-By Warner Todd Huston
During the age of Obama, Americans have renounced their citizenship at record numbers. In fact in four out of Obama’s five years in the White House, expatriation numbers set record highs.
Just as an example, during all eight years of George W. Bush’s terms in office, 3,865 Americans renounced their citizenship and moved overseas. But during Obama’s first five years fully 7,988 Americans quit being Americans and in 2013 expatriation soared to 2,999, a record that smashed the previous high of 1,781 set in Obama’s third year in office.
Graphic courtesy of the International Tax Blog:
Much of this is due to the outrageous tax situation that the US forces on Americans that live abroad. Ridiculously, the US is the only nation in the world that forces citizens that live permanently abroad to pay taxes on their income to the US even if derived from overseas sources.
This situation has gotten worse recently with the IRS attempting to force forcing countries to report US citizens living abroad to US authorities.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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