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“FATCA makes it a lot easier to find you,” said Katz. “We have people come in here with unbelievably high anxiety who ask if it is true that they could be fined or owe taxes.”

Marino’s firm is offering a free seminar Saturday in Richmond on the advantages, disadvantages and implications of renouncing U.S. citizenship.

“In my opinion, it is the cost of compliance every year (that is driving interest). Paying lawyers and accountants thousands of dollars every year to file returns because you are a U.S. citizen is not a fun exercise for most Canadian-resident U.S. citizens,” Marino said.

Susan Wood is an example. Born in Virginia, she moved to Canada with her parents when she was a child. Under rules at the time, she was deemed by the U.S. to have relinquished her citizenship when her family became Canadian citizens. But several years later, the U.S. changed the rules and said that that becoming a Canadian didn’t automatically result in the loss of U.S. citizenship.

It was the beginning of a long nightmare, Wood said, in which she faced annual tax preparation and filing fees of more than $1,000, even though she’d never worked or voted in the U.S. and didn’t hold a U.Ss social security card.

Concerned that the U.S. could also grab capital gains from her home or affect her retirement income, Wood opted to pay Marino’s firm $12,000 to help her renounce her citizenship, which she did in November.

“OK, I was born in the U.S. But why would I want to belong to a country that will change its laws retroactively and will be really harassing its citizens,” said Wood, who lives on Texada Island. “I decided it was better to pay the $12,000 and get out, because I expect I will live longer than 12 years and I will recoup the cost.”