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Americans Are Renouncing Their Citizenship In Record Numbers
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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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.
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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,"
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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.
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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.
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If everyone paid their fair share we wouldn't need others to pick up the remaining tab.
See how that works?
You pay 30% of your wages to the IRS and want everyone to PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE!
Youu sound like an old, toothless, flag waving asshole
Excellent retort, Kurt. You're a good little sheep.
And my yeasty balls.
How about Mooches like you not take more than your "fair share"? Or, how about you commie bastards tell the illegal Mexicans to go home and fix their "fair share" of the problems in their own broken country, you racist hypocrite.
Yeah, god forbid they want to open a bank account in the foreign country where they live. And heavens forbid they don't want to be double taxed. Oh, and adding to the chorus above, fuck off and die.
I see this one has been well and truly indoctrinated.
Fair share of what?
Bush the lesser's war crimes?
Bathhouse Barry's enrich the politicians schemes?
I hope they can never unrenounce.
Why would anyone pay the exit tax to give up citizenship a unrealized capital gain on your worldwide assets just to want to get U.S. citizenship back?
Where they are going has a good chance of being worse at some point.
Really??? Exactly 2.999?
Makes it just under half of those who die from falls at home?
For those that leave?... Live well and prosper.
But be thoughtful enough to leave something of yourself behind when you go so this Country doesn't end up taking you and everyone else out in the process. I'm not just whistling about "taxes" either!
Psychopaths in D.C. still on the warpath and getting more irrational and irritable by the minute!!!!
That's a horrible trend: under 1% of green-card recepients changed their mind. And 0.0002% of citizens denounced their citizenship. Oh, no. This is almost as bad as 2% of the population decline in Ukraine.
Where are they going to go where they won't be fucked by the government, or the banks?
In any event, I presume this will accelerate when Obama {and/or Congress} rams through the TPP, which is an absolute legal and economic nightmare for the U.S. under the cloak of "containing China".
Free trade is great in theory, and as Yogi Berra said, in theory there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.... but that's no reason to give up even more civil rights and sovereignty to banks and international corporations.
You are insane if you think that the TPP is anything to do with free trade.
I don't.
I... I thought that was clear.
Maybe it wasn't clear, so no - it is merely a corporate end run around the Constitution disguised as a free trade agreement, which tend have been dleeterious to the U.S. anyway.
Perot, Nader, Paul - the best least worst presidents we never had.
I'm thinking of going to the Philippines. Was very nice there. Be a fool not to.
Take a sleeping bag and a fishing pole with you. 4 million left homeless after the November typhoon which pretty much destroyed everything.
Take some blue tarps and become a landlord.
I am in the Philippines now. Highly recommend it.
I got out of there a year ago. Just keep your head down.
How many held "Dual (or more) Citizenship"?
I would suspect almost all, very few people want to become Stateless, most people like having their personhood encumbered.
"In Record Numbers" ... a whopping 3,000 people.
Its a mass exodus!!! Everyone abandon ship... And dont let the door hit your sorry ass on the way out.
More clickbait brought to you by ZH.
Your tiring me out with your ignorance...
The fact that the bulk of the exodus is most likely coming from the top 1% IS PROBLEMATIC. Because the 1% pays 37.4% of the income taxes, and that burden will then be shifted to the next 9% which has less money and less options for specialized tax structures and yet pays 33.2% of the tax income tax burden, while the bottom 90% (or more realisticly the 11%-@47% pays the remaining 29.4%). There's only so much blood you can squeeze from a stone.
IRS data for Tax Year 2010 (most recent available)
Top 1% 1,350,000 of 135 million tax returns (AGI >369,000)
18% of AGI, 37.4% of Income Tax Revenue
Top 10% 13,503,000 of 135 million tax returns (AGI >116,000)
45.2% AGI, 70.6% of Income Tax Revenue
http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-...
How many of these held "dual or more citizenships"?
Jimmy & The Muppets Say Goodbye To "Late Night" (w/ "The Weight" from "The Last Waltz")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otRr23Brir8 (4:08)
I'm officially unconnected to regular or cable TV now, so I didn't see it. That was pretty good. Fallon had Levon Helm's shrugging shoulders down right. I'm a big fan of The Band. I've known Garth Hudson for 30 years, and met everyone in The Band except Robby.
