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The US Tax Code incents US citizens to drop their citizenship before they have 2M USD in net worth. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/877
Also, political innuendo aside, Sivers doesn't mention tax avoidance in his reasons for moving to Singapore: http://sivers.org/singapore
Is anyone else slightly surprised that: (a) this is public info online, and; (b) it's apparently public because, of all things, HIPPA?
IE HIPAA will cost the govt money, which will be offset by such and such provisions for raising revenue, including changes to the rules for taxing expatriates who renounced their citizenship for tax avoidance purposes.
OT, but I'm pretty impressed at that site's design, considering it's a .gov property.
Is anyone else slightly surprised that: (a) this is public info online, and; (b) it's apparently public because, of all things, HIPPA?
As far as as HIPAA, I was slightly surprised too (although I must say, not very surprised). The long title of HIPAA is "An Act To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to [lots of stuff about health care] and for other purposes." This definitely falls into the "for other purposes."
As someone who holds three nationalities, and is 2 years away from a fourth: I look forward to the day I hold none. Beligerence of the "State" knows no bounds, I hope we can free ourselves from this regressive construct and, once again, live in this world judged by our own merit and character, beholden to none.
Mind listing out the countries, and how one goes about becoming a citizenship collector? My parents sacrificed an incredible deal to come to the US. For the life of me I can't comprehend why someone would do this. Loss of citizenship is permanent. Your kids lose it as well. Why would derek would do this to his kids.
Is anyone else slightly surprised that: (a) this is public info online, and; (b) it's apparently public because, of all things, HIPPA?
This doesn't make sense until you consider they're probably just bitter about lost taxes.
I find it more interesting that this publication of names is part of HIPPA. I really wish each piece of legislation was restricted to small units of scope.
Is anyone else slightly surprised that: (a) this is public info online, and; (b) it's apparently public because, of all things, HIPPA?
According to sources I could find online [2], it looks like prior to the law, people who gave up their citizenship were not required to report it to the IRS, even if they were doing so in order to avoid taxes (which is illegal [3]).
[1]: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-104publ191/html/PLAW-104pu...
[2]: http://www.accidentaluscitizen.com/category/citizenship-renu...
[3]: http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,...
As someone who holds three nationalities, and is 2 years away from a fourth: I look forward to the day I hold none. Beligerence of the "State" knows no bounds, I hope we can free ourselves from this regressive construct and, once again, live in this world judged by our own merit and character, beholden to none.
Maybe, but if you're in a country that's going to hell (Russia invades Georgia, Rwanda in 1994) and you're a U.S. citizen, you can be evacuated. In addition, if you're captured in the United States and labeled a "terrorist," you're less likely to be tortured and held in "black" facilities if you're a U.S. citizen. Perhaps not an optimal reason, but it still exists.
Does anyone know why? Tax purposes, political protest, or what? Also: it's funny that the government misspells the acronym of their own law, HIPAA.
I don't know DS but my guess is, Singapore doesn't recognize dual citizenship, hence you must renounce your US citizenship to get a Singapore passport. http://sivers.org/singapore
Denmark is another country with a similar law, which causes a reasonable amount of angst among Danes reaching that age. Particularly true of those with US/Danish citizenship, because once you renounce one or the other, it closes off a lot of options: being a US citizen can be quite good for a lot of career paths, while being an EU citizen can open up a lot of options in a different direction.
edit: Looking into a bit, one thing making Denmark's law somewhat less draconian is that former Danes who lose their citizenship via this process at age 22 still have some kind of special lifetime Danish work/residency permission. So they could opt for the U.S. citizenship while retaining the option to return to Denmark. They would lose the right to live/work in other EU countries under the freedom-of-movement agreement, though, since they'd no longer have an EU passport.