Taxes are one big reason.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: More Americans living outside the U.S. gave up their citizenship during the first quarter of 2015 than ever before, according to data released Thursday by the IRS.
The 1,335 expatriations topped the previous record by 18 percent. According to Bloomberg, those Americans have been driven to turn in their passports in part because of laws that have expanded bank reporting and tax compliance requirements for expatriates.
2014 marked an annual record, when 3,145 Americans relinquished their citizenship.
It is estimated 6 million U.S. citizens live abroad, and the U.S. is the only country within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that taxes citizens wherever they reside, reported Bloomberg.
However, American citizens who live abroad can exclude as much as $100,800 in earned income when filing their domestic taxes, and in many cases are eligible to receive tax credits for payments to foreign governments.
Bloomberg noted the mayor of London, Boris Johnson — who had a tax dispute with the IRS — announced earlier this year that he would give up the U.S. citizenship he was granted when he was born in New York. Eduardo Saverin, a Brazilian-born co-founder of Facebook Inc., gave up his U.S. citizenship in 2012.
“The cost of compliance with the complex tax treatment of non-resident U.S. citizens and the potential penalties I face for incorrect filings and for holding non-U.S. securities forces me to consider whether it would be more advantageous to give up my U.S. citizenship,” Stephanos Orestis, a U.S. expat living in Oslo, wrote in a March 23 letter to the Senate Finance Committee. “The thought of doing so is highly distressing for me since I am a born and bred American with a love for my country,” she lamented.