Friday, March 2, 2012

US citizenship renunciations hit new record

US Constitution
US Constitution
Photo by Jonathan Thorne CC
The gentleman who maintains the International Tax Blog has posted the latest  US citizenship renunciation figures. Last year say 1,781 renunciations and was 16% higher than 2010. Those renunciations are at the highest level since he started tracking the figures in 2004. He speculates, and I think he's probably correct, that 2011 was the highest number of renunciations in US history. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that 2012 will be higher still.

What's going on here? Why are the number of renunciations increasing? One caveat: as the Renunciation Guide makes very clear, and as I can attest after having viewed some of the data firsthand, the published data on renunciations is crap. Names are duplicated, some names are apparently missing, as we see updates posted later, and there's no way to cross-reference these names to anything reliable because there's just not enough information. Further, while my many years of work with raw data tells me that when data is bad it's usually consistently bad, that's for computer-managed data. But for this data, as far as I can tell, it's largely a manual process of handing this data from the various consulates, over to some central office of the State Department and then over to the IRS. It's also entirely possible that there have been political decisions involved in how this data is moved around and presented.

So while it's not as bad as making life-altering decisions based on an email starting with words "I know this email will come as a surprise", you'd be a fool to make definitive conclusions based on this renunciation data.

But many people will tell you I'm a fool.

The names are published in line with a 1996 law designed to "name and shame" expatriates. Naming is rather silly as many of the names are generic (Jennifer Black, I'm talkin' 'bout you!) and, as already noted, some names are omitted and others are likely misspelled.

But what about the "shame" bit? You could say that there are three types of people who renounce.
  1. Those who want others to know they've renounced.
  2. Those who don't care if others find out they renounce.
  3. Those who do care if others find out if they renounce.
Obviously, for groups 1 and 2, the shame bit isn't going to matter. But for the third group, what does it mean?

For people considering renouncing, many of them say the same thing: they didn't want to renounce. They did not want to give up this part of their culture and history. They're still Americans even if they're living in another country. They have to be pushed pretty hard to renounce. They've gone through so much pain to get to that point that even if they don't want others to know they've renounced, I don't think it's going to be their biggest worry (and, of course, many probably don't know their name will be published).

So the "name and shame" seems pretty silly, but what's driving those renunciations?

FATCA.

I read expat blogs and forums quite a bit (no surprise there) and there's a firestorm of talk from people thinking about renouncing. Others are just going into hiding. The IRS witch hunt against people overseas who were unaware of their unusual tax situation, the variety of heretofore unadvertised laws impacting expats, combined with outrageous penalties for failure to file tax returns when you don't owe any tax (not to mention insane filing costs for said returns) is causing many expats to realize that the US government doesn't give a damn about them. We're having our rights stripped, we're having our benefits cut, and we get offered a ridiculout OVDI program where we can face huge penalties for not paying back taxes but at least we don't face jail time? Yes, people are pissed.

Some people impacted didn't realize they were American (yes, that happens). Many aren't "expats" and were born outside the US and never lived or worked there, but have an American parent. Others are too poor to afford the tax preparation fees (we expats pay a hell of a lot more than you do and we don't have plenty of US tax specialists here). Retirees abroad living off their savings are facing bankruptcy because they didn't know about the these laws.

When you move abroad, you often don't realize you still were liable for US taxes, but no one tells you. The consulates don't inform you. Many Americans are now only finding out when they start doing research to understand why their bank closed their account because they're American. New passports have tiny print in the back saying you still have to pay taxes to the US if you move abroad but many people still don't have those passports or they don't read the fine print.

We're finding out now, the hard way, that these poorly advertised laws are now being enforced mercilessly. I suspect many expats will simply "disappear" and hope they're never found while even more are going to renounce. It's a sad thing that this is happening, but the IRS has made absolutely no serious effort to educate people prior to threatening many of them with bankruptcy or jail time.

Next year is going to be interesting.

26 comments:

  1. It seems only the logical culmination of a facts-free, purely partisanship-focused political climate that “if you don’t like it here you can leave” would become equated to “if you don’t like it here we won’t have you”.

