The new Quarterly Publication of Individuals, Who Have Chosen to Expatriate, As Required By Section 6039G was released today, two days later than required by law. It contains the names of 238 former U.S. citizens and long-term non-citizen residents, far lower than 403 for the same quarter last year, but back up from 189 in the second quarter of 2012.
The completeness of this list is in doubt, given that South Korea alone reported 2,158 people returning to South Korea and giving up U.S. passports or green cards in 2011, against only 1,781 people of all nationalities reported by the Federal Register in the same period. Peter Dunn’s name has finally been published, more than half a year after he received his CLN and almost two years after he first committed a relinquishing act (acquiring Canadian citizenship with the intent of losing U.S. citizenship) in February 2011. Other names of people known to have given up U.S. citizenship during that time are not present, such as:
- Belizean anti-crime activist Yolanda Schakron (Wikipedia);
- Jamaica’s ex-Customs Commissioner Danville Walker (Wikipedia);
- Peruvian presidential candidate Pedro Kuczynski (Wikipedia; article about renunciation);
- Republic of Korea Air Force Lt. Noh Woo-song (previously discussed on Isaac Brock);
- Belgian citizen Genette Eysselinck (interviewed by Atossa Abrahamian back in April).
Many renunciants from earlier years have also not had their names included in the Federal Register, among them Korean actress Han Ye-seul (Wikipedia), Hong Kong actor Jaycee Chan (Wikipedia), Jamaican politician Daryl Vaz (Wikipedia), Japanese ice dancer Cathy Reed (Wikipedia), Taiwan environmental activist Robin Winkler (Wikipedia), and poker player Adam Bilzerian (previously discussed on Isaac Brock).
Update: Another oddity in this month’s list is the dearth of Hong Kong names. Unlike past lists which regularly featured dozens of Hong Kong professionals whose names showed up in Bar Association, Securities and Futures Commission, or Companies Registry filings, this time I see only four identifiably-Cantonese names, and only one gets a hit in the usual public records. I see five names which are probably Singaporean or Malaysian Chinese, four names which are probably mainland Chinese (spelled in Pinyin), and twenty-five which are Chinese but which don’t give a hint to their specific geographical origin. Twenty-nine names, or about 12% of the list, are Korean, a similar proportion as in the past.
And finally, the IRS has officially entered its fifteenth year of misspelling the acronym of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act as “HIPPA”.
*There must be an internal lottery in the IRS to select the few names of renunciants whose names are actually published. Congratulations, Petros, on having won this lottery.
It is clearly a case of deliberate supression which is in violation of the law requiring that these names be published. Looks like we need and in-depth Congressional investigation to determine who is responsible for this negligance in enforcing the law that these names be published. As far as I know the president has not issued an executive order suspending enforcement of this law, but perhaps I am wrong.
If your name IS on this list, I wonder if presenting this list with your name on it will have the same effect as showing your CLN when using a foreign passport which shows your place of birth as the US when crossing the border from Canada or Mexico or applying for a visitor’s visa at a US consulate in a country whose citizens must have visas to enter the US.
Eventually, perhaps more names will show up on the list after the election. Imagine what the ramifications for the election would be if they actually published ALL the names. The media made hay out of 1781 renunciations in 2011. We are learning that there were more than that in Korea alone or Switzerland alone. Is it feared that this could topple Obama? Imagine the headline:
President Obama drives American citizens to renunciation.
Instead, we get the demagogic newsline in this vein, “8000 Americans renounce to avoid paying taxes”.
Agreed. It seems safe to say that this list has lost all credibility. They should just stop publishing it rather than produce such an obvious cover up – I bet that the Bern consulate alone has processed more than the above number.
If anyone is interested though there is indeed a contact name at the bottom of the list, who I assume is the person who actually assembled it.
*Frankly, I don’t think they want anyone to know the effect this law is having on citizens deciding to renounce regardless of their political leanings. The fact that thousands of citizens worldwide are choosing to say goodbye US is not going to look good for either party or the country as a whole. People wanting to give up their right to the American Dream? That just can’t possibly be true, can it? The facts say otherwise and many ordinary people in America would be shocked if they knew the truth.
