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A Record Number Of People Are Throwing Away U.S. Passports, Citizenship

A Record Number Of People Are Throwing Away U.S. Passports, Citizenship

citizenship
A record number of people in the U.S. renounced their citizenship and gave up their passports in the first half of 2020 during the pandemic. Gif: Passport Northside gif by Ama Lou @amalou

A record number of people in the U.S. are renouncing their citizenship and giving up their passports, a New York accounting firm has reported.

More than twice the number of people gave up U.S. citizenship in the first half of 2020 than in all of 2019, according to Bambridge Accountants, a firm that specializes in preparing and filing taxes for U.S. and U.K. expats.

Bambridge reports that 5,816 people gave up U.S. citizenship in the first half of 2020 versus 444 in the previous six months.

The first two quarters of 2020 had the highest and second highest numbers on record at 2,909 and 2,907 respectively.

In 2019, 2,072 Americans gave up their U.S. citizenship.

“What we’ve seen is people are over everything happening with President Donald Trump, how the coronavirus pandemic is being handled, and the political policies in the U.S. at the moment,” said Alistair Bambridge, a partner at the firm, in a CNN interview.

From 2017 to 2019, there was a steep decline of U.S. citizens expatriating, Bambridge said in a press release. An estimated 9 million U.S. expats live outside the country.

The first six months of 2020 reversed that with a record increase in U.S. citizens renouncing their citizenship. It represents “a huge turnaround during coronavirus,” the firm said.

U.S. citizens living abroad have to file U.S. tax returns each year, potentially pay U.S. tax and report all their foreign bank accounts, investments and pensions held outside the U.S.

“For many Americans this intrusion is too complicated, and they make the serious step of renouncing their citizenship as they do not plan to return to live in the U.S.,” Bambridge said.

Those U.S. expats that retain their citizenship can claim their stimulus check of $1,200, and $500 for each child.

U.S. citizens who want to relinquish their citizenship must pay $2,350 and appear in person at the U.S. embassy abroad.

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Bambridge said he predicts that the trend will continue going up. “A lot of people are waiting for the November election to see what’s going to happen,” he told CNN. “If President Trump is reelected, we believe there will be another wave of people who will decide to renounce their citizenship.”

Renunciation is not as easy as throwing out your passport. It’s a long legal process that involves paperwork, interviews, and money. Because of the increase in the number of U.S. citizens seeking renunciation, the U.S. State Department raised the fee for renunciation from $450 to $2,350, more than 20 times the average cost in other high-income countries.

High-income citizens sometimes have to pay the U.S. a type of capital gains tax called an expatriation tax or exit tax, according to Investopedia.