9 ms·

Americans Renouncing Citizenship Hits New Record; Tax Bill Won't Change That

65 points by Myrmornis 8y ago

z2 8y ago
Is it odd that the IRS is mandated to publish the full names of all who renounce US citizenship? Not that names are necessarily private information, but most other times when government agencies publish names, it's a wanted persons list.
- ISL 8y ago
  There is a wall of names on the Washington Mall that provides a poignant counterexample.
- apercu 8y ago
  You should hear the "patriots" who try to justify the stupid US laws in any online discussion. I've been called a traitor for living in Canada.
  - LyndsySimon 8y ago
    Yeah, I don't get it either. I'm an anarchist, and would love to one day be able to renounce my citizenship and purposefully become stateless. Doing so requires significant financial resources though, and I doubt my family situation will ever allow it. Still, discussion of that desire has led to many aggressive but interesting conversations on both right- and left-leaning platforms.
- claydavisss 8y ago
  Anyone who has purchased a home in their name has it in the public record. Your name isn't considered private.
- LyndsySimon 8y ago
  There are other examples. Off the top of my head, firearms law has a few instances of this. The ATF publishes a list of FFL holders[0]. This includes gun dealers, pawnbrokers, and even holders of "curio and relic" licenses, which are collectors who do not do it as a business. Many states also publish lists of concealed carry permit holders. A few years ago, the Commercial Appeal published the entire list of permit holders for Tennessee on their website, searchable by ZIP code. It seems to be a dead link now, but there are still articles about it out there[1]. There was a lot of concern in the community that this would lead to targeted break-ins by people seeking to illegally obtain firearms, but I don't recall seeing anything solid about it happening. 0: https://www.atf.gov/firearms/listing-federal-firearms-licensees https://www.atf.gov/firearms/listing-federal-firearms-licens... 1: https://www.heraldcourier.com/news/tn-newspaper-publishes-concealed-gun-permit-list/article_d95c67ca-1db5-5671-9131-9bb67a60ba47.html https://www.heraldcourier.com/news/tn-newspaper-publishes-co...
- logfromblammo 8y ago
  Some business is restricted only to "US persons"--citizens and residents. Employers are expected to read the published list and fire anyone on it whose job description requires them to be a US person. There is no defense for "we were not aware of this", because the register is the ultimate public record. The fact that the IRS could as easily notify employers directly that their employee has changed status is irrelevant. The list is published so that other people may also discriminate on the basis of changed citizenship status.
jiveturkey 8y ago
summary: expats are renouncing due to the difficulty of filing US taxes abroad. the article doesn't state it directly, but likely these are people who have decided to permanently move abroad, whose lives have changed, and don't want the burden of filing US taxes any longer. it's a useless article. the fact that there is a "record" is meaningless at these insignificantly small numbers. the fact that tax reform won't change it is just clickbait. congress doesn't and shouldn't care about such a meaninglessly small number of people.
- mehrdadn 8y ago
  > congress doesn't and shouldn't care about such a meaninglessly small number of people. Aren't there millions of expats abroad?
  - apercu 8y ago
    Last number I heard, 6 million. I'm one of them. State department last said there was an estimated 9 million. I've also heard 3 million. So, 6. lol. Stupid US tax laws and FATCA are a major pain in the ass. FATCA made it all more ridiculous. I'm considering renouncing. Guess what, though? That costs like $3k.
    - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
      You have to pay the US to stop being a citizen? I can understand a cost for filing, but that's a lot of money to opt out of your rights as a citizen. I'm trying to think of equivalent items that one would do when opting out of citizenship that are equivalent to emptying out the health spending account when you quit a job to try and make your money back.
      - miscreanity 8y ago
        Yes, and the bar has been raised[1] in recent years. When high net worth individuals start to leave, it's good to question the reason since they typically have more flexibility than lower-income earners who might do the same if they had greater financial means. The high bar acts to prevent foolish decisions at best, and at worst serves to forcibly imprison the most vulnerable of the populace - it is akin to vendor lock-in of the worst kind. As for my own opinion, Trump's actions have improved the situation somewhat but perhaps only temporarily. The reporting requirements remain onerous, as the IRS effectively intrudes into every aspect of your life through financial inspection - it is an absolute violation of everyone's humanity and rights, regardless of income level. The United States had no income tax or reporting requirements for over a third of its existence and experienced growth; now that the tide has shifted, the US tax requirements would be causing a much greater exodus if it weren't for the fact that there are not currently many places worldwide in a better position. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/10/23/u-s-has-worlds-highest-fee-to-renounce-citizenship/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/10/23/u-s-has-w...