I never watched a single Leno show because I didn't think he was very funny. But I like Jimmy Fallon.
Back to mass exit from the US.
Massachusetts seems to have a disproportionate share of tv comics. Fallon is from Worcester, Leno from Andover, and Conan from Brookline. Matter of fact Seth Myers is from southern NH, essentially metro Boston. Pete Holmes is from Leominster, MA {he'll be following Conan}.
Two of the best standups going, Louis CK and Bill Burr are from metro Boston, as was Patrice O'Neal and a shitload more.
The other great comedy town, of course, is NYC.
LA/Hollywood produces nothing but things for me to poop on, comedically.
I've been looking into the expat thing, read a lot of articles, discussed with tuned-in friends, considered where we might go, but every option has a big downside. I may not like what's going on here, but I feel we'd do worse other places. #1 problem, don't know anyone elsewhere, no one knows us or cares to. Being alone somewhere else with no help in time of trouble isn't a good idea.
I feel we'd do worse other places"...dizzy that will change as dear leader and/or his female counterpart of Bengazi fame will make more places overseas more palatable to you.
If you were a billionaire this wouldn't trouble you. Your kind would be spread like a scum across the earth, you could buy "frineds", and anyway, you could live where you wanted whatever your citizenship.
1300 is much ado about nothing.
What the US government also knows is that there are hundreds of thousands of Americans overseas who work and pay their taxes overseas and don't lodge any US tax returns.
Right, most of the 6+ million americans living overseas are non-compliant with taxes and bank account reporting requirements, that's what FATCA was crated for as a way to look for their assets to seize.
... much ado about nothing?
Depends on how many are centi-millionaires or billionaires.
And it's not just about how much money. It's a symptom of the people running our country having no loyalty to it or to us.
Yet they'll be the first to spout off about patriotism, loyalty - in public they wrap themselves in the flag and weep about the tyranny of taxation, while in private they sneer at us and justify their cheating.
I'm not making that up. I could name names.
Regular folk might have various reasons for wanting to leave America. But renouncing our citizenship to dodge taxes? I don't think so. We might go where we can find work, raise our children better or get health care for them, where we have relatives or old friends, where we feel safe, maybe where we have a business opportunity.
Or maybe where we think we have a better chance of getting our families through the coming holocaust.
But most of us will stay here even against logic and reason, even if we can afford to go, just because this is our home and this is where we mean to take our stand.
The billionaire and centi-millioaire ex-pats, that's another matter. What is money to them when they have more than they could spend in ten lifetimes? If their lives are so wrapped up in the great Monopoly game that they'd become citizens of Bermuda just to avoid paying their fair share, they can kiss my petunia.
Best of luck to the ex-Americans who have separated themselves from the herd.
ive gone stars and bars, untill we get the other one back
Your tiring me out with your ignorance...
Who me?,how so?.Pls elaborate on where I am incorrect.
United Stateans are not welcome in Romania.
Go fuck yourselves yankees!!
How come your country promotes tourism? Are you telling me if I come on the "Touch of Transylvania" or the "Eastern European Motorcycle Expedition" tour I might not make it out alive? Maybe your government should make a visit to your house and have a talk with you. Maybe your Orthodox Christian mentor should have a few sessions with you? Peace brother.
FEAR of taxes and .gov. Fixed it!
Selfish cowards. Fixed it!
By your definition ALL USA residents are selfish cowards because they, or an ancestor, ALL left one place for the USA. Nation of Immigrants, buddy.
You weren't in the line when Logic was given out at birth, were you?...
Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Don't cry when you find the door locked when they come for you.
I believe they can stay up to 6 months per year....
Don't forget that those asses you would prefer to hit with a door as they leave pay the freight around these parts.
How much are you willing to put up to cover the balance?
What is most ironic is that the above mega-intolerance is more typical from Leftist Fascists than any other group. It is they who express the desire to confiscate all past, present and future income and assets from former slaves citizens.
Anyone else notice that the figures for renunciation are much, much higher during Obama The Great One's two terms than during Bush The Evil One's two terms?
