Trump bump: U.S. citizenship renunciation inquiries surge in Canada, lawyers say

Of note:

…Alexander Marino, director of U.S. tax law at Moodys Tax Law in Calgary, said that most people renounce U.S. citizenship for tax reasons — the U.S. is one of the few countries that imposes tax based on citizenship, not residency.

This often involves expensive reporting and filing obligations that include estate and gift taxes, even after death.

Marino is also expecting a Trump bump in business.

“I can’t deny that most U.S. expats, in my experience, tend to be more left-leaning than right-leaning. For a lot of people, the election results are a bit of the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Marino said.

“We’re seeing a bump due to the election results.”

Marino said he has seen year-over-year demand increase since specializing in renunciation 12 years ago.

He said the spike in interest now is greater than in 2017 after Trump’s first presidential win, and he expected 2025 to see a record number of people try to give up U.S. citizenship.

Moodys typically offers five to seven renunciation information webinars each year for U.S. citizens living in Canada; this year, they may schedule up to 12, Marino said.

Anyone giving up U.S. citizenship shouldn’t expect the matter to be secret — the U.S. Federal Register publishes quarterly lists of everyone who has surrendered their citizenship. In May 2014, the list named singer Tina Turner, and in February 2017, future British prime minister Boris Johnson.

There were only a few hundred names on the lists in 2005, but numbers have risen sharply since 2014, when the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act went into full effect. It requires that foreign financial institutions report on the foreign assets held by U.S. account holders.

In 2016, about 4,100 names were listed, but the next year, in Trump’s first year in the White House, numbers jumped by more than 50 per cent to about 6,900 names….

Source: Trump bump: U.S. citizenship renunciation inquiries surge in Canada, lawyers say