toweringgoat 8y ago
Ah, that classic list of countries that only contains USA and Eritrea.
twblalock 8y ago
The sad thing is that the renouncers often don't mind paying tax, they just can't deal with the crazy amount of paperwork and costs involved, especially if they have investment income.
- apercu 8y ago
  Yea, typically we don't owe. Many of us live in "socialist" countries with higher taxes so we get credited for that. Where it hits us in accounting fees and (after FATCA) an inability to have investments outside of registered retirement plans. Also a bunch of other crap. Imagine having an additional tens of thousands of dollars of accounting fees in your lifetime because 'murica.
  - pmiller2 8y ago
    Can anyone expand on this inability to have investments outside of registered retirement plans?” I have never heard of this.
    - MandieD 8y ago
      I'm an American who is a permanent resident of Germany, and the main reason is that the level of assets a normal middle-class wage earner can accumulate (think six figures) is not worth it to banks here to deal with the US-mandated paperwork, and so none of them will sell me stocks, mutual funds or index funds, despite my openness with both the country of my residence and the country of my birth. The only realistic savings mechanism I have given Europe's current near-zero interest rates is real estate; I can buy property, but I'm a bit hesitant to do that at the moment, given the disparity between purchase prices and actual rents. After FATCA started being enforced more heavily, there were Americans whose banks closed their checking accounts! Fortunately, I've not had a problem with very basic financial services, but no one wants to open a brokerage account for me once that American passport comes out. If I had eight figures to manage, no matter where I was actually resident, they'd probably figure out how to deal with the bureaucracies on both sides of the ocean...
      - 8y ago
sublupo 8y ago
I know several people who were born abroad and raised abroad but are US citizens because their parents are citizens. Every year they have to report every cent that they own. In foreign bank accounts, foreign retirement funds and foreign investments. They have to file taxes every year, which means paying several hundred dollars for a tax attorney. They are unable to open several local bank accounts and several of them won't even hire US citizens for any possible job at the bank. If renouncing citizenship was free then they would do it in a heartbeat, but alas the US wants to steal even more money from them.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- hourislate 8y ago
  When I was living and working outside the USA, I found the process quite simple and straight forward. As long as you didn't earn over 127k USD (limit has increased) you were fine and didn't have to pay any additional taxes. If you earned more you were entitled to all the write offs you would get in the US. It was basically just filing a 1040 and 1 other form. I never had to pay any additional taxes that I already payed in the country I was living and working. I'm not sure why anyone would need a tax lawyer? The process is very simple and explained in detail on the IRS website. https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/u-s-taxpayers-residing-outside-the-united-states https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/u-s-...
  - retromario 8y ago
    If you're self-employed, working and living abroad you must pay self-employment tax regardless of the foreign tax exclusion amount. It's ridiculous.
    - gamblor956 8y ago
      Expats are entitled to Social Security and Medicare (once they meet the qualifying thresholds like age). Therefore, they are also required to pay in to Social Security.
emilfihlman 8y ago
What happens if you don't pay?
- DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
  > What happens if you don't pay? I guess you'd be an illegal emigrant? It's very disappointing to contrast how I now perceive the actions of the U.S. federal government with the view I was fed growing up in the 1970s.
rootusrootus 8y ago
We should make it free and then immediately exchange 1:1 with new immigrants who want to come to the U.S.
DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
When I was growing up, one of the arguments made for why the Soviet Union's people weren't free was the existence of an exit tax [0]. I'm curious if anyone has / shall sue the U.S. government on Constitutional grounds regarding these policies. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/1972/09/28/archives/jews-ask-nixon-to-bar-credits-to-soviet-until-exit-taxes-end.html https://www.nytimes.com/1972/09/28/archives/jews-ask-nixon-t...
- jkaplowitz 8y ago
  What would the constitutional argument be?
  - DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
