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”.
I doubt Dr. Keene’s being anything but entirely honest about this one. He’s an 89 year old man who picked up and moved halfway around the world as a demonstration of moral support for a disaster-torn country. It’s pretty hard to question his sincerity.
The only thing is, I doubt he has his CLN in hand yet. Japan doesn’t require Americans to renounce U.S. citizenship before naturalising, it only requires them to relinquish within two years afterwards. Since he only got Japanese citizenship earlier this year, his US relinquishment paperwork is probably stuck somewhere in the bowels of the State Department, and I suppose it’s theoretically possible they could claim he isn’t of clear mind or doesn’t have the “requisite intent” or some other BS like that. Or they might fail to finish processing it before he passes away, and then go after his estate for unfiled FBAR fines …
*Roger Conklin and Eric,
I have just finished combining all the the Federal Register “name and shame” lists from 2009 to 2012 Quarter 3. Dr. Donald Keene’s name did not appear in any of those lists.
* nobledreamer, Petros, and all:
I have made a combined list of the quarterly Federal Register reports listing names of former US citizens and permanent residents whose loss of citizenship has been reported in each given quarter to the Treasury Secretary. These are often referred to as the “name and shame lists”. The lists that I have combined cover 2009 through the third quarter of 2012 and contain 4944 names, sorted by surname first.
It was easy to scan the list and find duplicate and near duplicate names, of which there were many. Here is the beginning of a list of the duplicates, showing the year and quarter in which each name appeared, followed by the name, surname first:
2012 Q2 BENTLEY JOHN JOSEPH
2012 Q2 BENTLEY JOHN J.
2011 Q3 BERG SHANE DAVID
2011 Q4 BERG SHANE DAVID
2011 Q1 CATTAUI MICHAEL TAREK
2011 Q2 CATTAUI MICHAEL
2011 Q1 CHAN GLADYS LO
2012 Q1 CHAN GLADYS LO
2011 Q1 CHAN VINCE CHI YAN
2011 Q2 CHAN VINCE CHI YAN
2010 Q3 Chow Theresa Lynn
2010 Q4 CHOW THERESA LYNN
2009 Q3 Chu-Yip Pancy Siu Ling
2010 Q1 CHU-YIP PANCY SIU LING
2009 Q4 CHUN RICHARD KILWHAN
2010 Q4 CHUN RICHARD KILWHAN
2011 Q2 COLLIER NICHOLAS JOHN
2011 Q2 COLLIER NICHOLAS JOHAN
2009 Q4 DAVID CARY RICHARD
2010 Q4 DAVID CARY RICHARD
2011 Q1 DE MESTRAL DARCY AYMON
2011 Q2 de MESTRAL DARCY AYMON
2010 Q2 Driscoll John T.
2010 Q3 Driscoll John Timothy
2009 Q4 ENNS KIMBERLEY D
2010 Q1 ENNS KIMBERLEY D
2009 Q3 Firmenich Frederic Alexandre
2010 Q4 FIRMENICH FREDERIC ALEXANDRE
2011 Q1 FOSTER III ROBERT PORTER
2011 Q4 FOSTER III ROBERT PORTER
2011 Q1 FOSTER, NEE WIELANDT DORA
2011 Q4 FOSTER, NEE WIELANDT DORA
2011 Q1 FUNG MAGNUS MAN KIT
2011 Q4 FUNG MAGNUS MAN KIT
2009 Q4 GOES RODRIGO S.
2010 Q2 Goes Rodrigo S.
2010 Q2 Goes Rodrigo S.
Though some of the duplicates may really name different people, there are clearly lots of duplicate listings of the same people. There are about 64 such duplicate pairs out of the 4944 names in total. Although only a little over 1% of the names are duplicates, the names came from just 15 quarterly lists. So the lists have, on average, about 4 duplicates each. Of course, we have no way of knowing how many omissions there are.
Also, the following name seems very strange, with surname “Vice Consul” and is probably an error as well: 🙂
2010 Q3 Vice Consul Marc J. Young
@Petros
I was not referring only to FBARs but to any/all perceived filings required by the IRS. I thought I had read somewhere, early on in the process, that one’s heirs could be responsible for unpaid penalties of parents; regardless, you and I simply think differently about this. I would not even think of taking such a chance and the IRS is simply not to be trusted. I did file FBARs without any issues and feel “clear” that I won’t be handing down any problems to our son.
