The trend of Americans working abroad ditching their citizenships, according to a recent article on Time.com.
Why is Tina Turner switching from American to Swiss citizenship? The legendary singer, a longtime Zurich resident, told the Blick newspaper that she has been very happy in Switzerland and “can’t imagine a better place to live.” But some observers believe she may be one of thousands of American expatriates who have taken the drastic and irrevocable step of giving up their citizenship because of what they consider to be the unjust and discriminatory taxation practices of their government…
According to government figures, nearly 1,800 Americans relinquished their passports in 2011, a process that requires a special application and a $450 “exit fee.” True, that number is just a drop in the bucket, considering that an estimated 6 million U.S. citizens currently live abroad. But the numbers are growing dramatically — a sevenfold increase since 2008, and that is not counting thousands of applications waiting to be processed in U.S. consulates and embassies around the world.
The article provides some insight into how U.S. citizenship, given current tax law, can impact one’s life while living abroad. This include’s relationship matters, getting a mortgage, and more. Please feel free to share how U.S. tax laws have affected your life abroad.
I should also point out that it’s not just the U.S. who has made headlines when a famous expat gave up his or her citizenship. Gerard Depardieu recently renounced his French citizenship due to France’s tax laws.
My long term goal is to move and live abroad on my pension and SS. If I give up my citizenship, how will that affect my pensions?
The law regarding dual citizenship in the USA was changed in the 1980s. An American citizenship does not automatically lose his citizenship when she or he adopts another one. I know this for a fact as my husband, an American, adopted Canadian citizenship in the late 1980s. 15 years later he could still sponsor me to immigrate to the USA with him. We now both have dual citizenship: American and Canadian.
Some fact-checking would avoid scaring people–especially on a topic so important to many expats who may be considering adopting second citizenship.
There are countries which may force new citizens to give up their old citizenship in order to become a citizen of the country–but the USA isn’t one of them as I was able to keep my Canadian citizenship.