    > What would the constitutional argument be? Nothing jumps out at me, but IANAL so I'm not sure. I guess holding citizens for ransom seems so damn un-American[0] to me that I hope/wish there's a good Constitutional barrier to it. edit: [0] By "American", I mean the qualities of freedom and liberty that I was taught, in the 1970's public school system, distinguished the U.S. from most other countries.
  - everdev 8y ago
    As a US citizen you're taxed even if you stop living in the US. In many states, you have to show proof of residency to vote, so there's taxation without representation. You have to renounce your US citizenship to stop being taxed on income you earn abroad.
    - wl 8y ago
      There's nothing in the US constitution that prohibits taxation without representation.
      - klipt 8y ago
        Obviously, otherwise all the non-citizens (e.g. green card holders) who pay taxes in the US would have to be allowed to vote too.
throwaway676890 8y ago
>Their American status can make them untouchable by many banks. Many foreign banks do not want American account holders. This is an understatement. Some years ago, I was a citizen of Pakistan and had a green card in the US. I never had any accounts in Pakistan. My father in Pakistan had passed away, and I traveled there to visit family. All of my share of the inheritance money was sitting in my brother's account in Pakistan. So we went together to a bank to open an account in my name and transfer my share of the inheritance over. Now in Pakistan people have an ID card similar to the Social Security Card. They provide a different one for overseas Pakistanis. So when they asked for my ID card, I gave them my overseas ID card. Things were going smoothly until the person got to the address field. "Oh, I see you live in the US?" "Yes." "Sorry, we cannot open a bank account for you." I talked a bit more, and explained to them that I'm a Pakistani citizen, and not a US one. Nope. The laws were clear. No bank accounts for US based persons without special approval from some senior officials. I asked would this apply even if I didn't have a green card and was merely a student in the US? Yup. The reason they gave me? US tax laws.
- miscreanity 8y ago
  The cost and risk banks take to ensure that US citizens comply with US law is absurdly draconian. It is massively safer for a bank to simply deny participation than to risk fines and expulsion from the global financial system that would effectively cripple it. Banks and other businesses globally are forced to become extensions of the US government without receiving funding to do so. This is economic warfare. The United States is a great place and the people are amazing (as people have been everywhere I've travelled), but the institutions have essentially enslaved the population and strong-armed the rest of the world. Thankfully, it ends soon with internal reform or collapse under its own paranoia and resource-intensive policing. I'm expecting this within a decade and am hopeful that it is the former.
  - throwaway676890 8y ago
    Do you have any details about this? My impression was that the Pakistani government felt that requiring US based people to report details of foreign accounts was a way to gather intelligence about other countries, and they didn't want to give them a way to do it. I did not think it was that Pakistani banks themselves had any reporting requirements to the US.
adventured 8y ago
This article is dated and didn't contain full-year numbers. The tax bill does in fact appear to have considerably changed the rate of Americans renouncing their citizenship: renunciations plunged by 71% in the fourth quarter of 2017 vs the fourth quarter of 2016, 16% in 1Q18 (vs 1Q17), and 38% in 2Q18 (vs 2Q17). The tax bill became a near-certainty in the fourth quarter of 2017, and was formally passed at the end of the year. Here's the rest of the story: "For the first time in five years, the number of Americans renouncing their citizenship decreased in 2017, government records show. Renunciations for the year fell 5.1 percent, to 5,133 — after a four-year climb to a record 5,411 in 2016, according to the IRS." "But the real story lies in the fourth quarter, when the number of renunciations tumbled 71 percent from the same period in 2016." Further, for the first quarter of 2018, it fell considerably: "The total for the first quarter of 2018 was 1,099." That compares to the 2017 rate of 1,313. A decline of 16%. In the second quarter of 2018, 1,090 persons renounced their citizenship, a huge drop from 1,759 in Q2 of 2017. A decline of 38%. Full year 2018 expectations would be for roughly a 29% decline vs the record 2016 figures (around ~3,800 vs the 5,411 for 2016). https://nypost.com/2018/02/09/fewer-americans-gave-up-their-citizenship-in-2017/ https://nypost.com/2018/02/09/fewer-americans-gave-up-their-... https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2018/05/14/fewer-americans-renounce-citizenship-but-taxes-still-drive-them/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2018/05/14/fewer-ame...
NTDF9 8y ago
"Your tax deficits at work" Reference: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/your-tax-dollars-at-work.html https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/your-tax-dollars-at-work.h...
iron0013 8y ago
"Some observers may want to blame President Trump for the spike, but it is much more likely that longstanding tax issues are the real culprits." he claimed, completely sans evidence or even a coherent argument

