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The numbers are in, and according to the Internal Revenue Service, a record number of Americans expatriated in 2016.
According to a report published Thursday on the Federal Register,
5,411 Americans renounced their citizenship or expatriated. Overall, this is
26 percent higher than the 4,279 reported in 2015, and 58 percent higher than the 3,415 in 2015.
Interestingly, over 2,300 people renounced their citizenship during the
last quarter of the year, coinciding with the election of Donald Trump to the US Presidency. This is nearly double the amount of people who expatriated during the same period in 2015.
Part of the reason for this, besides the implied Trump link, is that
citizens living abroad must still pay taxes to the US, unless they give up that citizenship. While most other nations tax based on physical residency, the US taxes based on citizenship, and anyone born in the nation is automatically a citizen. This leaves many having to
pay taxes to both the US and their nation of residency, unless they remove themselves from the system entirely.This was made more of an issue after the
2010 Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which legislated to impose heavy fines and penalties on Americans living abroad who evade paying their US taxes.
Comment: While there is a record amount of Americans expatriating, applications for US citizenship are reportedly skyrocketing. According to this report, 5,411 in 2016 renounced, while,
from October 2015 to January 2016, 249,609 immigrants applied for naturalization.
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