*Roger Conklin
What are the possible consequences of having one’s name placed on the list?
@anonanon, I received via email your comprehensive list, and I agree that we can post it here at Isaac Brock, even perhaps feature it on the side bar, if people think that it would be good resource that they want to be accessible. Alternatively, it could be made as a prominent link inside one of the other posts on the sidebar. What do folks think?
*Petros, do you want to post the list of duplicates that I found along with the entire combined list of FR reports? If so, I can send you that, too. Maybe they could both be put as a link under the Relinquishment and Renunciation Data link.
Re, Petros 7.45,
I’m not sure how much prominence we should give this list, though, as it seems somewhat like acknowledging, legitimising, a list that appears to have been enacted out of vindictiveness as an attempt at harassing people who choose to exercise a legitimate right, as well as what conclusions can be drawn from it, except that it’s low-balling the numbers and disorganized.
That’s good work you did, though, AnonAnon, relevant and interesting. So, I’m in no way opposing this or your work. Just expressing my view on the degree of importance/prominence we should accord to the list – and just my 2c.
@Pacifica, perhaps as I said we could bury the link in one of the other posts, namely, “Relinquishment and Renunciation Data”. That way it is available for those who are regularly following the blog, but less visible for newcomers.
*Petros, you could post a new thread titled something like “The IRS Expatriate Name List” with a comment about how puzzled we are by its purpose, the criteria for inclusion of names in it, and the apparent inaccuracies in it. Comments like Pacifica’s above could be included, especially the disclaimer that we are not endorsing the list by publishing it. There could be a link to the combined list for 2009-2012Q3 and to the list of duplicates found in it. There could also be a link to the Federal Register list of quarterly lists, from which the combined list was compiled:
https://www.federalregister.gov/quarterly-publication-of-individuals-who-have-chosen-to-expatriate
Then a permanent link to the new thread could be put on the right sidebar under the “Our Resources” heading.
*AnonAnon, the main thing to do would be to highlight the inconsistencies with the list, showing that it is not accurate and thus inappropriate for witch hunts.
*Here is my suggested introductory text for posting the combined list of Federal Register quarterly lists of expatriates:
Quarterly Reports in the Federal
Register of Persons Losing U.S. Citizenship
Each quarter of every year the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury is required by law to publish in the Federal Register a list of names of certain persons who have lost U.S. citizenship. (See
https://www.federalregister.gov/quarterly-publication-of-individuals-who-have-chosen-to-expatriate
)
Each list is preceded by a notice like the following one from the first quarter of 2012:
“This notice is provided in accordance with IRC section 6039G of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) of 1996, as amended. 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 March 31, 2012. 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. “
We at the Isaac Brock Society find that
The REASONS for the legislation requiring the Treasury Secretary to publish the quarterly lists of names are not at all clear. Being only lists of names, they are inadequate to uniquely identify actual persons and are therefore subject to misinterpretation and misuse.
The CRITERIA for inclusion of a name in the quarterly lists in the Federal Register are very complicated, as one can see under Background, below.
The TIMING of names appearing, if at all, in the lists seems unpredictable.
The lists themselves seem to be INACCURATE, containing many duplicates and an unknown number of omissions.
For those reasons and others, many of us question and even object to the publication of the lists, although some of us consider it a badge of honor to see our names on the lists. We have compiled for ourselves a combined alphabetical list of all 4944 names that have appeared in the quarterly lists from 2009 to the present (the 3rd quarter of 2012). From the combined list we can see that the quarterly lists contain a number of exact duplicate and near-duplicate names.
Combined list, 2009 to present
Since the quarterly lists are already a matter of public record, our combined list will be available here for reference purposes, without endorsement or guarantee of accuracy: [Insert link to combined list here.]
Background
As the notice quoted above states, the legal basis for the quarterly reports by the Secretary of the Treasury is provided by 26 USC § 6039G – Information on individuals losing United States citizenship (
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/6039G
):
…
“(2) the Secretary of State shall provide to the Secretary [of the Treasury] a copy of each certificate as to the loss of American nationality under section 358 of the Immigration and Nationality Act which is approved by the Secretary of State, and
(3) the Federal agency primarily responsible for administering the immigration laws shall provide to the Secretary the name of each lawful permanent resident of the United States (within the meaning of section 7701
(b)(6)) whose status as such has been revoked or has been administratively or judicially determined to have been abandoned.
