Electing to Leave The US

A reader’s guide to expatriating on November 3

Originally from "Harper's Magazine", October 2004.
By Bryant Urstadt.

"So the wrong candidate has won, and you want to leave the country. Let us consider your options.

Renouncing your citizenship:

Given how much the United States as a nation professes to value freedom, your freedom to opt out of the nation itself is surprisingly limited. The State Department does not record the annual number of Americans renouncing their citizenship—“renunciants,” as they are officially termed—but the Internal Revenue Service publishes their names on a quarterly basis in the Federal Register. ... The number of renunciants is small. In 2002, for example, the Register recorded only 403 departures, of which many (if not most) were merely longtime resident aliens returning home." Electing to Leave (Harpers.org)