Congratulations Petros. By the way, Charles Schumer is going to be making a press meeting shortly to discuss how despicable you are.
PS – Does this now mean that you are rich?
Congratulations to you, Peter. The fruits of a long and hard work can now be peacefully enjoyed. You, your family and heirs are now safely off the plantation.
Curious…does the register distinguish between one that renounces and one that relinquishes?
@mach73: no, no distinction. The list includes people who definitely relinquished not renounced (like Peter Dunn and Keith Mitchell), and it also includes people who definitely renounced not relinquished (like Mike Gogulski who was stateless and thus couldn’t say he’d done a relinquishing act by naturalising elsewhere, or Terry Gilliam who had naturalised as a Briton decades ago but had no case for relinquishment because he’d kept on using a US passport in the mean time).
Whether or not one gets included in the list seems pretty random. None of us have figured out any consistent basis to it yet.
As they say, “Never ascribe to conspiracy that which is explained by sheer stumbling bureaucratic ineptitude”, or something like that!
What an honor Petros to have made the list, even though you are not a ‘covered Expat’. Yet. Maybe you should close the loop and let the other Peter Dunn know. Might be some media coverage mileage in it! Or, just a friendly warning that he has been named and shamed accidently. 🙂
@Recalcitrant, thanks buddy. The only thing is that it is safe from one threat, but I still have the CRA to deal with on a regular basis. However, it is a relief since no one can serve two tax masters.
Peter,
Congratulations once again. Does this mean you really and truly are finally free of the shackles? I hope so. Thanks for all you have provided for us here.
*A key sentence in the report is “This listing contains the name of each individual losing United States citizenship (within the meaning of section 877(a) or 877A) with respect to whom the Secretary received information during the quarter ending September 30, 2012.”
“Secretary” here presumably refers to the Secretary of the Treasury. Perhaps it’s possible that the Department of State does not report the names of all renunciants and relinquishers to the IRS or the Treasury Department right away. (Presumably the names are not reported until sometime after State issues the CLN — maybe quite a while after.) Or maybe it takes some time for the names to percolate up through IRS and Treasury to the Secretary and some of names somehow never make it to the top. 🙂
It would be helpful if someone at Brock is compiling and maintaining a cumulative list of names that have appeared on the reports since, say, 2011. That would make it easier to check whether particular names have appeared. I and a friend of mine are still awaiting our CLNs and have not shown up on the list yet.
If no one else is doing such a compilation, I might be able to do it.
@petros, I second Just me’s suggestion re updating the ‘other’ Peter Dunn – he’ll need to make an announcement that he’s the ‘other’ Peter Dunn, not THE Peter Dunn on the Name and Shame list. That would be a good way to bring attention to another facet of the situation that brought you two together in the first place.
@Eric, So we know that the list includes any expatriate, not only covered expatriates, and that it includes people who renounced or relinquished. But does the list include former long-term residents, or only former US citizens? Also, I wonder if only people who file form 8854 appear on the list, or if the Treasury actually collects data from the Department of State and USCIS. If it’s only those who file form 8854, it would explain why the list is shorter than expected.
*@Peter, I still wouldn’t be at all surprised if you’ ve been literally put on a blacklist. I wouldn’ t be surprised if you were targeted and questioned if you ever were to visit US soil again.
I guess they wouldn’t typically name and shame a minnow who ‘merely’ relinquished vs renounced but as a ringleader you’ve put yourself definitely on the radar. I don’t know if your way of going about things was genius or suicidal. Time will tell…
@monalisa,
Why would that be? Has the Ex-Patriot Act gone into effect?
*@Calgarly, it hasn’t been passed but wouldn’t be surprised if outspoken protesters the US govt don’t like are being quietly but very closely monitered…knowing the current climate, they could consider the IBS a terrorist organisation.
I admire his guts and principles but my own gut instinct is to not enrage the bear. I’m much more cautious…
@Shadow Raider: Hmm. Off the top of my head I know of one Korean celebrity who renounced a green card in 2010 (Ok Taek-yeon). Don’t see him in the Federal Register.http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/art/2010/12/135_77812.htmlI’ll try to find some other cases.
