Official records of the US government show that formal expatriations (renouncing US citizenship) have spiked dramatically under the Obama Administration.
Since 1996, the US government has been publishing in the Federal Register, the names of every person who formally renounces his US citizenship. Interestingly, the requirement to publish those names was part of a bill that had nothing to do with emigration, the “Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.”
The original idea of those in Congress, who promoted the publishing of those names, was that it would become a “List of Shame” and thus deter wealthy US citizens from leaving IRS jurisdiction. However, it hasn’t worked out quite that way.
In fact, not only have those quarterly lists not served to slow down the flight of the wealthy, they actually give ordinary people a window into US emigration that many in Congress would rather us not know about. Those lists provide us a metric by which to measure the effect of oppressive US laws and taxation, as they pertain primarily to wealthy people.
You see, all we have to do to see what the wealthy are thinking, is to count how many names appear on those lists each quarter. After all, how many poor people do you think are renouncing US citizenship?
But let’s get on to the numbers. Formal renunciations had been climbing slowly since the government began publishing that list, up through 2005. During that time, the year-to-year increase remained under 21%. Then for the next three years, the number of formal expatriations dropped dramatically. In 2008, the year before Obama took office, there were only 231 expatriations.
But as soon as Obama took office, formal expatriations began to skyrocket. In his first year in office, expatriations rose to 750, almost meeting the prior highest levels. Then the numbers climbed dramatically to record highs in the next two years.
In 2011, there were more formal renunciations of US citizenship (1782) than had occurred in the four years prior to Obama’s election (1742).
The latest versions of that list show that this trend is continuing today. In the first half of 2012, there were almost three times more formal renunciations (649) than there were in all of 2008, before Obama took office. In fact, it seems that the only thing that’s keeping the numbers from going far higher is that many of the wealthy are awaiting the results of the upcoming elections, before making their expatriation decision.
If Obama were to somehow pull out a win in November, expect formal expatriations of US citizens to skyrocket. Of course, most of those people will be among our wealthiest taxpayers.
Why is this important to the rest of us?
Those are the people who pay the vast majority of the taxes and create all of the jobs. More than 70% of US personal income taxes are paid by just the top 10% of taxpayers. As for jobs, when did you ever hear of someone getting a job from a poor person?
For those who are interested, you can find these lists by going to the Federal Register and searching for the term in quotes, “Quarterly Publication of Individuals”. Be sure to include the quotes.
For a more detailed examination of this subject, revealing just how critical this issue is becoming, I strongly encourage you to read, “The Rich Don’t Pay Tax! …Or Do They?”
Order your print version or download your eBook version now, using the links to the left.
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