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  2. My favourite part about the tax warning in my 2003 passport (aside from the fact that it doesn't mention FBAR whatsoever) is that the URL where you're supposed to go for further information (http://www.irs.ustreas.gov/prod/tax_edu/faq/faqg.html) is now broken and has been for years. Apparently no one in the IRS' entire IT department has heard of a 301 redirect.

    And not to sound like a tin-foil-hatter, but I've personally come to the conclusion that renunciation statistics are deliberately being under-reported. I didn't believe this theory at first because the one renunciant I know personally (a classmate) actually did show up in the list, but every time I dig into the numbers I find something suspicious. E.g. there's about 8,000 Americans per year naturalising in EU countries, according to Eurostat --- but the number who naturalise in countries which disallow dual citizenship is greater than the number of names in the "name and shame" list. And there's a bunch of renunciants who are reported by the media years who were never in the list either, e.g. Adam Bilzerian, or a bunch of Chinese & South Korean celebrities too --- maybe some of them are lying about renouncing, but I doubt all of them are.

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    1. Eric, can you provide a link for that Eurostat info? The closets I can find is this chart and if you select for United States citizenship, it suggests that 2,635 Americans acquired EU citizenship in 2009 (the last year it lists data for), though that number if probably close to 5,000 if you include the omitted UK numbers.

      I'd love to see more up-to-date numbers and then I could do an analysis of the data.

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    2. Yeah, that's the link I was thinking of. Misremembered the figure, I guess. It looks like the overall peak was 6,788 in 2007; after that there's a big drop in Ireland (I'm guessing they tightened up the procedure for applying for citizenship-by-ancestry). For more updated numbers you'll probably have to go through every country's individual immigration department. Aside from Ireland the ones I've looked at seem to be holding steady or rising. E.g. the UK reported 3,116 in 2009 and 2,926 in 2010 (here). Germany reported 578 for 2009 and 771 for 2010 (here).

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  3. Really good post.

    This situation has been fascinating to watch on several levels:

    For the first time in the 20 years I've been abroad, the American proto-diaspora is waking up and we are united in our loathing for FATCA and all things related to citizenship-based taxation. Will be interesting to see what the implications are. the MOVE act, for example, has made it very easy for us to vote in 2012. Just for fun I took an informal poll of people I know in the homeland and they were AGHAST that I was still able to vote. Looks like Congress slipped that one by the folks in the homeland just as they slipped FATCA through without talking to us. :-)

    Concerning renunciation I'd add another factor that I think is going to send those numbers skyrocketing in 2012: social media and Internet forums. Again, I am seeing something I thought would NEVER happen: people openly and honestly discussing on public forums their decision to renounce US. citizenship. They are giving each other moral support and exchanging information. People are telling their stories, "I renounced in 1975" or "I took the oath to the Queen and it was the happiest day of my life." This is powerful because people are learning that the sky won't fall in if they give up their US passports - they can still visit family in the US or go there on vacation. They can still celebrate the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving. Hell, they can still continue to call themselves Americans if they want to.

    We are way past "shame," folks. This issue is finally out in the open. In some places, having your name on that list is even a badge of honor. One that they can take to the local bank perhaps so they won't close your checking account. :-)

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    1. I am an American living in Canada and have been since the early 2000's. I have filed my Canadian and U.S. returns and forms dutifully each year. My tax preparation fees have gone steadily upward. I paid $400 in 2004 but my bill this year was $1400 CDN. To make matters worse, I was audited by the Canadian Revenue Agency. I was audited because I had to pay a good portion of taxes to the Internal Revenue Services this year (penalties on U.S. retirement liquidation). I am seriously considering renouncing this year.