I see some of you writing about being an amercian, fighting for our freedom, etc. What you fail to recognize is your fight is right here with OUR OWN corrupt politicians, the banksters who buy them and the corprations whom we war monger for. Wars are not about freedom, they are sold that way but if you do your homework you will discover war is good for corporate profits. They sell your service/life under the heading of patriotism, but the reason you put your life on the line is for corporate world domination. There is no more nationalism... we are ONE big world economy - times have changed get up to speed bitcheZ~
40 just did this yesterday.
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBREA131GZ20140204?irpc=932
Funny how this keeps coming to the fore. It is like there is some unseen hand working to scare Americans out of the coming war zone in the United States of America. These unseen scare mongers are scared that when they actually pull off any sort of false flag, or another contrived event to take the power, and they start firing the first shots, the mighty awakened giant will act to simply squash them.
The people of America all know who is responsible for the crash, and what the UN/IMF plan to destroy America is. They know who is responsible for bringing in all the foreign mercenary troops to take over America as planned. Everybody knows and everybody is really angry. When babylon fires the first shots, it will begin the overdue housecleaning and those guillotines meant for citizens, will instead be used to purge the house of the traitors and anti-America evil that has about strangled her to death.
http://www.amazon.com/Crisis-Zionism-Peter-Beinart/dp/0805094121
Here are a few related stories with a lot of folks weighing in on the comments about this subject of expatriating to another country.
http://thecommonsenseshow.com/2014/02/02/is-it-time-to-leave-america-whi...
http://thecommonsenseshow.com/2014/02/03/why-i-will-not-expatriate/
Good ol Dave will be on the radio for three hours offering lots of good insights at 9:00pm central TONIGHT. You can listen in here:
http://republicbroadcasting.org/listen-live/
And for those folks considering going to South Amrica, forget it. The radiation down there is so hot, they do not even want to talk about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSfNxmvnBZk
THAT is some serious radiation that she calls, natural?
Whoa!
It's sick the way people get angry at someone deciding to live somewhere wlse. The socialist are pissed because they feel that's THEIR Money, the parasites need hosts and are worried their prey is escaping.
Some people not only pay attention, they act on instinct.
They tend to live long and interesting lives.
They don't march off cliffs.
They generally avoid regrets.
It would be interesting to know the proportion of those exiting who have never really lived in the US. Like those who were born in the US as kids of Expats here and then left and grew up elsewhere.
I have researched it somewhat and the credits are not really neutral. Add to that they might have family money, why should they have to report that to the "man"
Plus they will all pay more than Mitt Romney....
We waited and waited. All of us. Didn’t the shrink know that waiting was one of the things that drove people crazy? People waited all their lives. They waited to live, they waited to die. They waited in line to buy toilet paper. They waited in line for money. And if they didn’t have any money they waited in longer lines. You waited to go to sleep and then you waited to awaken. You waited to get married and you waited to get divorced. You waited for it to rain, you waited for it to stop. You waited to eat and then you waited to eat again. You waited in a shrink’s office with a bunch of psychos and you wondered if you were one.
-Charles Bukowski
I met Charles Bukowski once. It was on his last birthday at a bookstore in San Pedro, California. He was signing books and in good spirits. A very good day for everyone.
He forgot the best one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0kypyGSKsE
330,000,000 / 2,999 = not much.
Just check their orifices for gold nuggets on their way out.
Moving on.......
Crash course on this Nation of perpetual emergency ordinace and code. We've been a foreign Nation almost as long as we were a Republic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWtbSOgta_8&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I told the smartest man I know that I was on ZH and he said he perused ZH but found you peeps too dark and cynical. He was a high roller in the game of high finance. He hates the rigged game as much as anyone but still loves his country and has some hope. He knows the ponzi and what is happening. Interesting part of this story is that he used to be a left of center voter. Since Obama was elected he said it opened his eyes and now he is a fearless conservative. Anyone one who doesn't have tons of money and family here can casually say I'm done here. Yup, the workin peon hangs on to his guns and bibles. Time will tell who's right. I am praying it will turn around, one way or another. I have grandkids that I wish a good future for.
It is my understanding you need a second passport before you can renounce your US citizenship. The 3000 people mentioned in this article either had another citizenship or the means to buy one. My research years ago on obtaining (buying) a second passport was extremely expensive. The US government has made it extremely difficult to give up a US citizenship. If it were easier to leave behind a US ciitzenship the number would be many times higher.
