Over the last two years, the U.S. has had a spike in expatriations. It isn’t exactly Ellis Island in reverse, but it’s more than a dribble. With global tax reporting and FATCA, the list of the individuals who renounced is up. For 2013, there was a 221% increase, with record numbers of Americans renouncing. The Treasury Department is required to publish a quarterly list, but these numbers are under-stated, some say considerably.
The presence or absence of tax motivation is no longer relevant, but that could change. After Facebookco-founder Eduardo Saverin departed for Singapore, 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. That hasn’t happened, but taxes are still a big issue for many.
To leave America, you generally must prove 5 years of U.S. tax compliance. If you have a net worth greater than $2 million or average annual net income tax for the 5 previous years of $157,000 or more for 2014 (that’s tax, not income), you pay an exit tax. It is a capital gain tax as if you sold your property when you left. At least there’s an exemption of $680,000 for 2014. Long-term residents giving up a Green Card can be required to pay the tax too.
Now, the State Department interim rule just raised the fee for renunciation of U.S. citizenship to $2,350 from $450. Critics note that it’s more than twenty times the average level in other high-income countries. The State Department says it’s about demand on their services and all the extra workload they have to process people who are on their way out.
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For a small fee, I’ll help anyone who wants to be smuggled out of the country with their big bags of cash! (reverse coyote?)
The Berlin Wall of taxes.
“The State Department says it’s about demand on their services …”
So, just like the Post Office handling passports, ya gotta pay the lazy cocksuckers to sit around, and then ya gotta pay em extra to do their job, and if ya want it done quickly, ya gotta pay a premium.
Tell me the bureaucracy isn’t a criminal combine!
People will be trying to sneak OUT of the country.
Who’d a thunk it?
@ SgtZim
We may be talking someday….
The only boat charters I know are good for losing your firearms and precious metals overboard in horrible, unexpected accidents….
So do you pay your state exit taxes before or after you pay your federal exit taxes?
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-13/states-crack-down-on-top-earners-who-flee-as-levies-rise-taxes.html
What does it say about a country when it lets you come in illegally, but charges you increasingly more to leave? Does that actually sound like a successful country or a failed shithole of a country?
The first four of Karl Marx’s “Ten Points” as written in “The Communist Manifesto”:
1. Abolition of property in land and confiscation of ground rents to the State
2. A heavily progressive income tax
3. Abolition of inheritance
4. Confiscation of the property of emigrants and rebels
Emigrants meaning anyone who wants to leave, rebels anyone who stays and opposes (IRS targeting, anyone?) the regime.
I’d say the US Progressives are doing quite well in imposing Marx’s plan on us.
Think Canada might grant political asylum to Americans who transfer their wealth to Canadian banks before the IRS gets wind of their intention?
At least they’ll still be able to vote when they renounce. The Dems will make sure of that.
“You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave…”
By some weird coincidence, you can’t just walk out of China, NoKo, Cuba, Venezuela, and the old Soviet Union and National Socialist Germany, either.
Seems to be a pattern …