Why I’m Giving Up My Passport – NYTimes.com.
LONDON — THE mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who was born in New York and holds both American and British passports, recently said that hewould not pay a tax bill from the United States on capital gains from the sale of his home in the London borough of Islington. Mr. Johnson pointed out that he hasn’t lived in America since he was 5. He’d like to renounce his citizenship, but said the process was “very difficult.”
It is, but I am doing it. My “in-person final loss of citizenship appointment” is scheduled for Jan. 14 at the United States Consulate here. My British passport, acquired in 2012, will be my only one.
Some 3,000 Americans gave up their citizenship last year, a tiny number that’s nevertheless been soaring. Yes, a few expatriates may be trying to avoid future taxes, as Senator Charles E. Schumer accused the Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin of doing two years ago, when Mr. Saverin, who lives in Singapore, surrendered his passport ahead of the company’s initial public offering.
But most, like me, are not tycoons. We’re responding to the burden and cost of onerous financial reporting and tax filing requirements that are neither fair nor just. (Living and working in London, I pay higher taxes, to Britain, than I would in New York.)
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