Record Numbers Renounce Their U.S. Citizenship – Forbes

Virtually none of the reporting I have seen situates this increase in the context of the total number of American expatriates. Estimates vary between 2 and 7 million, meaning that the 4,300 expatriations are tiny in relation to the expatriate population, between 0.2 and 0.06 percent.

Notwithstanding this, Victoria Ferauge, whose blog The Franco-American Flophouse I highly recommend for her insightful posts on citizenship issues, notes that the small numbers do not mean that it is unimportant.

For American expatriates affected by FATCA, it is.

More broadly,given the wide attention placed on citizenship renunciation in American media, it appears to strike a chord with many Americans who wonder why any American would voluntarily renounce their citizenship.

The numbers are less important perhaps than the symbolism, and the implications of a more instrumental view of citizenship than American citizenship having an intrinsic value by itself:

Once again, the number of Americans renouncing U.S. citizenship has gone up, up 560% from its Bush administration high. In 2015, there were approximately 4,300 expatriations according to the published names of individuals who renounced. The name and shame list is published quarterly, with the most recent three-month total being 1,058. That brings the total to 4,279 for 2015.

These numbers seem tiny compared to the influx of immigrants. Yet expatriations have historically been much lower. Moreover, the published list is also incomplete, with many not counted. Surprisingly, no one seems to know exactly how big the real number is, even though the IRS and FBI both track Americans who renounce citizenship. There is no single explanation, though with global tax reporting and FATCA, the list of the individuals who renounce keeps increasing,

(Photo credit: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg)

2014 was also a record year with 3,415 published expatriates. The reasons that Americans renouncing citizenship is at an all-time high can be over family, tax and legal complications. Dual citizenship isn’t always possible, as this infographic from MoveHub shows. Some countries make citizens pay a fee to hand in their passport. Some countries have no fee, but America’s $2,350 fee is more than twenty times the average level in other high-income countries.

Source: Record Numbers Renounce Their U.S. Citizenship – Forbes