Record number of Americans renouncing their US citizenship

[jamesbond]

Here is Peter Schiff talking about the record number of Americans who have renounced their citizenship.

[tom]

3419 is still small, the number of guys living abroad is far greater, no one really knows the numbers, in the millions perhaps.

[Rock]

3419 is still small, the number of guys living abroad is far greater, no one really knows the numbers, in the millions perhaps.

3-6 mn according to US State Department estimates

7 mn+ according to IRS who considers each and every one of them all guilty of foreign account tax evasion until proven otherwise lol.

[Yohan]

You have to be careful to renounce your citizenship. If something is going wrong while acquiring the other new citizenship, you might find yourself stateless.

Not all countries accept dual citizenship, not all countries are willing to offer citizenship, etc. The issue is rather complicated.

I see little problems if you are able to acquire a citizenship which is at least as good as the US-citizenship.

But many countries are quite below US-standard. They are really worse than USA in legal terms.

In Asia for sure, most countries will either refuse citizenship to foreigners (but often offer resident permits for retirement etc.) and the political situation in Asia is not so stable. At least with US citizenship you know where to go in case of conflicts.

Compared to the huge number of US-citizens and the huge number of people who want to move to USA, the number of citizens, who prefer to move away to abroad AND to renounce their US-citizenship is rather small.

[Rock]

You have to be careful to renounce your citizenship. If something is going wrong while acquiring the other new citizenship, you might find yourself stateless.

Not all countries accept dual citizenship, not all countries are willing to offer citizenship, etc. The issue is rather complicated.

I see little problems if you are able to acquire a citizenship which is at least as good as the US-citizenship.

But many countries are quite below US-standard. They are really worse than USA in legal terms.

In Asia for sure, most countries will either refuse citizenship to foreigners (but often offer resident permits for retirement etc.) and the political situation in Asia is not so stable. At least with US citizenship you know where to go in case of conflicts.

Compared to the huge number of US-citizens and the huge number of people who want to move to USA, the number of citizens, who prefer to move away to abroad AND to renounce their US-citizenship is rather small.

Yes, it can be risky if you do it before acquiring a second citizenship from country with decent passport for travel at least. In Taiwan, you can begin naturalization process after 5 years of continuous residency permits. But those without Taiwanese and/or Chinese heritage (not sure about non Taiwan connected ethnic Chinese) are required to renounce the citizenship of passport they've been living in Taiwan on.

Most of those who take this action are from countries like Vietnam. Very rare for American's and other first worlders to do this. In the past, some snags had happened and once in awhile, the applicant would become stateless. So they modified the process. Now, you go through all the steps and get pre-approval which is conditional on you just producing a final document within a certain time frame - Certificate of Loss of Nationality (or equivalent) - from your embassy. So if you achieve pre-approval, then it's understood that you will be accepted once you supply that last document. So it is doable to become a Taiwan citizen for non-Chinese foreigners from most other countries if they put in the five years on continuous Residency permits on back of a work visa or marriage to local.

Lucky dogs like Winston and his parents can be dual Taiwan and American nationals. They started out as Taiwanese citizens and later naturalized in USA. USA does not require you to renounce your former citizenship to become a citizen.

But mainland Chinese are forced to make a choice. If they naturalize in USA, the are not legally allowed to retain their PRC citizenship under mainland Chinese laws. Some might sneak this but I would hate to see what would happen to them in China if they got discovered there.