Let’s say I become a citizen of a country that doesn’t allow dual citizenship. During naturalization, new country B tells me I have to renounce citizenship from old country A.
Does that have any effects back in country A? How would country A know? Would country A even care if they found out?
Yeah you didn’t remember correctly at all. The fee to renounce citizenship is ~$2300 for everyone. For the IRS piece, you file a final tax return the year you renounce citizenship, and they check to see if you’ve been compliant and paid everything you owe for the previous 5 years, but the exit tax only kicks in if you’re worth over $2 million, paid an average of a shitload of taxes (like more than twice the US median household income, so most people aren’t going to qualify) over the previous 5 years, or don’t certify that you’re in compliance. IF you have a lot of money, they treat it as though you’ve sold everything you own and calculate what that would be worth, deduct $821,000 (as of last year), then tax the rest of the amount they calculated. Then you’re done, unless you happen to have US income after that.