi Arabia). You still have to file in the US, which is an inconvenience and an expense, but you’re unlikely to be double-taxed.
You won’t have to pay anything unless you’re pulling in the equivalent of >$126,500 USD in foreign income. Then you’re taxed on what you make above that. My H&R Block lady here in Germany told me all about it when I file every year. And boy howdy is fuuuuucking stupid that I’m having to file US taxes every year. I could stop, but then everything falls apart for me.
That $126,500 number refers to the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE), but it’s not a hard threshold below which you’re totally off the hook. U.S. citizens abroad still have to file a tax return if their income exceeds the standard filing requirement (around $14k+ for single filers). And the FEIE only applies to earned income, not investment income or retirement income. It’s not automatic, you have to qualify under the bona fide residence or physical presence test, and file the right forms (like Form 2555) to claim it.
Even if you’re making well under $126k, you still have to file, and you might owe something depending on your situation.
I’ve filed for 7 years straight and never owed a cent. Oddly, got a little back, 2 years straight. Might have been the covid money, which even more laughable as I didn’t set foot, much less work, in the US for the entirety of the pandemic. Single, no property or other taxable assets and no additional sources of income outside my monthly paycheck from my Euro employers. If I, me broke that $126k threshold, then I’d have to pay something. Getting there. Let’s see if the USA doesn’t collapse on itself first*
(* I hope not.)
This is news to me and so fucked up for a country that considers itself “land of the free”. I hate it here.
If you want to renounce your US citizenship to get away from that onerous requirement, you have to pay a fee (about $2k) and also get screwed on a lot of US taxes on investments (forcing you to treat all capital gains as realized, for example). Part of my definition of freedom is that you don’t have to pay someone money for permission to leave.