No time for a detailed analysis, but the Quarterly Publication of Individuals Who Have Chosen to Expatriate for Q4 2017 has just been placed on public inspection for printing in Friday’s Federal Register, ten days later than required by law.
I count 685 names in this list, bringing the total of “published expatriates” for 2017 to 5,133 individuals. In contrast, NICS added 1,017 people to the “Renounced U.S. Citizenship” category from October to December of last year, and another 353 in January. This quarter’s Federal Register list still does not include some public figures known to have given up US citizenship more than a year ago, including Japanese legislator Kimi Onoda and Ghanaian Deputy Minister of Finance Charles Adu Boahen.
| First quarter | Second quarter | Third quarter | Fourth quarter | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month, year |
Addi- tions |
Month-end total |
Month, year |
Addi- tions |
Month-end total |
Month, year |
Addi- tions |
Month-end total |
Month, year |
Addi- tions |
Month-end total |
| Jan 2017 | 377 | 38,380 | Apr 2017 | 460 | 39,947 | Jul 2017 | 329 | 41,001 | Oct 2017 | 284 | 41,960 |
| Feb 2017 | 344 | 38,724 | May 2017 | 381 | 40,328 | Aug 2017 | 326 | 41,327 | Nov 2017 | 427 | 42,387 |
| Mar 2017 | 763 | 39,487 | Jun 2017 | 344 | 40,672 | Sep 2017 | 349 | 41,676 | Dec 2017 | 306 | 42,693 |
| Q1 total | 1,484 | Q2 total | 1,185 | Q3 total | 1,004 | Q4 total | 1,017 | ||||
| 82 FR 21877 | 1,313 | 82 FR 36188 | 1,759 | 82 FR 50960 | 1,376 | 83 FR 5xxx | 685 | ||||
| Annual totals for 2017 | Fed. Reg. | 5,133 | NICS | 4,690 | |||||||
Fundamentally, nothing much has changed. After all the broken promises about how tax reform would save us, it just turned out to be another bonanza for accountants and lawyers. The IRS still can’t publish a simple list of names in a timely fashion. Trump and Tillerson’s underlings continue to spout the same insulting excuses as Obama and Kerry’s underlings did for the $2,350 rip-off.
People who can’t hide from this whole mess continue to face absurd wait times for appointments and CLNs (made worse by ongoing chaos in the State Department), while those who are able to hide have even stronger reasons to keep on hiding.
Dear people where were you all for the past 8 years since these ridiculous laws were being passed? I was writing letters to my Congressman for the last few years but the general statement was laws of the US laws are our laws to abide by all over the planet. Feel free to leave (renounce) for better country. Haven’t you notice even after all the meetings with congress, they never had any sympathetic ears ? In fact they passed more laws so the compliance industry can make bonanza. Don’t trust any condor who feels even bad for you as they are all nothing but trying to pluck you.
@Abey @Nononymous
Works for me!
@Harrison
I think that’s a typo on the second to last word of your post.
@maz57. I meant plucking feathers from a chicken. But anyways haha i know what you meant.
@ Heidi (“Oh dear Barbara, I had hoped you would be well on your way by now. Is it still going to happen?”):
Please see my latest hand-wringing post in the renunciation thread. I’m on my way, but barely. Further feedback is welcome.
TaxProf blog post
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2018/02/number-of-americans-renouncing-their-us-citizenship-fell-in-2017-the-first-decline-in-five-years-.html
Reddit thread, not directly related to the latest list: “How do you view an American-born person that emigrates to another country?”
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAmerican/comments/7wfkzk/how_do_you_view_an_americanborn_person_that/
On the Reddit link there is a guy claiming that filing is all very simple. He claims that only in rare cases does the US tax code cause problems and he knows, because he’s been there and done that.
They don’t know what the hell they are talking about but always back up their claim with them having done it, so don’t argue with them!
