Divorcing Lady Liberty

Numerous recent news stories have reported on high-net-worth Americans renouncing their U.S. citizenship to protect assets from high tax rates. Last Friday, a Wall Street Journal editorial suggested the U.S. government should not seek to “punish” ex-citizens through high “exit taxes.” Instead, Congress should work “to make the U.S. so appealing and dynamic again” that people will be “sorry [they] ever left.”

It seems unreal that citizens should find it in their interest to leave the United States of America. Our country and its material success were built by millions of the world’s “huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.” Men, women, and children have come to America for centuries in search of freedom, justice, and an upwardly mobile future that results from both. When the tax code is so punitive that Americans would relinquish willingly the rights and privileges of U.S. citizens, we know we have a problem.

Our tax policies should encourage entrepreneurs, investors, and individuals of financial means not only to come here but to stay. Yet, it bears remembering that our identity as Americans and our relationship with our country should have value to us beyond whether they are financially “worthwhile.” Americans have grown used to acquiring whatever we desire, but our American heritage can’t be purchased―and you can’t put a price on freedom. That’s why it’s a sorrow to see Americans choosing to go.

Kathryn Hickok is Publications Director at Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market public policy research organization.

Learn more at cascadepolicy.org.