Americans Are Renouncing Their Citizenship In Record Numbers

Americans Are Renouncing Their Citizenship In Record Numbers (ZeroHedge, Feb 9, 2014):

Three times more Americans gave up on America in 2013 than in 2012. As The WSJ reports, last year saw a record number of US taxpayer expatriations. While “exceptionalism” and living the American Dream remain cornerstones of maintaining the US citizenry’s view of the world, it seems everything from tax-code changes to spying drove 2,999 people to hand in their passports last year, “above all, fear seems to be driving this increase.”

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Via WSJ,

According to the Treasury Department, 630 individuals renounced their U.S. citizenship or ended their long-term U.S. residency by turning in their green cards during the fourth quarter.

The fourth-quarter figure brought to 2,999 the total number of expatriations for 2013. The previous record was 1,781 in 2011, said Andrew Mitchel, a tax lawyer in Centerbrook, Conn., who tracks the data.

attributed the surge to increased awareness of the obligation to file U.S. tax returns, the increasing burden of compliance and the fear of large penalties for failure to file U.S. returns.

“Above all, fear seems to be driving this increase in expatriations,”

The U.S. is unique among developed nations in requiring citizens and green-card holders to file tax returns, regardless of where they live, he noted. People who expatriate also can be subject to exit tax.

However, we suspect this spike in 2013 is only the beginning…

This week, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen told a congressional committee that since 2009 more than 43,000 U.S. taxpayers have entered a special program for taxpayers with undeclared offshore accounts and paid more than $6 billion in back taxes, interest and penalties.

Experts representing such taxpayers estimate that the IRS still is due several billion dollars more.

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act may also be encouraging some taxpayers to expatriate, experts said. Set to take effect this year, it requires foreign financial institutions to report account information to the U.S., both for U.S. citizens and green-card holders living in the U.S. and abroad.

4 thoughts on “Americans Are Renouncing Their Citizenship In Record Numbers”

  1. This does not surprise me. Were I not dying of a rare spinal disease, I would do the same….the US has become a dangerous place to live for citizens. The government has more power than Henry VIII……even habeas corpus is gone.
    However, there are deeper problems, and unless people have a clear idea where they can go and survive, it is a waste of time. Fukushima, rising seas, and incredible pollution from Fukushima, and many other sources……..not to mention the global banking system…….is going to cause our entire world to vanish very soon.
    Here, on the west coast, we are next to a dying sea, the Pacific. adjoining it……so is the Gulf of Mexico dying, thanks to BP oil and pollution from Japan.
    Without living oceans, we have lost a huge source of our oxygen…..and we cannot live without it. The food chain has been destroyed, and our air, soil and crops are poisoned from the endless supply gusting towards us from Fukushima.
    Every time I get an idea of the future, I have to first remind myself I will not be here because of my disease. Next, I have to remind myself, our world will be gone, and our species may well be extinct from this disaster than continues unabated for three years come 3/11/14.
    I see a very dark future, and it isn’t ten or twenty years from now……the Pacific will be completely dead in two years or less. The vulture animals that normally eat the carcasses of the dead will not touch those poisoned by radiation…….and the stench will be dreadful. The dead creatures are radioactive, and already washing ashore around the world.
    Three months ago, hundreds of sea turtles washed ashore in Costa Rica. Dogs ran down to eat them. Those that did died instantly. That tells me the radiation is much worse and far more intense than the lies being told by TEPCO.
    Leaving the US might be a move for survival, not from a dreadful government, but to run from what is already happening here……but it will be everywhere because there is no way to stop this manmade poison volcano spewing its horrible chemicals into the atmosphere on every level.
    Already, it is unsafe to eat fish. It is also unsafe to eat beef because they eat grass that is liberally covered with plutonium and other dreadful things. Plutonium has been in our milk since April of 2011.
    We are facing the destruction of the world civilization, and of our species. Running now is too late.
    I am very angry with the Japanese for allowing TEPCO to build six nuclear reactors on an earthquake prone spot on the ocean. The only motivator was greed, they knew they had no technology to stop it if there was a meltdown. Now, it is clear there is full meltdown in 3 or 4 of the six plants, and the storage of nuclear waste there is even more dangerous.
    Japan ought to be charged and punished for genocide. They don’t even care, that is the most despicable part of it……….I am so angry, I get very unfriendly thoughts about them.
    Running now……it is too late. People around the world slept too long and allowed these things to take place. Now, it is too late, and our corrupt leaders will die with us…..if that is any comfort.
    I hope there is a special hell for corporation people……they are inhuman.

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