The number of (wealthier) Americans who are renouncing their citizenship has been climbing in recent quarters.

Take a look at the chart below, courtesy of Andrew Mitchel, an international tax attorney who has been manually tallying the lists of expatriates (defined for this purpose as people renouncing their American citizenship or terminating their long-term United States residency) published in the Federal Register. The chart is taken from his blog:

Source: Andrew Mitchel; Treasury Department

The figures appear to refer primarily to those Americans wealthy enough to warrant notifying the Internal Revenue Service of their change of status, rather than all expatriates. A total of 499 Americans fell into this expatriate category during the first quarter of this year. The number during the first quarter in each of the previous seven years averaged 115.

Now I’m sure a few readers are going to blame “ObamaCare” for this burst of expatriation. Mr. Mitchel, however, suggests that two technical tax-related changes inspired more people to give up their citizenship.



He writes in an e-mail: