DeWayne Wickham

USATODAY

The number of Americans who renounced their U.S. citizenship has increased sharply since 2009 — a move that is either an unfortunate coincidence, or a shameless example of boundless greed.

What we know for certain is that these defections come in the wake of stepped-up government efforts to force Americans who hide financial assets abroad to come clean. In 2009, the Swiss banking giant UBS caved in to a Justice Department threat of prosecution if it didn't reveal the names of American account holders it helped shelter money in foreign banks to avoid paying U.S. taxes.

The bank agreed to pay a $780 million fine and identify the American tax cheats. Since then, the Internal Revenue Service has collected over $5.5 billion in back taxes, penalties and interest. Not surprisingly, by 2011 the number of Americans who renounced their U.S. citizenship increased sharply to 1,780 from 235 in 2008.

After Congress in 2010 required that foreign banks report the income and interest paid into the accounts of their American clients. The number spiked again to 2,999 in 2013.

While these American deserters are not required to give a reason for becoming expatriates, the numbers suggest that the government's get-tough approach is a likely cause.

Some of the most famous recent expatriates are singer Tina Turner and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin. Turner, who has lived in Switzerland for nearly 20 years, may have been motivated by love. Last year she married her longtime German boyfriend and became a Swiss citizen. Saverin, on the other hand, is thought by many to have left for love of money.

Born in Brazil, he moved to the United States in 1992 and became an American citizen six years later. He attended Harvard University and joined with Mark Zuckerberg in creating Facebook.

Months before Facebook's initial public sale of stock, which made its owners billionaires, Saverin gave up his U.S. citizenship. He deserted his American identity for the more tax-friendly nation of Singapore.

The irony here is that Americans who hid their money in foreign banks, or shed their citizenship to avoid paying U.S. taxes, were big beneficiaries of the tax system they abhor. The top 20% of U.S. income earners received a disproportionately high share of individual tax-expenditure benefits, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported in 2012.

According to the Government Accountability Office, the median balance of Americans hiding money abroad was $570,000 in 2009, which alone would place most of these tax cheats in the top 20% income bracket. And like most other Americans, they reaped a wide range of benefits from government spending.

From the Federal Communications Commission to the National Weather Service to the Food and Drug Administration, their daily lives were made easier by the existence of these taxpayer-funded agencies. The schools they attended to get the education that enriched their lives (even the private ones like Harvard) are supported by tax dollars. So, too, are the roads they take to the airport when they departed the U.S. — and the airplane (foreign and domestic) they used to ferry them to their new homes.

For these people, Gordon Gekko's credo, "greed ... is good," is the only national anthem that commands their loyalty.

DeWayne Wickham, dean of Morgan State University's School of Global Journalism and Communication, writes on Tuesdays for USA TODAY.

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