Record Number Give Up U.S. Citizenship
7th May 2015
A record 1,335 people renounced their U.S. citizenship or long-term residency during the first quarter of 2015, according to a list released by the Treasury Department on Thursday.
The total is the highest quarterly number of expatriates since a law requiring the publication of their names was enacted in the 1990s, according to Andrew Mitchel, a lawyer in Centerbrook, Conn., who tallies the lists of names. The previous quarterly record was 1,130 for the second quarter of 2013, he says.
The new figure puts 2015 on pace to exceed the total of 3,415 renunciations in 2014, which was itself a record. That was up 14% from 2,999 individuals in 2013, the previous record.
Gee, I wonder why?
But the campaign has made the financial lives of more than seven million Americans living abroad more difficult, because the U.S. taxes nonresident citizens on income earned anywhere in the world, and U.S. tax liabilities can apply to the children born to Americans abroad. In many cases, there are only partial offsets available for double taxation.
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A new survey conducted by a Hong Kong-based company that specializes in tax preparation for American expats found that 27% of the 1,840 Americans who responded were “seriously considering” renouncing their U.S. citizenship. That’s a jump from the 18% who said the same thing in the company’s 2014 survey.