“More Americans are renouncing their citizenship,” a headline in a recent Fortune magazine article read.
Unfortunately, the story lacked recent data to back up its catchy title, instead relying on a 2020 survey of government data conducted by Bambridge Accountants New York. According to this accounting firm, 5,816 Americans gave up their citizenship in the first six months of 2020—a more than tenfold increase from the last six months of 2019.
“The huge increase in U.S. expats renouncing their citizenship, from our experience, is because the pandemic allowed individuals time to reassess their ties to the U.S. and decide that the current political climate and annual U.S. tax reporting were too burdensome,” the firm stated in a 2020 press release.
Since then, the U.S. State Department has not updated data on Americans renouncing their citizenship, Fortune noted.
Many U.S. citizens living abroad full-time resent the legal requirement to file U.S. tax returns each year, potentially pay U.S. taxes, and report all foreign bank accounts, investments, and pensions held outside the United States. This obligation originated from the 2010 Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), a U.S. federal law aimed at combating tax evasion by U.S. citizens and green card holders with foreign assets.
Please login or subscribe to view the complete article.