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.
If you, I, or any other U.S. person abroad fails to report some information to the U.S. government under Chapter 61, Subchapter A, Part II, Subpart A of the Internal Revenue Code (like § 6038D, the law authorising Form 8938), we might have to pay the U.S. government tens of thousands of dollars of fines, regardless of the actual underlying tax deficiency. If the U.S. government fails to report some information to us under the exact same Subpart, we get zip.
So don’t get too excited when you hear that today’s Federal Register is missing something; after all, it’s only the ninth time in sixteen quarters that Timothy Franz Geithner has violated this single provision of the law of the land — not to mention any others he also broke — and there’s no money in it for us anyway. This is how the law works in the Freest and Most Democratic Nation on Earth.
*To paraphrase George Orwell, all are equal under the law, but some are more equal than others. FATCA imposes severe penalties for failure to comply with its reporting requirements, but the law requiring publishing the names of those who renounce their citizenship within a certain time does does not.
@ Petros, I believe the list is due out any day now. The last few have been published on 02/02/2012, 04/30/2012, 07/27/2012 and 11/01/2012 so I would expect the list to be released either today or tomorrow. Here’s hoping!
They have to wait for a good news story day to slip it out so most people won’t notice even though it’s unlikely that the numbers are anything approaching accurate.
But this list in any event will only show those expatriating that fall under Section 877(a); in other words, “covered expatriates”.
So for all practical purposes, it will be incomplete and the media will be showing and quoting inaccurate data.
When I relinquish, I will never be considered a “covered expatriate” since I will fall under the special dual-citizen exemption of Section 877(a), no matter how wealthy I am. I satisfy all of the requirements except being a tax resident of the other country of citizenship acquired by birth at time of expatriation. Solution: I just move back “home” 🙂
nothing today either …
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-01-31/html/FR-2013-01-31-FrontMatter.htm
@CHF Forever – I don’t think it’s only covered expats on that list. I remember at least one person here at IBS who said they’re on it and aren’t a covered expat. I don’t think anyone here really knows what the criteria are, however it’s clear that the actual numbers are drastically higher than those published.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the missing names on the list are due to simple incompetence and poor business processes and workflows between State and the various government departments..
Nothing today either. Just health insurance purchase regulations. And to think I had such high hopes for Timmy G back in July when he got the list out early for the second quarter in a row.
Massive incompetence is probably the safest bet, and the only principle that really explains everything. So far we have documented cases of non-covered individuals being published (one is someone I’ve known in person for nearly two decades), covered individuals not being published (e.g. Adam Bilzerian), and covered individuals only being included when they explicitly rang up Treasury two years later to demand it (Mike Gogulski). I believe there’s also reports from people who claim not to have filed Form 8854 and got published anyway, but I’d have to check on that. And we already know (thanks to that GAO report that Tim posted earlier) that the mandate to publish the names of ex-green card holders was not being followed because the list being provided to Treasury didn’t have enough information to determine whether they were “long term residents”.
I don’t buy into the incompetence bit. Most likely it’s taking a long time because they are deleting as many English-sounding names as possible from the list.
@eric, I think gorgulski was added to the list because he created a stink over not being included.
The ‘name and shame’ list?
Yeah, I’m thinking that this list has grown so large that they’re embarrassed to put it all into the register! But what the hell? They wanted to name and shame these renunciants. After all, what else is the point of maintaining this list in the first place? Name them! Let us see for ourselves how many people have liberated themselves from the USG! Matter of fact, I think I might want them to stick my name on the list when I turn in my passport, too.
As for Mike Gogulski, much as I can admire his convictions, being stateless in the modern world is just not a good place to be in my view, simply because if you were to be a victim of persecution somewhere, there would be nowhere to go for help. Also, the modern world just isn’t designed with stateless people in mind, not to mention the fact that international travel would become really difficult.
@mjh49783 Yes, the larger the list becomes, the more it becomes a shame-on-the-USA-list rather than the shame-on-the-renunciants-list it was originally intended to be. 😉
mj, regarding statelessness, it all depends on where you are. Take Brazil for example, it’s easy to get a UN Passport to travel if one is stateless. The downside is the cost. It’s much more expensive to get than a regular passport and it’s only good for 1 round trip.
I’m not stateless for now <trust me, it’s hard to hold back from going down to the consulate and just paying the damn fee>. But I have thought about this issue a lot. On a day-to-day basis, it wouldn’t affect my life one bit. Plus, I live in a will-not-deport country. If you have dependents, they cannot deport. The “problem” is when someone goes stateless and then gets deported back to the US. Imagine that mess.
….also, though they legally can’t stop you from making yourself stateless by renouncing, they can make it difficult for you to do so. I simply want to be Canadian, and once I take the oath of alliegence, have that act considered as my expatriating act, and my intent, to relinquish US citizenship, and be done with it.
And, it won’t be in Monday’s Fe(de)ral Register either. So far that’s five days past the deadline on a list which supposedly should not require them to do any calculation, editing, or extra research: just print the names as you receive them.
Not in Tuesday’s either.
Also missing from Wednesday’s and Thursday’s editions.
“With Reverse Migration, Children of Immigrants Chase ‘American Dream’ abroad”
Perhaps this explains why the federal register has so many Asian names.
*What is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander in these Unted States. All are equal, as Orwell wrote back in 1954, but some are more equal than others.
In a 10 minute video about American expats developing business ventures in Asia, there isn’t one word about the effects of FATCA on their ability to do that. I wonder if these two guys are even aware of it. Once they find out, they’re in for a big, big shock.*
*@Arrow,
You are absolutely correct. Not word about citizenship-based taxation, FBARs or FATCA. These guys are living in a dream world.
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The list was not published on Friday, and will not be published on Monday either. They’re now nearly 50% beyond the time allotted to them to prepare the report.
The FBI publishes their reports on the number of renunciants and other evil criminals prohibited from buying guns within a few days after the end of each month. What takes Treasury so long to publish a quarterly report? I have only three theories:
1. They’re so utterly incompetent that they can’t collate a report consisting simply of names of people whose information they received
2. They’re having massive problems trying to figure out which green card holders are “long term residents” (since they claim their list includes green card holders’ names too),
3. They’re busy rigging the list and have to do research to figure out which names are “safe” not to be published
Eric, I think your theories 1 and 2 are probably the reason, and I have a fourth theory to go with them — that there have been personnel changes at State with the departure of Clinton that have slowed preparation of the list. If someone new has been put in charge of compiling the list, that would support your theories 1 and 2, and if the list for Q4 2012 is much longer than previous lists, the new person could be awaiting clarification of why the list has gotten so much longer.