On July 18, 2017 the Washington Post included a section describing:
“Notable Deaths in the Washington, area”
“Alan James, lawyer, State Dept. officer
Alan James, 96, a lawyer who specialized in admiralty law and a State Department officer who served as a delegate to international panels on laws of the sea, died June 13 at a hospital in Bethesda, Md. The cause was heart ailments, said a daughter, Anne James.
Mr. James, a Bethesda resident, was born in Brooklyn. In the 1950s, he began his State Department career as an administrative and political counselor specializing in maritime matters. He was a political counselor at U.S. embassies in London and Paris as well as a delegate to laws of the seas treaty conferences. From 1982 to 1995, he chaired the State Department Board of Appellate Review, which reviews individual nationality cases. He was an avocational scholar who specialized in the works of Henry James (no relation).”
Part 1 – Why have many U.S. citizens abroad relinquished their U.S. citizenship?
FATCA was passed into law as part of the HIRE Act on March 18, 2010. The implementation began in 2014 in the form of FATCA IGAs (“Inter-Governmental Agreements”). The implementation of FATCA and the IGAs was NOT free from controversy. I – John Richardson – was a witness at a Canadian House of Commons Hearing about FATCA in 2014. The complete text of my 2014 statement is here.
The problems caused by FATCA. leading to citizenship renunciation, fall into at least three distinct categories.
First, many U.S. citizens living outside the United States have difficulty maintaining access to regular bank and financial accounts. This has caused great disruption and inconvenience in their lives. Many people have renounced their U.S. citizenship in order to have the access to the bank and financial accounts needed to live their daily lives.
Second, along with FATCA came an awareness of U.S. citizenship taxation. Prior to FATCA citizenship taxation was neither well known nor enforced. By causing an awareness of citizenship taxation, more U.S. citizens abroad have entered the U.S. tax system. The consequence of entering the U.S. tax system has caused difficulties for many Americans abroad. These difficulties include double taxation, U.S. taxation of retirement planning accounts (example TFSA in Canada). Generally, this has disadvantaged U.S. citizens abroad in their country of residence. It caused many U.S. citizens abroad to relinquish/renounce their U.S. citizenship.
The combination of these circumstances has incentivized (and in some cased forced) many U.S. citizens abroad to relinquish/renounce their U.S. citizenship.
Part 2 – The legal test for relinquishment/renunciation
