State Department slashes fee to renounce US citizenship by 80% to $450

Russia lets you renounce, they just make it a massive pain in the ass. I've been looking into it ever since it attacked Ukraine, and it's just a ridiculous amount of Russian bureaucracy written in Russian legalese I can't understand.

People can easily give up Chinese citizenship. They often do as the don’t allow dual citizenship

🎶 He’s still he’s still Boris from the Bronx 🎶

a child of two countries, neither want him.

The US is the only first world country that does this too. For being so anti-tax, they love collecting taxes from US citizens who live overseas.

The f*** are they going to do if you don't?

They don't pay taxes even when they live in the US

Great! That's certainly not the place to sign up, but I will find it and will update this space when I find it. 

ive heard in japan they make you declare you gave up your prior citizenship but very rarely actually enforce it

I’d say not allowing dual citizenship is the unusual ones Edit: duel - dual.

The Netherlands is funny, if you gain it due to your parents it’s fine, if you gain citizenship through a marriage that’s also okay. However, gain another citizenship on your own (greencard -> citizenship) and you automatically lose your Dutch citizenship. There is a process for getting a Dutch citizenship back if you had possession of it at some point but I’m not knowledge enough about it but I would assume that you in that point could get it back if the original situation that caused you to lose it in the first place is not relevant anymore

Russia allows dual citizenship. The only caveat is that while you’re in Russia, they treat you as a Russian citizen ONLY.

Austria allows it when your born with multiple citizenships

Comparing the US to countries based on size doesnt make sense in this context. Those are all very restrictive countries in general. And although the US feels like its heading in that direction, it has more in common with EU countries than any of those others you named. Dual citizenship is so common that people just expect it to be normal, and the countries you named that dont allow it would not surprise anyone to find out

Yep -- even if you don't have to pay taxes to the U.S., *everything* is more difficult. For years I was paying something like 3-4% of my *gross* salary in accounting fees (not taxes - just the money I had to pay an accountant licensed in both the U.S. and Canada to do paperwork), just to try and navigate this. And my situation isn't even particularly difficult. That's not counting the fact that the U.S. "reporting requirements" for a lot of the savings plans, etc. are extremely difficult, with draconian punishments. My accountant basically told me "don't ever open a TFSA - you'll pay me more to do reporting on it than you'll ever save." And you're obligated to report to the U.S. government the values you have in ANY account, anywhere, including account numbers. The penalties for failing to do so are something like "10% of the total account value, or $10000, whichever is more." And that's for each individual account, every year. Have three accounts with a total of $25000 in them and forget to do the reporting? Nope, not anymore you don't... and you owe the U.S. $5000. There's also the issue where your bank in your home country will ask you "are you a U.S. person?" If the answer's yes, they'll send your account information to the U.S., even though the U.S. has no jurisdiction. I've also heard of people in Europe get refused banking services, because some banks there don't want to deal with the U.S. requirements, but aren't allowed to just not participate. So they don't accept U.S. "persons" as customers. The whole thing is a huge mess, and it's largely gargantuan entitlement by the U.S. government.

> if you sell a property, you can be on the hook for capital gains tax even if the property was purchased and sold in Canada and you’ve never earned a dollar of income from the US. Some Australians who were born in the US have been hit with this too.

Partly why I was thinking of renouncing. The tax situation is brutal

If they use terms like “professionals at the top of their game” then I think they deserve a 100% tax.

As I understand it part of the problem though is that it still requires you to file a US federal return. Which has costs of its own. So I can certainly see how onerous it would be if your entire life is elsewhere but once a year you still need to spend money filing a tax return for a country you don't live in.

If you are even remotely considering this. Don’t. Even if you never intend to return, the IRS can: - revoke your passport, so you better have a 2nd citizenship (which is one of the reasons all billionaires have, just in case) - freeze and garnish all US based asset and income. Fine if you don’t have any. - Here’s the main kicker, the IRS can and will enforce capital repatriation through international banks for the same reason the US can sanction countries. It freezes you out of all US credit systems including Visa credit cards, and garnish your income on any foreign banks on SWIFT. - File criminal charges for Interpol extradition back to US for major prison time. There are a lot of ways the US can catch up with you abroad being the global currency and superpower. Your realistic options are either owe not enough that IRS don’t bother actively go after you, or hide out in a non extradition country and never touch US influenced financial institutions again, which is harder than it sounds. Easiest path is for ethnic Chinese or Russians to return to their respective countries because they already have options that are detached from SWIFT. Edit. Yes I know about the 120k threshold and IRS credit for taxes paid to host country. I’m simply answering OP’s question of how can IRS enforce actual taxes owed abroad.

Nearly every first world, and many third world countries, have treaty agreements with the USA that allow the IRS to freeze your assets and even literally withdraw money from your bank accounts. In fact in some countries, only 1-2 banks will even work with US citizens because the reporting and legal requirements are such a pain in the ass that smaller banks literally don't deal with it and refuse to service US citizens. And, if you lie about being a US citizen to have accounts at those smaller banks, you're committing bank fraud,which is generally on every country's list of "things we will deport you back to the US for".

I stopped filing about 3 years ago, live in Germany and have dual citizenship. Usually banks are supposed to report financial standings, but somehow mine just doesn't. 🤷‍♀️ I'm not a millionaire. They don't care. I will be renouncing eventually though.

Yes there is a breakup tax.

Typically not have to pay, but you do need to file every year.

Basically you have to file but will generally never owe taxes to the US. Any taxes paid to another country count towards your tax burden and most countries have higher tax rates.

"I'm afraid I prematurely shot my big red button wad on what was supposed to be a dry run if you will, so I'm afraid I have something of a mess on my bigly hands." \- Trump about five minutes after learning that invading Venezuela wouldn't keep gas prices low enough to help the GOP in the midterms