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  4. Maybe I'm undereducated on this topic, but since expats have always had to file taxes (though, in many countries, the thresholds are so high that you usually don't wind up with any liability), and the FACTA thresholds for those living abroad are pretty high (600,000 at any time/400,000 on dec 31st for their bank accounts/assets) so, this isn't targeting the usual working stiffs and I'm not really understanding the outrage. You support the Occupy movement but don't want folks with 600k+ of investment money hanging around to report their income? If it's privacy your upset about, well, I'll tell you the Swiss want all of our bank account info from outside of Switzerland for our tax returns in Switzerland...and we're just expats with no ties to the country at all. Sure, I don't like it but, it is what it is.

    I think you should have a much more rational reason to renounce your homeland than being outraged at the IRS as if the US doesn't tax you, someone else will.

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    1. HFB: I think the difference is simply that if I'm swiss and I am living abroad I do not have to do anything with the swiss government except to inform the local consulate nearest to my current residence for consular services.

      Where as as a US resident* you have to file and pay taxes** in the US for foreign income even if you do not step into the US during the entire calendar year

      * I believe this holds true for both citizens and permanent residents
      ** subject to a lot of caveats on income level/income source/tax treaty status with the US

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    2. @Mark American expats generally cannot take advantage of tax treaties to reduce their U.S. tax; the US generally demands that the treaties include a "savings clause": "Notwithstanding any other provision of this treaty, the United States may tax its citizens as if this treaty had not come into effect", or something along those lines, in every treaty the U.S. signs. And yes, worldwide taxation of non-residents applies to green-card holders too.

      @hfb $600k is merely the asset threshold for self-reporting on Form 8938, not the threshold of people who will be affected by FATCA in some other way. People with any amount of money in their accounts, great or small, may have those accounts closed by institutions which are unwilling to deal with the complexity or risk of having U.S. customers. And institutions themselves must report any U.S. citizen-owned accounts with greater than $50k, regardless of where the customer lives.

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    3. @Mark Yes, but this has always been so...or at least as long as I've been living outside the US.

      @Eric I've never had the US tax me twice when I stayed below the exclusion threshold. Granted, I don't have piles of cash in offshore accounts, but I've never felt as though I was being fleeced. And, yes, the problem of banks closing or refusing to open new accounts for Americans is a real problem and that's something to take up as a real negative byproduct of FACTA, but the number of folks renouncing or even divorcing seems a bit extreme to me.

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    4. @hfb - Really depends on the situation but a lot of folks get into trouble when they are long-term residents of a non-US country. In the beginning things were pretty simple for me too. I just filed and took the exclusion and it wasn't a big deal. But over the years things got complicated because I basically built an entire life abroad - family, investments, career. When I left the US 20 years ago I had NO money. Not a dime. Even sold my car to pay for the plane ticket. Everything I own is here in France and every penny I've made, I made here in France. Nothing came from the US.
      So here I am today 20 years later and I now pay US AND French taxes every time I sell an investment (no exclusion for that sort of thing). I'm having to report all my accounts right down to a 200 Euro account I opened for my daughter for pocket money. I'm having to pay a professional to do my taxes because I can't figure out how to do it myself at this point (gets really complicated when you start to having things like property). All this even though none of the money came from the US originally and I haven't lived there in years.

      All this even though I'm not at all rich - I work as an IT Manager and have had some professional success but I'm still plankton when it comes to income. :-)

      Honestly I wouldn't mind any of the above so much if I were actually getting something for my tax money. As it stands I get no services from the US government, I don't qualify for Social Security or any other benefits program and the only pension I will ever receive will come from the French government. In addition if I ever got into trouble in my host country (France) the US gov can do absolutely NOTHING for me. A US passport is no protection here.

      Finally the likelihood that I will ever return to the US is nearly nonexistent. I just don't have anything to go back to. My kids are American citizens in their own right so no impact there. Under those circumstances does it really make any sense to keep my US passport?

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    5. hfb: I've stayed out of this because plenty of other people replied, but there are a couple of points I want to fill in. You wrote "You support the Occupy movement but don't want folks with 600k+ of investment money hanging around to report their income?"

      1. Just to be very clear: yes, I support the Occupy Movement but that does not mean I have a grudge against the wealthy. I don't understand that comment.

      2. What really pisses me off about FATCA is the IRS demanding that every foreign financial institution on the planet report to it. Typuical American arrogance, expect the rest of the world to just bow down to them.

