Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

1,001 names in latest Federal Register “name-and-shame” list

The Q1 2014 Quarterly Publication of Individuals Who Have Chosen to Expatriate has been placed on public inspection for printing in the Federal Register for 2 May 2014, two days later than required by 26 USC § 6039G(d). This is the seventh quarter in a row in which the Internal Revenue Service has failed to publish their list of certain ex-Americans by the legally-mandated deadline, bringing their all-time compliance rate to a dismal 27.5%.

One famous name did appear: “Tina Turner”, in precisely that form — rather surprising, since as far as I know that’s not her civil name in the first place. However, contrary to my prediction last time, the overall rate of missing names does not seem to have come down as much as expected. We still have not seen one-quarter of the famous people known to have renounced in 2013: the names of Cuban intelligence officer René González, Saint Vincent & the Grenadines’ former U.N. Representative Camillo Gonsalves, and Pakistani politician Fauzia Kasuri are absent.

The IRS’ utter inability to publish a simple list of names in a complete and timely fashion just fills you with confidence that they’re going to be able handle all that FATCA data fairly and competently, right?

As always, congratulations to Canadian anthropologists and insurance agents, Thai schoolteachers, fresh Singaporean university graduates, and every other ordinary emigrant and accidental American whose name was included in a list which delusional politicians think covers only “a handful of the wealthiest of the wealthy”, and my sympathies to those who for whatever reason did not have their names included.

74 thoughts on “1,001 names in latest Federal Register “name-and-shame” list

  1. Duals at birth are seemingly in – contrary to Robert Wood’s claim.

    Maybe through a simple polling of Brock’s participants we can determine just who makes up the and list!

  2. On second thought, I’m sure that some duals for birth haven’t shown up either…never mind…

  3. @ MontréalFatcaOff,

    Thanks very much for your info. I’ll add it to the Tracking Chart in the Consulate Report Directory. BTW, were you a renounce or relinquish? If the latter, what decade? Thanks.

    The chart of CLN wait times on pages 158-167 of the Directory was last updated a few weeks ago. The new edition should be on-line on the weekend. Meanwhile, these are the CLNs reported since the mid-April edition (still missing a few location details):

    Europe

    Allou (unknown location) – 9 months (renounce)
    Jane Doe Belge (Brussels?)– 12 days (renounce)

    Canada
    Ecstatic Canadian (formerly Saddened) (Toronto) –8 months (relinquish 2010s)
    Nomad (Toronto) – 8 months (relinquish 1980s)
    Northern Star (Toronto) – 9 months (relinquish 1990s)

    Unknown Location
    Jennifer– 8 months (renounce)

    The Canadian ones have always come pretty slow compared to the rest of the world (although Allou’s in Europe was very slow). The Canadian ones seem to come in bunches at each consulate, ever since we started tracking. But it’s getting ridiculous — until last week, no one reported receiving one through Toronto since last June.

  4. Per FBI NICS figures, a total of 587 USCs renounced in April and May 2014. Extrapolating for June from these two months suggests that 880 USCs will renounce in 2Q 2014. Assuming that there is a 1:1 ratio of renunciations to relinquishments suggests that 1,760 will expatriate this quarter.

    With 1,001 expatriations already in the first quarter, 2014 will likely be a record year.

  5. According to FBI NICS figures, a total of 1,203 USCs renounced in 2Q 2014. Using an assumed 1:1 ratio of renunciations to relinquishments would suggest that 2,406 will expatriate this quarter. The exact number, except those that are willfully or unwillfully omitted, will be published on the Federal Register expatriation “honor roll”, which should be available by month-end July to comply with the law.

    With 1,001 expatriations in 1Q and around 2,400 in 2Q, 2014 is looking like a record year.

  6. One more time. In 1Q 2014, there were 413 renunciations (FBI NICS) and a total of 1,001 renunciations and relinquishments (Federal Register). This suggests a ratio of 1.424 relinquishments to renunciations. If this ratio remains the same for 2Q 2014, this suggests 1,713 relinquishments for the quarter, or a total of 2,916 expatriations for 2Q 2014. The calculated expatriations of 2,916 for this quarter are nearly the same as for all expatriations in 2013 (2,999).

  7. Tomorrow America will celebrate the 4th of July, when 56 brave souls signed a Declaration of Independence from Great Britain 238 years earlier.

    This begs the question, how many brave souls will be signing their own Declarations of Independence from America this year?

    If Innocente’s estimates are right, the number will easily exceed 5,000, maybe even 6,000.

    Let Freedom ring!

  8. @Samuel Adams:
    An estimate for 2014 could be calculated as high as 9,000 to 10,000:
    1Q 2014: 1,001 (actual)
    2Q 2014: 2,916 (estimate)
    3Q 2014: 2,916 (projected)
    4Q 2014: 2,916 (projected)
    1,001 + (3 x 2,916) = 9,749, say, 9,000 to 10,000

    At any rate, 2014 will undoubtedly break the previous record of 2,999.

  9. I hope the numbers reach 10,000 this year. I think that number could be the tipping point that will wake up the politicos in Washington to bring an end to CBT.

    It will not be so easy for the likes of Chuck Schemer to vilify 10,000 people willing to pay money for getting rid of US citizenship.

    The problem however is that the State Department is able to control the flow of renunciation appointments and Treasury can manipulate the number of expatriations recorded in the Federal Register. 2,999 last year and 1,001 for the Q1 smells a bit suspect to me.

    I can picture Robert Stack yelling at Treasury employees, “I said not more than 3,000 for last year and 1,000 per quarter this year, your’e fired for putting 1,001.”

  10. What really strikes me about this list is the frequent occurrence of entire families bailing out of the US at once. You see the many husband and wife teams jumping ship, and it looks like some parents and children going in some cases with the same surname appearing 4 times.

    If their average worth is $250,000 (because of property and averaging for the wealthy) that $250M of assets the US has kissed goodbye forever. What the US forgets some of their money might have gone back to the US for investments or holiday properties etc, but the delusional US politicians thinks the $8B FATCA will generate a year is worth it.

    So at that rate half of the $8B has already disappeared.

    1000 odd names? The real figure is probably 2 to 4 times higher.

  11. @Don

    Not only family of husband, wife & children… probably also siblings & families. Immigrant families in the US may have gone back to their home country… they pay taxes to the US for their holdings in the US & never realized the stuff in their home country… US wants it too… owned prior to going to US… why the heck would u pay the US for that… its prior generation ownership… even after wars… some immigrant families were able to fight & get back what was owned by previous generation to have their generation allow the US to legally steal it???

  12. This showed up today via twitter.
    https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7VqDyDIAgW2YTQyQmZ3QjZyT2s/edit?pli=1
    http://blogs.angloinfo.com/us-tax/2014/10/12/tax-court-affirms-informal-relinquishment-of-green-card-not-enough/

    The Department of Homeland Security has provided statistics pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request regarding the number of green cards surrendered each year since 2000 as evidenced by submissions of Form I-407 (discussed below). I provide here the numbers of green card relinquishments since 2010, when FATCA was enacted:

    2010: 19,545
    2011: 17,267
    2012: 17,775
    2013: 11,185 (queried on June 20,2013)

    At first glance, it shows the opposite trend. However, the 2013 data is only for half (or less) of the year.

    I believe it shows that the Federal Register is incorrect, as it is meant to reflect loss of greencard (as explained in the wikipedia article)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarterly_Publication_of_Individuals_Who_Have_Chosen_to_Expatriate

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