Tax
US Government Quadruples Fees To Renounce Citizenship

The US State Department has increased the fees to renounce citizenship by 422 per cent due to increased demand from American citizens looking to hand in their passports.
The US State Department has increased the fees to renounce
citizenship by 422 per cent due to increased demand following a
recent cost of service study. The news comes as an increasing
number of US citizens look to hand in their passports, which many
observers have attributed to the US government's clampdown on tax
evasion.
The State Department said in an interim public rule document
published today that it had raised the fee for renunciation of US
citizenship from $450 to $2,350 as demand for the service had
“increased dramatically” over the past four years, consuming far
more processing time and resources.
“Documenting a US citizen's renunciation of citizenship is
extremely costly, requiring US consular officers overseas to
spend substantial amounts of time to accept, process, and
adjudicate cases. The fee for processing renunciation of
citizenship, which had previously been subsidized, is now
reflective of the true cost,” a spokesperson for the US State
Department said.
It has been suggested that the US crackdown on tax evasion has
prompted some Americans living abroad to give up their
citizenship.
According to Treasury Department figures published in the Federal
Register last year, 3,000 US citizens handed in their passports -
three times the average of the past five years. While the
Treasury has given no reasons for why they handed back their
passports and green cards, many observers believe that the
dramatic spike over previous years is due to them wanting to
avoid paying taxes as a result of the Foreign Account Tax
Compliance Act.
In the first quarter of 2014, 1,001 Americans gave up their
passports or green cards, an increase of 47 per cent on the same
period last year. It is also expected that a record number of US
citizens will give up their passports this year, meaning more
than 3,000 are forecast to do so before the end of 2014.
FATCA requires all financial institutions outside of the US to
regularly submit information on financial accounts held by
American citizens and people born in the US, including those with
no existing ties to the country, to the US Internal Revenue
Service. Those who are not compliant will suffer a 30 per cent
withholding tax on income and gross proceeds, as of January
2015.
Earlier this month, two Canadian women with dual US citizenship
launched legal proceedings against the Canadian government for
its role in the implementation of FATCA, saying it is
unconstitutional and violates their privacy.
The lawsuit, filed in the Federal Court of Canada, challenges the
constitutionality of the FATCA agreement agreed with the US which
came into force on July 1.
The two plaintiffs hope to stop the government from handing over
private bank account information from more than one million US
residents and their families living in Canada to the US Internal
Revenue Service.