AP
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The State Department has slashed by about 80% the fee for Americans to formally renounce their U.S. citizenship.
After years of authorized battles with a number of teams representing Americans wanting to surrender their citizenship, the division on Friday revealed a last rule within the Federal Register that reduces the associated fee from $2,350 to $450.
The new fee, which took impact on Friday, had been promised in 2023 however had by no means been applied. The value is now the identical because it was when the State Department first began charging Americans to formally renounce their citizenship in 2010.
Renouncing U.S. citizenship might be an intensive and prolonged course of. Applicants should repeatedly verify in a number of written and verbal attestations to a State Department consular officer that they perceive the implications of the step earlier than being allowed to take a proper oath of renunciation. It should then be reviewed by the division.
The fee was raised from $450 to $2,350 in 2015 to cowl the executive bills because the variety of folks wanting to renounce their citizenship surged partially due to new U.S. tax reporting necessities for American expatriates that angered many.
That dramatic fee enhance drew vital opposition from teams such because the France-based Association of Accidental Americans, which represents folks primarily residing overseas whose U.S. citizenship is due purely to their having been born within the United States.
The affiliation filed a number of lawsuits difficult the constitutionality of the fee, together with one that is still pending that argues there ought to be no value in any respect for renouncing one’s citizenship.
“The Association of Accidental Americans welcomes this decision, which acknowledges the necessity of making this fundamental right accessible to all,” its president, Fabien Lehagre, stated in a press release. “This victory is the direct result of six years of relentless legal action and advocacy.”
In court docket, the affiliation stated because the 2023 announcement that the fee can be lowered not less than 8,755 Americans had paid the total $2,350 to renounce their citizenship. The State Department didn’t present numbers for the whole variety of Americans who’ve renounced their citizenship.