65 points by Myrmornis 8y ago

z2 8y ago

Is it odd that the IRS is mandated to publish the full names of all who renounce US citizenship? Not that names are necessarily private information, but most other times when government agencies publish names, it's a wanted persons list.

ISL 8y ago
There is a wall of names on the Washington Mall that provides a poignant counterexample.
apercu 8y ago
You should hear the "patriots" who try to justify the stupid US laws in any online discussion. I've been called a traitor for living in Canada.
- LyndsySimon 8y ago
  Yeah, I don't get it either. I'm an anarchist, and would love to one day be able to renounce my citizenship and purposefully become stateless. Doing so requires significant financial resources though, and I doubt my family situation will ever allow it. Still, discussion of that desire has led to many aggressive but interesting conversations on both right- and left-leaning platforms.
claydavisss 8y ago
Anyone who has purchased a home in their name has it in the public record. Your name isn't considered private.
LyndsySimon 8y ago
There are other examples. Off the top of my head, firearms law has a few instances of this. The ATF publishes a list of FFL holders[0]. This includes gun dealers, pawnbrokers, and even holders of "curio and relic" licenses, which are collectors who do not do it as a business. Many states also publish lists of concealed carry permit holders. A few years ago, the Commercial Appeal published the entire list of permit holders for Tennessee on their website, searchable by ZIP code. It seems to be a dead link now, but there are still articles about it out there[1]. There was a lot of concern in the community that this would lead to targeted break-ins by people seeking to illegally obtain firearms, but I don't recall seeing anything solid about it happening. 0: https://www.atf.gov/firearms/listing-federal-firearms-licensees https://www.atf.gov/firearms/listing-federal-firearms-licens... 1: https://www.heraldcourier.com/news/tn-newspaper-publishes-concealed-gun-permit-list/article_d95c67ca-1db5-5671-9131-9bb67a60ba47.html https://www.heraldcourier.com/news/tn-newspaper-publishes-co...
logfromblammo 8y ago
Some business is restricted only to "US persons"--citizens and residents. Employers are expected to read the published list and fire anyone on it whose job description requires them to be a US person. There is no defense for "we were not aware of this", because the register is the ultimate public record. The fact that the IRS could as easily notify employers directly that their employee has changed status is irrelevant. The list is published so that other people may also discriminate on the basis of changed citizenship status.

jiveturkey 8y ago

summary: expats are renouncing due to the difficulty of filing US taxes abroad. the article doesn't state it directly, but likely these are people who have decided to permanently move abroad, whose lives have changed, and don't want the burden of filing US taxes any longer. it's a useless article. the fact that there is a "record" is meaningless at these insignificantly small numbers. the fact that tax reform won't change it is just clickbait. congress doesn't and shouldn't care about such a meaninglessly small number of people.

mehrdadn 8y ago
> congress doesn't and shouldn't care about such a meaninglessly small number of people. Aren't there millions of expats abroad?
- apercu 8y ago
  Last number I heard, 6 million. I'm one of them. State department last said there was an estimated 9 million. I've also heard 3 million. So, 6. lol. Stupid US tax laws and FATCA are a major pain in the ass. FATCA made it all more ridiculous. I'm considering renouncing. Guess what, though? That costs like $3k.
  - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
    You have to pay the US to stop being a citizen? I can understand a cost for filing, but that's a lot of money to opt out of your rights as a citizen. I'm trying to think of equivalent items that one would do when opting out of citizenship that are equivalent to emptying out the health spending account when you quit a job to try and make your money back.
    - miscreanity 8y ago
      Yes, and the bar has been raised[1] in recent years. When high net worth individuals start to leave, it's good to question the reason since they typically have more flexibility than lower-income earners who might do the same if they had greater financial means. The high bar acts to prevent foolish decisions at best, and at worst serves to forcibly imprison the most vulnerable of the populace - it is akin to vendor lock-in of the worst kind. As for my own opinion, Trump's actions have improved the situation somewhat but perhaps only temporarily. The reporting requirements remain onerous, as the IRS effectively intrudes into every aspect of your life through financial inspection - it is an absolute violation of everyone's humanity and rights, regardless of income level. The United States had no income tax or reporting requirements for over a third of its existence and experienced growth; now that the tide has shifted, the US tax requirements would be causing a much greater exodus if it weren't for the fact that there are not currently many places worldwide in a better position. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/10/23/u-s-has-worlds-highest-fee-to-renounce-citizenship/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/10/23/u-s-has-w...

