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Next thing you know, I’ll be getting some letter in the mail saying I owe them my life savings

“I’ve always considered myself a Canadian because I’ve lived here since I was five… I’ve been a patriotic Canadian,” Gwen said in a recent interview during which she asked that only her first name be used to keep her off the radar of U.S. tax authorities.

“Next thing you know, I’ll be getting some letter in the mail saying I owe them my life savings. This is absurd,” she said.

Some people in Gwen’s position are have been driven to an extreme step – essentially divorcing Uncle Sam by renouncing their American citizenship.

“We have a number of clients we are assisting who decide to head into the Consulate in Calgary to renounce on a weekly basis,” says Alex Marino, a U.S. tax lawyer who leads the renunciation practice group at Calgary-based law firm Moody’s Gartner Tax Law LLP.

He pegs the current rate at four or five people each week, and expects and the number of people who renounced U.S. citizenship last year — 2,999 worldwide, according to an official list — to be easily eclipsed this year.

FATCA is a huge driver of the increase in renouncers

The main reason for the bump in numbers this year is the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), which compels banks outside the United States to gather financial information of those deemed U.S. persons for tax reasons and turn it over to authorities.

“FATCA is a huge driver of the increase in renouncers,” Mr. Marino said in an interview.

The new rules came into effect July 1, guided in Canada by an inter-governmental agreement with the United States that calls for information to be passed to U.S. tax authorities beginning next year.