Hundreds Give Up U.S. Passports After New Tax Rules Start

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By Zoe Schneeweiss and Richard Rubin - Oct 26, 2014

The number of Americans renouncing U.S. citizenship increased 39 percent in the three months through September after rules that make it harder to hide assets from tax authorities came into force.

People giving up their nationality at U.S. embassies increased to 776 in the third quarter, from 560 in the year-earlier period, according to Federal Register data published yesterday.

Tougher asset-disclosure rules that started July 1 under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or Fatca, prompted more of the estimated 6 million Americans living overseas to give up their passports. The appeal of U.S. citizenship for expatriates faded further as more than 100 Swiss banks began to turn over data on American clients to avoid prosecution for helping tax evaders.

The U.S., the only Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nation that taxes citizens wherever they reside, stepped up the search for tax dodgers after UBS AG (UBSN) paid a $780 million penalty in 2009 and handed over data on about 4,700 accounts. Shunned by Swiss and German banks and with Fatca starting, more than 9,000 Americans living overseas gave up their passports over the past five years.

Fatca requires U.S. financial institutions to impose a 30 percent withholding tax on payments made to foreign banks that don’t agree to identify and provide information on U.S. account holders. It allows the U.S. to scoop up data from more than 77,000 institutions and 80 governments about its citizens’ overseas financial activities.

In establishing the 2010 Fatca law, Congress and President Barack Obama in effect threatened to cut off banks and other companies from easy access to the U.S. market if they didn’t pass along such information. It was projected to generate $8.7 billion over 10 years, according to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation.

So far, 2,353 Americans have renounced their citizenship this year, close to the all-time high of 2,369 in the first nine months of 2013.


To contact the reporters on this story: Zoe Schneeweiss in Zurich at [email protected]; Richard Rubin in Washington at [email protected]

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Fergal O’Brien at [email protected]; Jodi Schneider at [email protected] Stephen West, Maura Reynolds

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《华尔街日报》2014年 10月 27日 14:58

2014年放弃美国国籍人数有望创纪录


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有相当多的人正在放弃美国国籍或者长期居留身份。

美国财政部(Treasury Department)周五发布的2014年第三季度名单上有776人。

根据康涅狄格Centerbrook追踪该数据的国际税务律师米切尔(Andrew Mitchel)称，这是史上第三高的季度数字。他还表示，今年迄今为止公布的放弃总人数为2,353人，也就意味着今年的总人数有望超过去年创下的纪录2,999人。

根据法律要求，美国财政部必须按季度公布放弃美国国籍或长期居住权的人名。这一名单并不说明放弃时间和原因，不对放弃了护照和绿卡的人加以区分，也不透露这些人拥有的其他国国籍。

专家们表示，越来越多的人放弃美国国籍和长期居留权是由于美国推出了一项为期五年、打击未申报海外账户的纳税人的计划。瑞士银行巨头瑞银(UBS)在2009年承认曾有组织地鼓励美国纳税人将资产隐藏在秘密瑞士账户后，美国开始实施上述计划。

目前还另有约100家瑞士金融机构参与了美国司法部的一项计划，该计划旨在发现其他秘密账户。近期，这其中73家金融机构的代表律师抗议称，这一计划的条款过于严厉。

与其他发达国家的做法不同，美国对其公民在全球其他任何地方获得的收入都进行征税。美国早在内战时就有这一规定。美国纳税义务还可以覆盖在海外出生的美国人的子女，令美国国税局(Internal Revenue Service)的影响力可以跨代和跨大洋。专家表示，那些需要同时向美国和某个海外国家交税的人，仅能部分免除进行双重纳税，而且申报流程相当繁琐。

过去几十年中，这些规定很少被严格执行。但2010年美国国会通过《海外账户税收遵从法案》(Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act)后，在海外的美国人开始受到日益严格的监督。该法案中的主要条款要求海外金融机构向美国国税局报告美国客户的收入，生效日期为今年7月。

Laura Saunders