Renouncing citizenship

[Texas Proud]

1,534 give up citizenship, ease tax issues

Seems like there are more people doing this now a day... I know we have talked about this off and on....

1,534 give up citizenship, ease tax issues | Business | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

[RetiredGypsy]

I wish it would have gone into more detail about where these people were. Some statistics about what percentage of these people are living in what country, or have dual citizenship elsewhere, would have made it more interesting.

Hopefully they considered the legal issues beyond simply being taxed too high before they made their decisions.

[fisherman]

A famous example of this to avoid taxes is Templeton of the Franklin Templeton Funds.

[ls99]

IMHO the USA citizenship is one of the most valuable rights that I ever acquired. At great cost to me, most of the expense had nothing to do with money.
One example, 3 yrs. in the US Army staring in 1967. I earned the citizenship, in more ways than I can count.

It is one thing I'll never give up.

Be interesting to see how many of those that gave it up will whine and clamor to get it back.

[Calgary_Girl]

We've toyed with the idea of DH doing this since he is now a Canadian citizen. However, according to our tax accountant who specializes in cross-border taxation, it's not as simple as just renouncing DH's U.S. citizenship.

Apparently, the U.S. government is one step ahead of us and the U.S. can now, by law, impose a deemed "exit tax" on DH's worldwide assets. The U.S. government can also hit DH's U.S. and Canadian retirement and other tax-deferred plans with a 30% withholding tax at the time of expatriation.

I wonder why the article didn't mention this?

[RetiredGypsy]

I can see someone outside the U.S. Embassy: "What do you mean I don't have any rights here? I was born in America!" "Sir, you gave up your citizenship." "But I was born there, I still have my rights!"