Americans renouncing citizenship, hits new record

[spuwho]

Per Forbes:

Many Americans Renounce Citizenship, Hitting New Record

It may seem like a drop in the bucket, especially when droves want to immigrate to America. Still, the newly published names of individuals who renounced their U.S. citizenship or terminated long-term U.S. residency is up, with 576 for the quarter and 1,577 so far this year. The growing trend is a sad one, with record numbers of Americans renouncing their U.S. citizenship.

For all the immigrant arrivals, the trickle the other direction is becoming more pronounced. The tally was 2,999 for all of 2013, a 221% increase over the 932 who left in 2012. The Treasury Department is required to publish a quarterly list, a kind of public outing putting Americans on notice of who relinquished their rights. Consular expatriations, where people don't file exit tax forms with the IRS, are apparently not counted.

Indeed, the Treasury Department's published list states explicitly this is just those about whom the Secretary of the Treasury has data. It means these numbers are under-stated, some say considerably. The presence or absence of tax motivation used to impact how one would be taxed on departing the U.S. Today, it is no longer relevant why someone expatriates.

The law was changed in 2004, so tax consequences do not hinge on why one leaves. But that could change. After Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin departed permanently for Singapore with his IPO riches, there was an angry backlash. Mr. Saverin's fly-away prompted such outrage that Senators Chuck Schumer and Bob Casey introduced a bill to double the exit tax to 30% for anyone leaving the U.S. for tax reasons.

[ronchamblin]

Perhaps some of these departing individuals have arrived at the opinion that they are citizens of the world, and therefore have less reason to remain in the U. S. A.

To question the position of the blind patriot or the nationalist, seems a positive move for the mind.  It might be similar to the release one feels upon being set free from the chains of a religion or cult.

Content at being a world citizen lessens the pressure to defend poor or destructive decisions regarding war and occupation as committed by the leadership of one's country.

Blind patriotism, nationalism, or belief in a religion, tend to be divisive, occasionally preparing one for conflict and war.  The patriot can evolve to the warmonger, the believer, to the zealot.

Therefore, in my humble opinion, one's exit from one's country, as when one renounces citizenship, should not, without specific cause, be considered offensive or naughty.

Perhaps more individuals are becoming less proud of being an American, and increasingly proud to be a citizen of the world.  And this is good.   
 

[Lunican]

U.S. Citizenship also hits new record.

[Dog Walker]

Somehow the song, "Take The Money And Run", came into my head as theme music for this thread.

[finehoe]

"Plunderers of the world, when nothing remains on the lands to which they have laid waste by wanton thievery, they search out across the seas. The wealth of another region excites their greed; and if it is weak, their lust for power as well.

Nothing from the rising to the setting of the sun is enough for them. Among all others only they are compelled to attack the poor as well as the rich.  Robbery, rape, and slaughter they falsely call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace."

Tacitus, Agricola