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, not later than 30 days after the close of each calendar quarter, the Secretary shall publish in the Federal Register the name of each individual losing United States citizenship (within the meaning of section 877
(a) or 877A)
with respect to whom the Secretary receives information under the preceding sentence during such quarter. “
The “section 877(a)” referred to is from
26 USC § 877 – Expatriation to avoid tax (
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/877
):
…
“(a) Treatment of expatriates
(1) In general
Every nonresident alien individual to whom this section applies and who, within the 10-year period immediately preceding the close of the taxable year, lost United States citizenship shall be taxable for such taxable year in the manner provided in subsection (b) if the tax imposed pursuant to such subsection (after any reduction in such tax under the last sentence of such subsection) exceeds the tax which, without regard to this section, is imposed pursuant to section 871.
(2) Individuals subject to this section
This section shall apply to any individual if—
(A) the average annual net income tax (as defined in section 38(c)(1)) of such individual for the period of 5 taxable years ending before the date of the loss of United States citizenship is greater than $124,000,
(B) the net worth of the individual as of such date is $2,000,000 or more, or
(C) such individual fails to certify under penalty of perjury that he has met the requirements of this title for the 5 preceding taxable years or fails
to submit such evidence of such compliance as the Secretary may require.
In the case of the loss of United States citizenship in any calendar year after 2004, such $124,000 amount shall be increased by an amount equal to such dollar amount multiplied by the cost-of-living adjustment determined under section
1 (f)(3)
for such calendar year by substituting “2003” for “1992” in subparagraph (B) thereof. Any increase under the preceding sentence shall be rounded to the nearest multiple of $1,000. “
The “section 877A” referred to is
26 USC § 877A – Tax responsibilities of expatriation ( http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/877A )
…
(g) Definitions and special rules relating to expatriation
For purposes of this section—
(1) Covered expatriate
(A) In general
The term “covered expatriate” means an expatriate who meets the requirements of subparagraph (A), (B), or
(C) of section 877
(a)(2).
(B) Exceptions
An individual shall not be treated as meeting the requirements of subparagraph (A) or (B) of section 877
(a)(2) if—
…
[There are a number of exceptions specified.]
Oddly enough there’s been almost no discussion of this list in mainstream media. Closest thing I’ve seen so far is a completely uninformative Ernst & Young piece (which doesn’t even mention how many names there are in the list!)
http://tmagazine.ey.com/news/ibfd/united-states-irs-publishes-quarterly-list-individuals-expatriated-q32012/
@Eric, that’s a good point. Sometimes the list has been highlighted and analyzed for whatever point the media articles wanted to make (often to berate those on it as ungrateful traitors/tax evaders).
So you’d think it offered those wanting to make their points an opportunity. Why the sudden silence or lack of interest about it? Especially as I’ve see the posts about renunciation of citizenship being currently a very popular search on Google. Example: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=renounce%20citizenship&geo=CA&cmpt=q
Or these search trends:
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=renounce%20citizenship&cmpt=q
Another inconsistency is with
– “Achtman Jane Valesca”
The name appears twice in document 04-23599 for quarter 30.09.2004 and 31.12.2003, then again in document 04-23598 for quarter 30.09.2004
In document 03-19368, an individual who renounced is named:
-Reinsurance Limited Imagine International
“Reinsurance Limited” is listed as having become an expatriate in the quarter of 30.06.2003
“Barham Jessica Mirand.” is listed twice in the same quarter of 31.12.2008
“BARILI OK PUN” became an expatriate in 30.06.1999 and then again a year later in 30.06.2000 and then again in 30.09.2000
For more, see: Federal Register List
The NY Post reports that the US Census Bureau faked the unemployment statistics in the fall of 2012 to show a decrease in unemployment from 8.1% (August 2012) to 7.8% (September 2012). The implication is that these improved statistics helped re-elect Obama.
http://nypost.com/2013/11/18/census-faked-2012-election-jobs-report/
Was the drop in expatriations for 3Q 2012 reported in the Federal Register also faked?
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