toweringgoat 8y ago

Ah, that classic list of countries that only contains USA and Eritrea.

twblalock 8y ago

The sad thing is that the renouncers often don't mind paying tax, they just can't deal with the crazy amount of paperwork and costs involved, especially if they have investment income.

apercu 8y ago
Yea, typically we don't owe. Many of us live in "socialist" countries with higher taxes so we get credited for that. Where it hits us in accounting fees and (after FATCA) an inability to have investments outside of registered retirement plans. Also a bunch of other crap. Imagine having an additional tens of thousands of dollars of accounting fees in your lifetime because 'murica.
- pmiller2 8y ago
  Can anyone expand on this inability to have investments outside of registered retirement plans?” I have never heard of this.
  - MandieD 8y ago
    I'm an American who is a permanent resident of Germany, and the main reason is that the level of assets a normal middle-class wage earner can accumulate (think six figures) is not worth it to banks here to deal with the US-mandated paperwork, and so none of them will sell me stocks, mutual funds or index funds, despite my openness with both the country of my residence and the country of my birth. The only realistic savings mechanism I have given Europe's current near-zero interest rates is real estate; I can buy property, but I'm a bit hesitant to do that at the moment, given the disparity between purchase prices and actual rents. After FATCA started being enforced more heavily, there were Americans whose banks closed their checking accounts! Fortunately, I've not had a problem with very basic financial services, but no one wants to open a brokerage account for me once that American passport comes out. If I had eight figures to manage, no matter where I was actually resident, they'd probably figure out how to deal with the bureaucracies on both sides of the ocean...
    - 8y ago

sublupo 8y ago

I know several people who were born abroad and raised abroad but are US citizens because their parents are citizens. Every year they have to report every cent that they own. In foreign bank accounts, foreign retirement funds and foreign investments. They have to file taxes every year, which means paying several hundred dollars for a tax attorney. They are unable to open several local bank accounts and several of them won't even hire US citizens for any possible job at the bank. If renouncing citizenship was free then they would do it in a heartbeat, but alas the US wants to steal even more money from them.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
hourislate 8y ago
When I was living and working outside the USA, I found the process quite simple and straight forward. As long as you didn't earn over 127k USD (limit has increased) you were fine and didn't have to pay any additional taxes. If you earned more you were entitled to all the write offs you would get in the US. It was basically just filing a 1040 and 1 other form. I never had to pay any additional taxes that I already payed in the country I was living and working. I'm not sure why anyone would need a tax lawyer? The process is very simple and explained in detail on the IRS website. https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/u-s-taxpayers-residing-outside-the-united-states https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/u-s-...
- retromario 8y ago
  If you're self-employed, working and living abroad you must pay self-employment tax regardless of the foreign tax exclusion amount. It's ridiculous.
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    Expats are entitled to Social Security and Medicare (once they meet the qualifying thresholds like age). Therefore, they are also required to pay in to Social Security.

emilfihlman 8y ago

What happens if you don't pay?

DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
> What happens if you don't pay? I guess you'd be an illegal emigrant? It's very disappointing to contrast how I now perceive the actions of the U.S. federal government with the view I was fed growing up in the 1970s.

rootusrootus 8y ago

We should make it free and then immediately exchange 1:1 with new immigrants who want to come to the U.S.

DoofusOfDeath 8y ago

When I was growing up, one of the arguments made for why the Soviet Union's people weren't free was the existence of an exit tax [0]. I'm curious if anyone has / shall sue the U.S. government on Constitutional grounds regarding these policies. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/1972/09/28/archives/jews-ask-nixon-to-bar-credits-to-soviet-until-exit-taxes-end.html https://www.nytimes.com/1972/09/28/archives/jews-ask-nixon-t...

