An increasing number of Americans are living abroad and handing in their passports to escape the IRS.
Matthew Feeney
Reason Magazine
8/15/2013
Earlier this month it was reported that the number of Americans renouncing their citizenship increased sixfold in the second quarter compared to last year. According to The Wall Street Journal, more Americans renounced their citizenship in the first two quarters of 2013 than the whole of 2012 combined. The increase comes ahead of a July 2014 deadline (which has been moved back six months) imposed by an absurd piece of legislation called the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), which compels foreign financial institutions to disclose the holdings of their American customers to American authorities as part of the U.S. government’s latest attempt to crack down on Americans who avoid taxes by keeping assets abroad…
…What may come as a shock to many Americans is that the U.S. is one of the only countries in the world that taxes its citizens who live abroad. This issue was made painfully aware to me when I moved back to the United States in January 2012 from the U.K…
…Instead of seeking to punish Americans who make rational economic decisions, American legislators should perhaps consider how absurd U.S. tax laws are compared with other developed nations…
Read the entire article at Reason.com
