Tuesday 9 February 2016

Ex-Americans

There were a record 4,279 less Americans in the World at the end of 2015 as that's the number who renounced their nationality and potentially forfeited the chance to ever return Stateside.
According to the US Treasury, a record number of individuals renounced their US citizenship or long-term residency in 2015 which was an increase of 20% on the previous year which itself was a record-breaking year.
The main reason cited is the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (Fatca), a law designed to target overseas accounts held by Americans who must file a tax return, no matter where they live in the World, and often pay US taxes on top of the tax they already pay in their country of residence.
As Fatca places a burden on foreign banks to identify US citizens among their customers to US tax authorities and with penalties for failing to do so can be as high as 30% of all a bank's dealings with the USA so as a result, Americans abroad are being denied access to basic banking facilities as banks would rather refuse US citizens' custom than run the risk of hefty penalties.
For Americans abroad, the only option is to pay the $2350 it costs to hand in their passport and renounce their citizenship and then be able to open a bank account.
There are 9 million Americans living outside of America and come November and  Donald Trump lands in the White House then 2016 could become another record breaking year for Americans wishing to abandon their country.

4 comments:

Liber - Latin for "The Free One" said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Falling on a bruise said...

What i couldn't find out is if they are no longer American, what nationality are most of them becoming?

Liber - Latin for "The Free One" said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Liber - Latin for "The Free One" said...
This comment has been removed by the author.