When The White House announced the latest United States IRS Initiative called Leveling the Playing Field: Curbing Tax Havens and Removing Tax Incentives For Shifting Jobs Overseas on May 4, 2009, I wondered how these proposed enhanced compliance and enforcement regulations would affect the more than six million non-military ordinary United States citizens, including dual-citizens and those within multi-national families, who reside permanently abroad, all over the globe.

While the focus of this vigorous initiative continues to be a concentration of effort aimed at exposing "wealthy Americans" living in the United States who have hidden their assets offshore or overseas to avoid or evade taxation, confusion reigns somewhat since it appears that the United States definition of a country that is a tax sanctuary or haven is fairly broad.

How did so many US citizens, dual-citizens with the US, and multi-national families end up living outside the American Way. We can only surmise that life happens: global companies launch subsidiaries overseas; students seek global learning and career opportunities: they semi-retire in a sunny southern hemispere, children and grandchildren follow; he meets a girl abroad, she meets a guy in the US and takes him home to meet the family abroad where he is promptly offered a job with dad-in-law and every nuanced complication in between.

However, migratory people they all become, where the most significant elements of their life are juxtaposed with their previous lives back home. And, it isn't just United States citizens that migrate; we are truly becoming a globally mobile society almost as quickly as the world-class information circulates exponentially.

So how do these six million, coincidentally just a few million shy of President Obama's individual voting margin of victory, manage their finances? We don't know, but can we conjecture from demographic statistics that most of them live their lives like the rest of us ordinary people: go to work, marry, raise families, save, invest, put children through college, vote, and file annual tax returns?

Living outside the United States, they may already be required to provide additional reporting and Know Your Client compliance documentation compared to their contemporaries "back home" by their local banks in their families' jurisdiction.

For instance, the request to open a US account 'onshore USA" with full annual reporting to US Internal Revenue Service is a more difficult process because US financial institutions are concerned about their out-of-the United States location.

They are subject to taxation in both countries to fulfill complex reporting standards and to satisfy double tax obligations - something may not necessarily happen to domestic resident US citizens. In the current global economic environment, more countries than just the United States are seeking to ensure that all citizens pay their fair tax share.

It is possible that some US citizens who live abroad may feel the reporting demands of more than one government has become a hurdle with ever increasing scope and that eliminating multiple citizenships will simplify their lives. In a multi-national family, the disadvantages may outweigh the advantages.

Is expatriation an easy option?

Accountants, and analytical math types love to say that numbers are easy. Add up the pros, subtract the cons and the decision tree is clear-cut. Life planning involving financial decisions, emotions, memories, loyalties, and family comfort can generate an overwhelming bias against a numerically accurate decision. So, it is really a serious life-changing decision that should be shared and discussed with all family members potentially impacted.

It cannot be considered simple in any way. Ideally, the financial (and non-financial) ramifications to the individual and the family should be completely analysed by qualified international cross border legal and planning specialists.

The physical act of expatriating - after compliance with all of the filing and reporting requirements - is a minimal exercise. Rather than reviewing those mathematical implications, let us start from the life planning view first.

How do you calculate the emotional effects of expatriating from your mother country - the place for Americans that is the epitome of independent thought, freedom of speech, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, the land of the free and the home of the brave?

The expatriation document itself is brief and lays out with a finality what rights you will relinquish. The following are some of the rights, but the list is not inclusive.

• You have the right to renounce your US citizenship. Will your other citizenship(s) give you as many rights?

• After renouncing, you will become an alien with respect to all US laws and procedures regarding entry into the United States and control of that entry by US immigration officials. Today, you can come and go. After expatriation, your visits to the US may be noted and monitored.

• You will still be fully liable for any crimes committed that violate US law and you can still be extradited to the US to face criminal or civil charges.

• Your renouncing may not exempt you from United States income taxation and if you expatriate under tax avoidance purposes, you will be excluded from the US under immigration and Nationality Law. Read between the lines, does this mean the US does not want you back?

• Upon relinquishing your US citizenship, you will not be able to transmit US citizenship to your children born subsequent to this act. Millions of everyday people seek desperately to gain entrance into the United States. Many have died attempting to cross the border to the land of opportunity. Today, citizenship for your future children can be obtained. Tomorrow, no.

• The act is irrevocable. Final! The extremely serious and irrevocable nature of renunciation will be stressed again to you by the Consul of the United States. You will then swear and sign on the dotted line.

Your life and your alignment with one of the greatest nations on earth is over. Will it be worth it? Only you can decide.

Next article - the expatriation financial implications to you and your family.

Martha Harris Myron, CPA CFP(US) TEP(UK) is a Certified Financial Planner¿ and a Trust & Estate Practitioner providing independent fee-only cross-border financial counsel in tax, estate, investment, and strategic planning services for Bermuda residents with cross-border and multi-national connections, internationally mobile people and US citizens living abroad. For more information, contact martha.myron@gmail.com">martha.myron@gmail.com 735 4720 This is a general opinion article only. No personal financial decisions should be made from this information. You should seek the professional advice of competent qualified professionals when making any financial decision. IRS Circular 230 Notice: Any written opinion contained in, this article, copied, or forwarded is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, by any person for the purpose of avoiding any penalties that may be imposed under the US Internal Revenue Code.