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FBARing the door to expats

November 23, 2010

U.S. Citizens in the U.K. are lining up to ditch their US Citizenship, reports Kay Bell:

The Financial Times of London reports that three times as many Americans renounced their citizenship in 2009 as did in 2008.
The trend, says the newspaper, was particularly noticeable in the United Kingdom, where there's a waiting list at the U.S. embassy in London of folks looking to renounce their citizenship.

Kay is puzzled, asking:

We all have complained about taxes at some point, but would you really leave your U.S. roots behind so that you'd never have to pay them again?

Perhaps. If the alternative is horrific and whimsical fines for innocently failing to to file the FBAR foreign financial account reporting form -- even while paying taxes in full -- someone who has started a new life overseas might be tempted to burn the bridge back.

Expect more of this until the Treasury calls off its war on overseas Americans.

Tags: FBAR.Kay Bell.Phil Hodgen.shooting jaywalkers.