Google Search

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Americans Giving Up Passports Jump Sixfold as Tougher Rules Loom


By Dylan Griffiths

Americans renouncing U.S. citizenship surged sixfold in the second quarter from a year earlier as the government prepares to introduce tougher asset-disclosure rules.

Expatriates giving up their nationality at U.S. embassies climbed to 1,131 in the three months through June from 189 in the year-earlier period, according to Federal Register figures published today. That brought the first-half total to 1,810 compared with 235 for the whole of 2008.

The U.S., the only nation in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that taxes citizens wherever they reside, is searching for tax cheats in offshore centers, including Switzerland, as the government tries to curb the budget deficit. Shunned by Swiss and German banks and facing tougher asset-disclosure rules under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, more of the estimated 6 million Americans living overseas are weighing the cost of holding a U.S. passport.

?With the looming deadline for Fatca, more and more U.S. citizens are becoming aware that they have U.S. tax reporting obligations,? said Matthew Ledvina, a U.S. tax lawyer at Anaford AG in Zurich. ?Once aware, they decide to renounce their U.S. citizenship.?

Fatca requires foreign financial institutions to report to the Internal Revenue Service information about financial accounts held by U.S. taxpayers, or held by foreign entities in which U.S. taxpayers hold a substantial ownership interest. It was estimated to generate $8.7 billion over 10 years, according to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation.

Read More


(function(d, s, id) {var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if (d.getElementById(id)) return;js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));

Latest Economy
- "Startup Cities," Honduras, and Experiments in Freedom. Professor Tom W. Bell Talks With Reason.
- Schiff: A-Rod Would be a Better Fed Chairman Than Bernanke or Yellen
- Detroit Broke City
- What Does Heart Surgery Really Cost, And Why Is It 70 Times More Expensive In The US?
- Ron Paul: Why I'm holding my gold
- Feds vs. Raisins: Small Farmers Stand Up to the USDA
- Your Tax Dollars At Work: How Commerce Dept. Spent $2.7 Million Cleaning Out Two Malware-Infected Computers
- Peter Schiff: The Golden Cycle

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which in some cases has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available for the purposes of news reporting, education, research, comment, and criticism, which constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (found at the U.S. Copyright Office) and other applicable intellectual property laws. It is our policy to remove material from public view that we believe in good faith to be copyrighted material that has been illegally copied and distributed by any of our members or users.
About Us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy



View the original article here