The rapidly deteriorating political situation accompanied by shrinking incomes and disastrous social conditions with racial problems to top it all off wouldn’t go unnoticed in any state.
The inhabitants of such a country in the long run would be appalled by the prospects of living in poverty for the rest of their lives, surviving on crumbs that fall from the oligarchs’ table. Nobody wants to live with no prospects or hopes to be mentioned, therefor, people are often living such states in droves, renouncing their citizenship in order never to return.
And we are not talking here about those who fled the poorest countries of the world, even though a massive migration flow has swept Europe over the last 12 months due to the massive number of refugees fleeing hunger, poverty and conflicts in the Middle East and Africa. In fact, we are talking about the so-called “stronghold of democracy,” namely the United States.
The rapidly deteriorating living conditions of common Americans have been covered by a handful of media sources, both the mainstream and alternative. However, what the US media and politicians prefer to keep silent about is the massive exodus of American citizens from the United States.
However, one must admit that the number of those renouncing their US citizenship has been skyrocketing lately. This can be confirmed by the data provided by the Federal Tax Service in the Federal Register.
It’s hardly a secret that American started renouncing their citizenship en masse back in 2009. Ever since, the army “traitors”, as those people are usually referred to in the US, has been growing with an alarming rate. There’s must a number of good reasons for a person to take such a serious step, but one of the main reasons is the veritable hunt for tax evaders that the federal government announced six years ago. This hunt was declared once UBS – the Switzerland’s largest bank admitted that it was assisting wealthy Americans in their bid to hide money overseas. This incident resulted in the adoption of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) by the US Congress. This document requires foreign financial institutions to report the incomes of their clients, in cases when those happen to be US citizens. For nearly five decades only the wealthiest Americans were subjected to double taxation, but now, however, American authorities are subjecting any American citizen to double taxation, regardless of their income. Those who commit FATCA violations are usually facing heavy fines or even the exclusion from the global financial system.
Although US authorities say that FATCA is aimed against those wealthy Americans who are reluctant to pay taxes, it’s the middle class that are getting caught in the crossfire. That is why, according to the deVere Group survey, four out of five American expats thinking about giving up passport due to FATCA.
As a result, the US government has transformed the desire of common common Americans to pack up and leave into a profitable business. It’s been reported that the US government has collected about 12.6 million dollars in fees since fall 2014, after quintupling the amount it charges for renunciations, according to the official data. That’s more than double the total it garnered over the six previous years.
The number of US who renounce US citizenship is growing with an alarming rate. Their number has tripled in 2009 in comparison with the previous year, reaching 742. The year 2010 saw 1534 Americans leaving their home soil forever, while in 2013 this number grew to 3000 people. The record of 2014 with 3415 men and women renouncing their citizenship was broken last year, when 4279 Americans gave up their passports. This is 20% higher than a year earlier and 18.5 times more than back in 2008.
One may ask where where all these people go? In general, they are going to English-speaking countries. In such countries Americans find jobs more easily and make the necessary connections with the help of native English speakers. It should be noted that the absolute majority of American population knows no second languages which puts a severe limit on their options. To a certain degree this fact can be attributed to the imperial ambitions of the state and the ongoing national propaganda that leads people to a conclusion that the rest of the world should adapt to the rules imposed by the United States. This feature is typical even for US diplomatic workers who often have the minimum knowledge of foreign languages, in spite of the requirements of their job.
So almost a quarter of former Americans are living in Mexico, since many of them have Mexican and at least a minimal command of the Spanish language. Canada and the UK also remain a fairly popular destination, even though many former Americans prefer to live in Germany, Australia, Israel, the states with large American diasporas.
Against this background, most experts agree that if Washington won’t addressed the most pressing concerns of common Americans, that the Obama and Bush administration have decided to turn their backs on in favour of starting armed conflicts in various regions the world, the number of Americans will continue to drop rapidly.