A Calgary lawyer says more of Americans living abroad are renouncing their U.S. citizenship because of a recently passed tax law.
Roy Berg says since the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act law was enacted a few years ago, the number of Americans living abroad who are giving up their U.S. citizenship has been going up.
The law requires banks from around the world to sift through their accounts to look for clients with U.S. connections then share that information with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.
That's why Berg says renouncing seems appealing to some people. Berg says last year about 3,000 Americans renounced their citizenship globally and that's expected to jump to 4,000 this year.
According to the U.S. State Department there are about seven million U.S. citizens who live outside the country. It's estimated that between 700,000 and two million live in Canada.
