By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Britons are emigrating to other countries in droves, but it began before the premiership of Boris Johnson and his Brexit pet project, and more Americans are renouncing their citizenship, but not because of President Donald Trump and his divisiveness.
In the first half this year, 5,315 Americans gave up their citizenship, putting the country on track to see a record-breaking 10,000 people renounce U.S. citizenship in 2020.
Until a decade ago, fewer than 1,000 Americans per year, on average, chose to renounce their citizenship, according to The Conversation.
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Data reported by statista.com shows that about 381,000 people emigrated from the United Kingdom in 2019, an increase of around 4,000 over the 377,000 who did in 2018.
In 2008, a total 427,000 gave up the UK for other countries. Between 1980 and 2019, the least emigration was 164,000 which was recorded in 1982 and 1984.
Data published on the UK Office of National Statistics (ONS) shows that
· 784,900 British citizens live in the European Union (EU), excluding the UK and Ireland on 1 January 2017.
· Three countries were very popular – 69 per cent of British citizens living in the EU lived in Spain, France or Germany in 2017.
· Two-thirds of British citizens living in the EU, excluding the UK and Ireland, are aged 15 to 64 years, and more 15- to 64-year-olds live in Spain than any other EU country.
· The EU has not been the most common destination for Brits choosing to emigrate – 33 per cent of all British-born emigrants living outside the UK in 2017 lived in Australia or New Zealand, 28 per cent in the U.S. or Canada and 26 per cent in the EU, of which 6 per cent lived in Ireland.
· By comparison, 49 per cent of French-born emigrants living outside France were living in the EU in 2015 and 44 per cent of German-born emigrants living outside Germany were living in the EU.
· More British men (53 per cent) live in the EU than women – the greatest difference is in Lithuania, where 85 per cent of the British people are male.
Reasons for the British moving abroad
A survey from Health Insurance provider AXA PPP International, quoted by johnmason.com said poor work/life balance and poor pay and benefits were cited as the main drivers for leaving the UK.
Other push factors included climate and the economic outlook of the UK. The results show that quality of life is a key consideration for British migrants and they are willing to relocate overseas to achieve it.
Andrew Coombs, Managing Director of AXA PPP International, explained that many of today’s aspiring expats will be relocating with their partners and children and their perceived dissatisfaction with life in the UK, and their ambition for a better quality of life are driving their considerations.
The study found that 45 per cent of Britons were emigrating with children, 13 per cent emigrating on their own, and 61 per cent had a job in place prior to moving.
The survey also found that 75 per cent of those relocating are planning to learn the new language of their host country.
Learning the language can significantly assist with settling in and to reduce culture shock. Many organisations when relocating employees will provide language classes and assistance to help expats settle in.
Some 43 per cent of those surveyed plan to socialise. Socialising and meeting new people can greatly enhance a new migrants experience of settling in and can help them build a support network in their new home.
The Conversation explains below the reasons why many people abandoning the U.S.
Financial factor
While many liberal Americans threatened to move abroad after Trump’s election in 2016, rising renunciations are not directly attributable to any particular election result.
The trend began in 2013, mid-way through the Barack Obama administration. That year about 3,000 Americans suddenly gave up their passports – three times more than usual.
Nor are people fleeing the U.S. because of the coronavirus.
The paperwork for the 5,315 renunciations completed by September 2020 began long before COVID-19 ravaged the country and made Americans global pariahs.
In fact, most Americans giving up their U.S. passport already live abroad and hold another citizenship.
In surveys and testimonials, these people say they’re dropping their U.S. citizenship because American anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism regulations make it too onerous and expensive to keep.
In 2010, Congress passed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which requires foreign financial institutions to report assets held abroad by U.S. citizens and green card holders.
The law, intended to identify the non-U.S. assets of all taxpayers, also ended up strengthening a 1970 anti-money laundering law, the Foreign Bank Account Report, which requires citizens to declare all foreign assets to the U.S. Treasury Department.
Together, these two regulations represent a major burden for low-income and middle-income expatriates.
Until 2010, they could basically ignore or remain ignorant of the Foreign Bank Account Report because there was little chance the U.S. government would discover their non-compliance.
They weren’t avoiding taxes. Of the roughly nine million U.S. citizens living abroad, most don’t earn enough to owe Uncle Sam a dollar. Only expatriates who make over $107,600 in foreign income are required to pay U.S. taxes.
According to a 2018 survey by InterNations, an expatriates’ networking organisation, the education sector is the largest employer of Americans living abroad, at 29 per cent.
Few educators make six figures. In the U.S., the average teacher earns $60,000. In most other countries, it’s even less.
Still, all American expats – even those who’ve lived abroad for decades, earn no income in the U.S., and hold no U.S. assets – must submit an annual tax return to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Now, ever since Congress strengthened anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financial reporting requirements, many have had to hire costly international accounting firms to do their taxes.
The consequences of noncompliance are severe: forfeiting up to 50 per cent of all undeclared assets held overseas.
Unbecoming American
“Becoming American” is a favourite topic in U.S. literature, popular history, and the media. There are entire sections of university libraries devoted to books and studies on the topic.
However, there is very little written about the reverse: unbecoming American.
Renouncing U.S. citizenship is pretty complicated and costly. It involves one or two interviews with a consular officer, a $2,350 administrative fee – very expensive compared to other wealthy countries – and potential audit of the citizen’s last five years of U.S. tax returns.
The whole process takes about a year. Once you have successfully unbecome American, you need to submit a tax return to the IRS the year after renouncing. After that, your ties to the U.S. government are severed.
The formal, bureaucratic process of unbecoming American resembles the process of becoming American.
By the time five new citizens were naturalised at the virtual Republican Convention in August 2020, they had been U.S. residents for at least five years and spent the past 12 to 18 months filing paperwork, scanning their fingerprints, and studying for a civics test.
Early in American history, though, citizenship was clumsy, informal, and changeable.
Colonists during the Revolutionary War often switched their allegiance, declaring themselves Patriots or Loyalists, depending on personal circumstances or which army controlled their town at the time, according to historian Donald F. Johnson in his forthcoming book Occupied America.
National identity was still in flux after the war. It was often unclear who was actually a citizen.
Sailors, in particular, were frequently challenged on their status because many looked and sounded indistinguishable from the British when at sea or in foreign ports, wrote Nathan Perl-Rosenthal in his 2015 book Citizen Sailors.
One of the sailors, James L. Cathcart, regularly changed national allegiances to improve his fortunes. He switched identities or allegiances eight times by the time he turned 29, in 1796.
Born in Ireland, Cathcart fought for both sides in the American Revolution. Then when captured by Algerian corsairs in 1785, he spent a decade in captivity wavering between calling himself British or American, depending upon which offered the best hope of ransom.
During captivity in Algiers he was also made a senior bureaucrat, advising and representing the interests of the ruler of 18th-century Algiers.
Goodbye, America
The confusion over identifying American sailors eventually inspired the documentation and bureaucracy that would ultimately be used to determine U.S. citizenship for all.
As this history shows, the notion of American citizenship as the “most prized, treasured, cherished, and priceless possession” is a relatively recent invention. And it may not be permanent.
With 10,000 U.S. passports expected to be dumped this year and another 23 per cent of American expats – about two million people – saying they are “seriously considering” renouncing citizenship, unbecoming American is starting to sound as American as apple pie.