mikelincs

There are also people who, wrongly, assume they are citizens. There was a case of one man in his early 20s, returned to the US from a holiday with his parents who had come from Guatamala, they hade become citizens, he had assumed he had also, but no, they naturalised after his 18th birthday so it didn't include him, He did have a failrly long 'rap sheet' and, although thyey did let him in temporarily, he was to undergo enquiries as to whether he was an illegal or not. Never gave the result.

scrubbedexpat099

I remember years ago there were issues wives in Texas and fake birth certs.

tht

neither 2,000 or 5,000 are large numbers in the context of a population of close to 330 million, likely with more USC overseas who are likely the ones giving up for tax minimization. If you want to be objective you need a longer time series, you need to look as a % of total number of USC in addition to the absolute number, and you probably also use another country that tax’s their citizens on world wide income as a control.

civilservant

- Libya
- North Korea
- Eritrea
- Philippines

That's quite some company we're keeping there.

tht

probably not a great control... maybe that in itself highlights the issue....

theOAP

As a US expat resident abroad for the last 40 years, I'm somewhat sensitive to discussions on renunciation. For a while I participated in efforts to reform the treatment of US expats, but after realising the futility of the exercise, I've now given up. I usually avoid theses discussions, but for those of this group who are contemplating US citizenship alongside a permanent return to the UK, I'll offer some food for thought. It must be noted that there are any number of varying situations for US expats: some will have no problems with USC while resident abroad, but for others it will become a concern.

"A quick Google suggests it costs £372 for British Citizenship." (civilservant reply #10)
The fee to renounce USC is currently $2,350, per person. The cost of getting to the embassy is additional.

"Facebook Billionaire Gives Up Citizenship to Escape Bad American Tax Policy." (Boiler reply #15)
Very old news. Today, even the Democrats in Congress would admit Savrin and his tax problems bear no relation to US expats.

"- Libya
- North Korea
- Eritrea
- Philippines"(civilservant reply #19)
Libya, North Korea, and the Philippines do not have Citizenship based taxation. Only Eritrea does, but it's far short of that imposed by the US. Where Eritrea is worse is in the alleged physical threats made to its expats and their families in Eritrea for noncompliance (Eritrea denies it).

"If you want to be objective you need a longer time series, you need to look as a % of total number of USC in addition to the absolute number, and you probably also use another country that tax’s their citizens on world wide income as a control." (tht reply #18)
Try this: it may be what you have in mind. The size of the resident homeland population plays no part in defining the level of renunciations. The homeland population is not subject to the same situations as the expat population. Renunciation is a result of the desirability of retaining citizenship for a country's expats. You have to be an expat to renounce. The size of the expat population versus the number of renunciations could be used as a comparison to determine whether there may be an issue for the expat population of a particular country. For example, some countries simply do not allow dual citizenship.

As for comparable country situations, most on this site are familiar with the UK and its expats. Both the US and the UK allow dual citizenship. It's been some time, but my recollection is for a country with roughly 1/5th the population of the US, the UK number of expats is roughly the same as the number of US expats. On a per person (expat) basis, the number of UK expat renunciations (which can be temporary) is roughly 15% of the number of US expat renunciations. Why? .

Glasgow Girl

Of course as well as the admin fee for renouncing US citizenship you are required to bring your US tax affairs up to date and pay any outstanding amounts. So, not a method to avoid paying any delinquent taxes or eliminate any oversights. Some people think this will get them out of tax obligations on prior worldwide income but that is not the case.

tht

given double tax agreements and foreign earned income exclusion the need only really applies to higher earners to renounce for tax reasons and the $2.3k would probably be less than any tax saving....

as an aside if your renounce does that end your eligibility for Social Security? I would assume it would.

Pulaski

No, non-ciitizens qualify for Social Security if they have paid in to it. It is a common mistaken belief that you have to remain a citizen, or at least a PR, to receive the Social Security benefits that you have paid for.

tht

wow, who said you can’t have your cake and eat it...

durham_lad

Not only that but the foreign spouse who has never paid into SS will almost certainly qualify for survivor benefits.



https://www.greenbacktaxservices.com...lose-benefits/

Jerseygirl

Can you post a link to confirm that please?

durham_lad

Did you not see it at the bottom of my post?

Jerseygirl

please point me to the bit which says you can collect SS from spouse contributions if you haven’t paid into US SS.

spouse of scouse

I had a quick read of the link, and it says this:
First of all, you have to have worked and contributed to Social Security for at least 10 years.

I think that's way durham boy was meaning.