@Mike lol. They will claim everything to sell their product to us that it is easy and we can all do this but the truth we all know now. I have done my own taxes always and they were fairly simple once I was in US but outside the US it is very very complicated and requires specialized knowledge. All the applications sold in packages in USA were not built for outside US forms and some of them have been added recently I was told by a CPA. But not all. There are many traps in these forms.
This comment was obviously made by someone working in the industry as this is their bread and butter.
@Mike: Yeah, I never quite know what to do with those “Form 2555 is easy, what are you whining about?” people when I come across them.
If I’m in a bad mood (like today) I start an argument by talking about Form 3520. But really, he’s basically right for all the wrong reasons. Anyone who talks about Form 3520 is a lunatic bastard or a scammer who wants your money. The best response to someone who talks about Form 3520 is to insult their intelligence or their mother. Actually filing Form 3520 is a terrible idea.
The guy on Reddit would have a different opinion if he tried being retired outside the US. None of his income would be sheltered by that handy $100,000+ Foreign Earned Income Exemption because it would all be passive, not earned. He would have fun tearing his hair every spring at tax time as he filled out all those “rare” 3520’s and 3520A’s for each and every one of his multiple retirement accounts.
If he were to sell his house and be stupid enough tell Uncle Sam about it he could send a significant portion of the proceeds back to the Fatherland for no good reason. And, of course, he wouldn’t mind further crippling his retirement by spending an extra few thousand each tax season to hire a US tax specialist (if he could find one) to fill out all those “simple” forms. If he had a business he’d surely jump at the one time opportunity to “transition” a big chunk of his retained earnings to the IRS in order to continue to be the good little citizen that he obviously is.
He’s an idiot who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He can’t be reasoned with. Know-it-alls like that are what made me want to leave in the first place. And now they’ve finally elected a President who represents them all perfectly. Its apparent that the US has more idiots per capita than any other country in the world. (End of rant!)
Yeah, it was the retirement income part that did it for me. What a slap in the face for 40 years of hard work and plenty of taxes! I wouldn’t have survived it financially.
@maz57. All the intelligent people from USA have renounced or renouncing. Like the Facebook guy who renounced just before his stock went public. Very intelligent move. A move if offered to anyone in Congress they would have moved too. It’s basically smart thinking on his part
The world is waking up, slowly!
@ Tad too late. 8 years is a long time!!
Referring to Eric’s Reddit link, 9 posts above, on “How do you view an American-born person that emigrates to another country?”
I read the first page of responses, and most of them boil down to “I don’t care” or “I’m fine with it” or “Freedom means being able to leave.” (One person stipulated that his respect would not extend to someone who left to join ISIS or al-Qaeda.) Some responses were from being who did live overseas, and there was some explaining of the tax situation going on.
‘Yeah, I never quite know what to do with those “Form 2555 is easy, what are you whining about?” people when I come across them.’
For “the 99%” it seems rather easy since all of their earned income gets excluded. Form 1116 remains impossible, and one line on Form 1040 that needs three worksheets because of the combination of Form 1116 and dividends and capital gains (one worksheet once, then the other worksheet once, then the first worksheet again differently) has been even more impossible since 2008.
Form 2555 is excessively intrusive, but that’s not the same as being difficult. In fact the IRS admitted that sometimes Form 2555 is unconstitutionally intrusive, but that doesn’t help when the rest of the US government is free of constitutional constraints.
‘If I’m in a bad mood (like today) I start an argument by talking about Form 3520.’
Now where did I put my hydrochloric acid.