Imagine if laws like this were in place on Europeans centuries ago. No one could have afforded to leave their country to come to America. You use to be able to just leave but not now. It shows me how criminal the US government has become and how accepted it is by people.
I plan on living in a foreign country when I retire which is not far away. I will expatriate if I can, but I may decide it is better to be "breaking bad" than to follow the law. I am sure I am not the only one.
Leave mud da fuckers. Don't even bring your fat ass back.
I will go and come as I please and you will accept it.
American is also "unique among developed nations" in that we have been living an assortment of bold faced lies for over 100 years.
From things like the grossly unconstitutional Civil War, the FED, and the War on Everything to the broad daylight coup (assasination) of JFK to the broad daylight demolotion of the WTC, cultural fictions like civil rights, gay marriage and multiculturalism, the list goes on and on.
You united stateans should kill yourselves just for the 500,000 Iraqi children that you killed with your embargo on Iraq.
And then burn in hell for the 1 million Iraqis you killed when invading that country just to please Israel.
The day of reckoning is coming for you united stateans!
We should have never entered Iraq.
That being said:
According to The New York Times, "he [Saddam] murdered as many as a million of his people, many with poison gas. He tortured, maimed and imprisoned countless more. His unprovoked invasion of Iran is estimated to have left another million people dead. His seizure of Kuwait threw the Middle East into crisis. More insidious, arguably, was the psychological damage he inflicted on his own land. Hussein created a nation of informants — friends on friends, circles within circles — making an entire population complicit in his rule".[9] Other estimates as to the number of Iraqis killed by Saddam's regime vary from roughly a quarter to half a million,[10][11] including 50,000 to 182,000 Kurds and 25,000 to 280,000 killed during the repression of the 1991 rebellion.[12][13] Estimates for the number of dead in the Iran-Iraq war range upwards from 300,000.[14]
Other atrocities
During the 1991 rebellion, several "dungeons" were liberated, revealing "disoriented and confused" inmates that believed Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr was still the president.[15] Of nearly 2 million refugees created by the 1991 crackdown on dissent, it is estimated that 1,000 died every day for a period of months due to unsanitary and inhumane conditions.[16] The destruction of Shi'ite religious shrines by Hussein's regime has been called "comparable to the levelling of cities in the Second World War, and the damage to the shrines [of Hussein and Abbas] was more serious than that which had been done to many European cathedrals."[17] Methods of torture used by Hussein's regime included assault with brass knuckles and wooden bludgeons; electric shocks to the genitalia; scorched metal rods being forced into body orifices; the crushing of toes and removal of toenails; burning off limbs; lowering prisoners into vats of acid; poisoning with thallium; raping women in front of their family members; burning with cigarette butts; the crushing of bones; the amputation of ears, limbs, and tongues; and the gouging of eyes.[18] After the 1983-88 genocide, some 1 million Kurds were allowed to resettle in "model villages". According to a U.S. Senate staff report, these villages "were poorly constructed, had minimal sanitation and water, and provided few employment opportunities for the residents. Some, if not most, were surrounded by barbed wire, and Kurds could enter or leave only with difficulty."
Any stats on what the US government has done?
Most people need an alternate citizenship to land to. And that is getting harder to get.
For US exiting people it will probably get easier if you have some skill or money to start businesses, but countries are getting harder toward all the African and trouble causing immigrants.
There is one guy that renounced US citizenship and became a citizenship of the world, not individual nations...
good job Barry - you fucking nazi prick!!!
Wherever Americans go,you can now protect yourself against NSA spying on you.Here's how:
https://unseen.is/#p3
Makng it a lot more difficult for government political gangsters.
Fuck the NSA and fuck Snowden too.
Dumb story. 3k out of 350 million.
Before dicksuck and his free shit army took over it was ZERO.
I believe the trend is more important than the pure numbers.
How many of them went to Israel?
All.
Several revolutions in Russia haven't worked towards Russia's favor.
Transitions must be peaceful and on intellectual level, rather than we're pissed off kill kill kill. That never leads to anything good in the first place and tends to bring in brutal dictatorial system.
I certainly do hope a violent mass killing occurs in Amerikastan.
China could support the leftists.
Russia the conservatives.
Just to get the united stateans to kill each other.
Just so that united stateans get a taste of their own medicine.
