Americans exit stage left, pursued by weird tax rules

American citizens are running away. In 2013, 2,999 Americans renounced their citizenship, up 211% from the previous record in 2011. The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act of 2010 (FATCA), now being phased in, not only makes it unadvisable for foreign banks to accept American taxpayers as customers (UBS, DB, etc. already don’t) even if the Americans in question are living abroad. Not only that, compliance is difficult for the 6 million Americans living abroad; those who can find banking services face onerous reporting requirements and criminal penalties for errors.

As for American corporations, will the US politicians’ opposition to Pfizer’s move to the UK prompt a rush for the exits? Ron Wyden, chairman of the Senate finance committee is threatening retroactive legislation to prevent this. It would certainly be prudent for multinational corporations to get while the getting is good.

The government seems to assume that no one has any legitimate reason to be abroad, nor to do business there. The concept of globalization is foreign to them.