jkaplowitz 8y ago
What would the constitutional argument be?
- DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
  > What would the constitutional argument be? Nothing jumps out at me, but IANAL so I'm not sure. I guess holding citizens for ransom seems so damn un-American[0] to me that I hope/wish there's a good Constitutional barrier to it. edit: [0] By "American", I mean the qualities of freedom and liberty that I was taught, in the 1970's public school system, distinguished the U.S. from most other countries.
- everdev 8y ago
  As a US citizen you're taxed even if you stop living in the US. In many states, you have to show proof of residency to vote, so there's taxation without representation. You have to renounce your US citizenship to stop being taxed on income you earn abroad.
  - wl 8y ago
    There's nothing in the US constitution that prohibits taxation without representation.
    - klipt 8y ago
      Obviously, otherwise all the non-citizens (e.g. green card holders) who pay taxes in the US would have to be allowed to vote too.

throwaway676890 8y ago

>Their American status can make them untouchable by many banks. Many foreign banks do not want American account holders. This is an understatement. Some years ago, I was a citizen of Pakistan and had a green card in the US. I never had any accounts in Pakistan. My father in Pakistan had passed away, and I traveled there to visit family. All of my share of the inheritance money was sitting in my brother's account in Pakistan. So we went together to a bank to open an account in my name and transfer my share of the inheritance over. Now in Pakistan people have an ID card similar to the Social Security Card. They provide a different one for overseas Pakistanis. So when they asked for my ID card, I gave them my overseas ID card. Things were going smoothly until the person got to the address field. "Oh, I see you live in the US?" "Yes." "Sorry, we cannot open a bank account for you." I talked a bit more, and explained to them that I'm a Pakistani citizen, and not a US one. Nope. The laws were clear. No bank accounts for US based persons without special approval from some senior officials. I asked would this apply even if I didn't have a green card and was merely a student in the US? Yup. The reason they gave me? US tax laws.

miscreanity 8y ago
The cost and risk banks take to ensure that US citizens comply with US law is absurdly draconian. It is massively safer for a bank to simply deny participation than to risk fines and expulsion from the global financial system that would effectively cripple it. Banks and other businesses globally are forced to become extensions of the US government without receiving funding to do so. This is economic warfare. The United States is a great place and the people are amazing (as people have been everywhere I've travelled), but the institutions have essentially enslaved the population and strong-armed the rest of the world. Thankfully, it ends soon with internal reform or collapse under its own paranoia and resource-intensive policing. I'm expecting this within a decade and am hopeful that it is the former.
- throwaway676890 8y ago
  Do you have any details about this? My impression was that the Pakistani government felt that requiring US based people to report details of foreign accounts was a way to gather intelligence about other countries, and they didn't want to give them a way to do it. I did not think it was that Pakistani banks themselves had any reporting requirements to the US.

adventured 8y ago

This article is dated and didn't contain full-year numbers. The tax bill does in fact appear to have considerably changed the rate of Americans renouncing their citizenship: renunciations plunged by 71% in the fourth quarter of 2017 vs the fourth quarter of 2016, 16% in 1Q18 (vs 1Q17), and 38% in 2Q18 (vs 2Q17). The tax bill became a near-certainty in the fourth quarter of 2017, and was formally passed at the end of the year. Here's the rest of the story: "For the first time in five years, the number of Americans renouncing their citizenship decreased in 2017, government records show. Renunciations for the year fell 5.1 percent, to 5,133 — after a four-year climb to a record 5,411 in 2016, according to the IRS." "But the real story lies in the fourth quarter, when the number of renunciations tumbled 71 percent from the same period in 2016." Further, for the first quarter of 2018, it fell considerably: "The total for the first quarter of 2018 was 1,099." That compares to the 2017 rate of 1,313. A decline of 16%. In the second quarter of 2018, 1,090 persons renounced their citizenship, a huge drop from 1,759 in Q2 of 2017. A decline of 38%. Full year 2018 expectations would be for roughly a 29% decline vs the record 2016 figures (around ~3,800 vs the 5,411 for 2016). https://nypost.com/2018/02/09/fewer-americans-gave-up-their-citizenship-in-2017/ https://nypost.com/2018/02/09/fewer-americans-gave-up-their-... https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2018/05/14/fewer-americans-renounce-citizenship-but-taxes-still-drive-them/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2018/05/14/fewer-ame...

NTDF9 8y ago

"Your tax deficits at work" Reference: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/your-tax-dollars-at-work.html https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/your-tax-dollars-at-work.h...

iron0013 8y ago

"Some observers may want to blame President Trump for the spike, but it is much more likely that longstanding tax issues are the real culprits." he claimed, completely sans evidence or even a coherent argument