United Stateans have for many decades interfered and aided violent revolutions in many countries, the last being Syria.
So yeah, I want chaos and poverty and death in Amerikastan. It would only be fair to taste what united stateans have preached to others.
Satoshi911's mean little brother?
You don't have a clue. "United Stateans" are lied to more often than the criminals that ran your commie government lied to you. And if you would bother to look into it enough, you'll discover that the same criminal tribe that ran your commie government is also running the U.S. government as well. Nothing changes under an ancient sun.
Maybe you are correct.
But the trouble is, you see, many in Eastern Europe knew and know not to trust their MSM and politicians.
The same cannot be said about United Stateans who believed all the shit about America being the "land of the free" and "exceptional".
When the Boston drama-acting happened, younsters got in the streets shouting "USA USA USSA USSA". So fuck'em.
Most united stateans are dumb ignorant who have been like this for all their lives.
I can't have mercy nor understanding for them.
Here is some mercy.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1941_Odessa_massacre
According to an international commission report released by the Romanian government in 2004, between 280,000 to 380,000 Jews in the territories of Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transnistria were systematically murdered by Antonescu's regime. Of the 25,000 Romani deported, who were deported to concentration camps in Transnistria, 11,000 died.
You guys are Saints.
Where did all the Simon Black haters go? But seriously, the main thing is to go where they are just exiting from the big government paradigm because it bankrupted them. If big brother is broke he can't really do too much to you. Listen to Jeff Berwick talk about the police in Mexico. Far better than here. Burma/Myranmar may be a big up and comer for the young and motivated. It will boom for the next two decades as a path to the sea for eastern China. America is finished for quite sometime. Don't forget that crypto-currencies defeat capital controls. Carry your PMs overseas as a password in your head. I think James Turk is setting it up as well as others. Your first 96k of income is tax free anyway. There are many places you can live like a king on 96k, servants and all. Maybe you can even stop back for a visit to get groped by the TSA :-)
Silver For The People
The Bitcoin Channel
I think the first 96k you mentioned is on income earned from employment at a job and not from other sources such as dividends, interest, capital gains etc. Any experts here to comment on this?
14th Amendment
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.
Everyone misses this second requirement to be a US citizen. The ONLY thing that ever makes you 'subject to' is your affirmation saying so. The sovereign jurisdictions of the several states are, you guessed it, sovereign.
14th Amendment is where your certificate of live birth enters with the mothers signature of abandonment on the bottom.
Your releasing property to a foreign nation as to participate in their Commerce and by concent/seal your own bill of laiding into a foreign port, at the dock - tors office in the Hospital. All Maritime Law.
Get it? Her birth canal broke water and delivered a goods or product in at the Dock - tor legally witnessed your port of exit, as you entered into a new jurisdiction.
Your Birth Certificate is now a bond, a financial instrument to be traded publicly until your Corp. expires.
All crimes are UCC Commercial, we operate under public policy, policy is NOT LAW so wipe your ass with your Constitution [Bill of Rights] and your Declaration of Independence was just that, 1871 toilet paper.
A non codified announcement or voca visa statement made by a, or the public, doesn't have to be recognised as a decree of soverignty, quite the opposite, that person making that decree can be arrested because your talking like a foreign invader becomming an enemy of a foreign nation because he is too stupid to research he is a registered slave by his own mother and volentary, your sprawl on their Plantation.
If you think your so free and own all the crap you have registered, try to fight them when they come to seize their property and see what happens.
I can declair in the public square all day that I am a free man and I have God given rights, but that goes counter to what my mother signed over to the state when I was born.
US Citizens must get educated quickly, if not, it may cost you your life and or property. Were squaters on Foreign land. Get over your Star Spangle banner bullshit and recognise your born into a usury system owned by multinational Corporations. its not your fault
becase your parenents were equally ignorant of the History of the united states of America.
If we were truely that free on soverign land, we wouldn't need an SS. Secretary of State. You need them domestically to enter the jurisdiction of our US Court system to use Notary signed documents so their recognised by a foreign jurisdiction (the court) on your behalf.
Wake up and become aware. The American dream was just that.
silly Murrikinz complain about illegal immigrants.
SMART Americans ARE immigrants leaving - maybe legal, maybe not. Just run before the gates shut, that's all that matters.