For those who are following the Australian controversy over the disqualification of politicians with (imputed) dual citizenship, Armenia has just adopted a new constitution with a similar provision:
https://www.azatutyun.am/a/29029559.html
@Norman Diamond. I feel for you. Read about the Canadian RRSPs being called trusts now and requiring trust forms which would make any person without that speciality go crazy. If you have properties it is not simple too for a person without this knowledge as you know qualified help with this. I used to do US taxes on my own for years. Now I don’t them anymore since they are very very complex. The guy on Reddit was someone trying to portray as an expat or may have been in the military or working in the compliance industry and they run off of us so they never want CBT to end ensuring their bread and butter. Compliance industry is full of lawyers and CPAs with deep pockets and there is never going to be a CBT in USA. Renounce and rejoice is the slogan of this blog
@maz57. Agree with the Trump comment and nation of idiots. However, I differ with you here that the whole nation is not idiot but very very smart lawyers who make up these laws to catch everyone (only they know how to find loopholes in it and they charge their very high fees for it). Never get a lawyer as those people are the most crooked people on the planet anywhere in the world you go. The person who wrote FATCA is very smart lawyer a Senator Car Levin who introduced this 1-2 trillion costs to foreign financial institutions to implement FATCA to bring in some millions in taxes, penalties etc every year. This is from Wikipedia. The cost defies the logic to this day. Senator Carl Levin was shooting for 100 billion $ per year. If he was in private office he would have been fired right away. This is the tragedy of our times. Denied by local banks and brokerages and partners as they did not wish to deal with an IRS front man like you.
Sarcasm on Sen Carl Levin and his smartness but maybe he was smart that he made money for compliance industry to make their $$
@Mike
Totally enjoyed the film even if I hardly understood it. Lets say I did understand it even without getting all the words just because I KNOW. Love Sophie. But if little Holland did something to thwart American taxation, it would be in big trouble. Only if all of Europe banded together would there be any impact and a chance of America having to abandon this extortion. The whole FATCA machine would falll down like a card house.
But Europe does not want the FATCA machine to fall down. Au contraire.
As I posted elsewhere, influential voices are being raised in protest against CRS (https://isaacbrocksociety.ca/fatca-and-the-eu/comment-page-9/#comment-8134823)
If CRS were to come before the ECJ, that would be good news. FATCA could be affected by any ruling on CRS, as CRS and FATCA are wrong in many of the same ways. But it’s a big if.
@Polly
“Totally enjoyed the film even if I hardly understood it. Lets say I did understand it even without getting all the words just because I KNOW.”
Yes of course you do, you hardly need to understand the words. It’s basically yet another article about how US laws are extracting taxes from Dutch people with the most flimsy of connections to the USA, and of course extracting taxes from the Netherlands.
This is about the transition tax affecting around a thousand small business owners in the Netherlands. The dentist featured left the USA at two weeks old.
The thing is though, the mainstream media there have now realised just how serious this issue is. It’s starting to look like a snowball at the top of the hill and it’s started to role. That’s the important thing here.
Of course, when we warned people that the US was banging in the thin end of a tax wedge with FATCA 8 years ago, my how they laughed…..
@Mike every country is loving CRS on the contrary. This is not just about bank accounts anymore but every asset including properties you have for vacation in far off lands. It’s a hunt to locate anything for broken down govts to hunt down everything you have overseas to extract as much as you posses. We are seeing unprecedented ramifications of CRS based on passports similar to FATCA not on actual residencies as tax authorities will research on their own who is resident or not at what time. As I stated earlier the independent tax goons inside their dept would go nuts over getting this data and as per Chinese, Russian and Indians living in other countries are now scared of their families safety. Many second passport sellers program are not recommending EU for their second passports as EU has become more FATCA like. Spain is hunting for its citizens residing in other countries to determine who is resident or not. It’s not just govts but private goons working in those depts that are salivating at this treasure trove of who to kidnap and how much they can get. No data is safe as you have seen with recent bitcoin hacking and kidnappings of heads of bitcoin exchanges . Well we are more concerned with FATCA the entire world is scared of CRS and what is stored for people resident in other countries who come home for vacations and get kidnapped as their home govts are now having their data and want to extract some of it. Your privacy is gone now thanks to OECD and FATCA. They never ever thought about people resident in other countries and their unsafe data.