      3. I'm also pissed off that many people who were born outside the US and never lived or worked their are being punished for the crime of having an American parent. I know several people impacted by this. How is that fair?

      4. Why didn't the US make any significant effort to educate people about this? Americans who have lived abroad for decades are now suddenly getting chased by the IRS, even though they've never previously been informed of obscure laws passed in a country thousands of miles away. Why start punishing people and threatening them with bankruptcy or jail when they were often truly innocent of any bad intent?

      This entire situation is entirely messed up.

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    6. Some people give up their American citizenship as a protest against the international policies of the United States and because it has become a Nazi police state in the last ten years. Throw in a rotten economy with no light at the end of this dark tunnel and I would say you have a great case for turning tail on the red, white and blue.

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  5. If they renounce their citizenship, make them pay when they try to get back in after the rest of us put down the swine.

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    1. And when exactly do you plan to 'put down the swine?' I see so many people talking about taking back the country and blah blah blah. But, these same people aren't even ready to do a simple protest. Nothing but hot air. The reason people are leaving is because no one here is willing to do anything about the corruption and destruction of America.

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    2. They are doing something about it. They are turning their backs on it. Sometimes it is better to vote with your feet than your hands.

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  6. Thank you for this article and these comments. I avoid MSM and listen/read mostly alternative news sources. Max Keiser and Alex Jones have a lot of good info, but they also take data they have encountered and leap to conclusions and/or use the data to prove their point. I recently heard both Max and Alex say that Americans are renouncing their citizenship in record numbers, which would mean to them that things like the NDAA, the TSA, our wars, etc., have scared or angered many Americans into a decision like this. This reminds me to keep an open mind about just how many "facts" can be relied upon. For the past 2 years I have found James Corbett to be one of the most meticulous and conservative reporters in the alternative media. Hopefully we will be seeing more of this type of careful behavior from alternative sources.

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    1. Actually, I've found out that the problem is even worse than reported and it's pretty easy to verify if you know which government sources to pull data from. I am just doing some more digging before I write anything up.

      There are far more Americans renouncing than people think.

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  7. If I had the means/money I would leave this country TONITE. What these socialist in d.c. is doing to this country is TREASON. For someone to not live in this country and FORCED to pay taxes in it is an extension of the corruption.

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  8. Used to be that foreigners wanted to find an American spouse so they could go to the US. Maybe the day has come when Americans are going to be looking for foreigners to marry so they can get out. Worked for me.

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    1. Worked for me too. And best thing of all is that I now do not have an American wife!!!

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  9. I want to find a foreigner to get married and have a better future overseas, I want to leave

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  10. I renounced US citizenship (declared my independence) two years ago and am proud to have done it. I even framed my CLN and put it on the wall next to my Gadsden flag.

    I feel like I am following in the footsteps of America's founders who are surely rolling in their graves about Uncle Sam's policies towards expats.

    I can only imagine what Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and the others would be saying and doing if they were living among us today.

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  11. People who renounced US Citizenship will be paying taxes in our country still. A lot of people that don't plan on coming back over do not renounced, so they don't have to pay taxes here.

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  12. Never set foot on US soil and the IRS is powerless if you get citizenship or residency elsewhere. Look at the case of Bobby Fischer. His particular case was highly publicized but once Iceland gave him residency the USA and IRS realized that they were beaten.
    Once a person has residency a passport becomes unnecessary unless a person wants to travel. Traveling puts a person back on the radar screen so staying in your chosen home country is best until you have citizenship and a second passport.
    I turned my back on the USA ten years ago and I don't even want my dead body to be sent there.
    The one thing all empires have in common, and the USA has long been an empire, is that they fall. I am hopeful the USA will fall soon.

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  13. Sadly in the USA today, renouncing your citizenship is the only vote that counts for a damn - it's called voting with your feet. I expect the numbers of people who do so to increase dramatically over the coming years. I think the USA will put plans in place to try and prevent this. Start building your escape tunnels now! :)

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