@monalisa,
More of the reason a lot of us want done with it all.
*@Eric, the Federal Register report says it lists “each individual losing United States citizenship (within the meaning of section 877(a) or 877A)”. I don’t think it lists former green card holders.
*@Calgary, naturally; but with a less than straightforward situation, I think renouncing with open statutes of limitation on my amended returns could raise red flags and thus the risk of an aggressive audit. My intuition is usually right. I’d guess that things are not always what they seem and am thus wary.
If you can make a clean break then I don’t blame you. I know you’ve been through a lot too…
What I resent about all this is the hypocrisy of it. They’re tinkering
@AnonAnon: since the beginning of this year, the list includes the notice: “For purposes of this listing, long-term residents, as defined in section 877(e)(2), are treated as if they were citizens of the United States who lost citizenship.”
That leads to two questions, of course: did Treasury include long-term residents in 2011 and before? And, more conspiratorially, is Treasury actually including them now or are they just saying they are, in order to make people think that the number of citizens renouncing is smaller than the number of people in the list?
I found a GAO report from 2000 about expatriation. It is outdated and the law has changed twice since then, but it answers some questions which were true at least at the time:
1. The Department of State is supposed to send copies of CLNs to the IRS every month.
2. USCIS (INS at the time) sends a list of people who abandoned their green cards to the IRS every year. The IRS does not use this data because it does not specify which people were long-term residents and it does not contain tax identification numbers. Indeed, form I-407, Abandonment of lawful permanent resident status, does not ask the year when the person became a US resident, tax identification or Social Security number.
3. The IRS lists in the Federal Register the names of all expatriates of whom it is aware. Less than half of them filed form 8854.
4. The IRS only included in its expatriate database former US citizens, and former long-term residents who had requested private letter rulings. Of the expatriates who had requested such rulings, about the same number were former US citizens and former long-term residents.
5. According to the report, until 2000 no one had ever been refused a visa due to the Reed amendment. The visa statistics since 2000 show 0 for the number of people denied a visa due to the Reed amendment, every year.
Conclusions:
1. The list in the Federal Register includes all former US citizens for whom the IRS receives a CLN, and all people who file form 8854. Former long-term residents who don’t file form 8854 are not listed. Former US citizens who don’t file form 8854 and for whom the IRS doesn’t receive a CLN are not listed either.
2. Most expatriates don’t bother to file form 8854. I suppose they don’t know or don’t care about citizenship-based taxation. This may be different now with OVDI and FATCA.
3. Based on my little experience with US consulates, I suspect that they don’t send all CLNs to the IRS. Since the IRS doesn’t use the data from USCIS, and few people file form 8854, the IRS doesn’t find out about them and thus the list in the Federal Register is shorter than what it’s supposed to be.
4. The Reed amendment has never been applied.
Estimates/extrapolations:
1. Most people who expatriate are former long-term residents. However, most people listed in the Federal Register are former US citizens.
2. The actual number of people who renounce US citizenship is much higher than the number of people listed in the Federal Register.
First of all, a fanfare of thanks to our data demon Eric who so ably stalks the quarterly renunciation list, meaning that I don’t even think of trying, knowing I will have warpspeed update at Brock. A long time back we had an apparently reliable confirmation from a non-covered renouncer (or relinquisher) who I identified at that time as The Counterexample – on the basis of logic, about all that was needed to disprove the dubious assertion strongly floated that only covered persons were on the list. Perhaps now that our renowned Petros can attest to his own Listed NonCovered status, more speculators will be willing to ship that sad canard to deserved bonehead oblivion. Final observation on this topic: except for the amusements of picking through what IS on the list, any other attention becomes obsessive trucking with putrid data garbage – about like dividing by zero. Now there’s an apt symbol for what the US has become: x÷0 If those 58 cases in Vancouver happened to represent all of 2011, then Vancouver accounted for 3.25% of the 1781 worldwide in 2011. The magnitude of that ratio does not seem implausible.
The list is very strange, agreed. I suspect that State sends over a semi-random and very incomplete list that makes a point of including some renunciants who have been quoted in the media, to give it an air of authenticity.