According to IRS data, 1,426 Americans expatriated in the third quarter of 2015, bringing this year's total to 3,221 so far. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)
Record number of Americans renounce citizenship
A record number of Americans have renounced their citizenship so far this year, according to data from the Internal Revenue Service.
According to IRS data published in the Federal Register on Monday, 1,426 Americans expatriated in the third quarter of 2015, bringing this year's total to 3,221 so far. The figure is 25 percent higher than the same period last year, when 2,585 renounced their citizenship.
The federal government made money from the move. The administrative processing fee required from those who renounce citizenship increased from $450 to $2,350 last year, which means those who left paid the feds a record parting gift total of just over $7.5 million.
In addition to being a record for the year to date, it was the second quarterly record broken in 2015. The previous record was 1,336, set in the first quarter of the year. The IRS began collecting the data in 1996 as part of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
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