Citizenship Renunciations Continue a Trend – Upward in 2020
The total number of USCs who have renounced annually continues a trend upward; on a moving average basis.
The year 2020 was a record year (by far) of 6,705 total USCs reported by the Treasury to have renounced citizenship. That breaks the prior single year record of 5,409 for the year 2016. The number of USCs who renounced declined in 2019 substantially. Maybe the low reported numbers for the 3rd and 4th quarters for the year 2019 represented a backlog in cases that were not reported by the Treasury until the first two quarters in 2020?
The State Department provides the information to the Treasury who then publishes it publicly pursuant to the law.
I create these charts based upon the raw data and names published quarterly by the Treasury Department.
I will update these numbers through each quarter that is available for the year 2021. Currently that is through the 3rd quarter of 2021.
The type of additional data that would be valuable for those of us who have many cases and study this area of the law and practice are as follows:
- How many renounced prior to the age of 18?
- From which country did the USC reside?
- How many applied specific benefits of a U.S. income tax treaty? The following is a list of the U.S. income tax treaties by country:
I create these charts based upon the raw data and names published quarterly by the Treasury Department. This information can be found online here:
Quarterly Publication of Individuals, Who Have Chosen to Expatriate
December 19, 2021 at 11:02 pm
Patrick, thank you for your periodic posts. All are well-worth looking at.
Regarding the increase numbers for 2020, I can’t help but wonder if some significant portion of the expatriation increase in 2020 derives not from the understandable desire to escape the tax reporting-related pain and suffering that can arise from U.S. citizenship, but rather from the increasingly distasteful political situation within the country.
Keep well.
Jeff