????放棄美國國籍的人數創下了新的紀錄，這是一個信號，即美國公民——不管他們是住在蒙大拿州還是蒙古——對向自己全球收入征稅的系統感到越來越感到失望。

????根據聯邦政府機構上周三發布的數據，最新放棄美國國籍的人當中，有一個顯眼的名字是馬哈茂德?卡爾扎伊，他是阿富汗總統哈米德?卡爾扎伊的兄弟。在這份美國國稅局（I.R.S.）每季度發布一次的名單中，伊莎貝爾?蓋蒂也赫然在列，她是富豪名媛皮婭?蓋蒂和蓋蒂石油公司（Getty Oil）繼承人克里斯托弗?蓋蒂的女兒。

????今年的頭三個月，總共有670多名美國護照持有人放棄了自己的美國國籍——隨之而去的還有他們的美國稅單。這是自美國國稅局在1998年開始發布相關數據以來人數最多的一個季度，幾乎達到2012年全年放棄美國國籍總人數的近四分之三——去年的人數超過932名，其中包括富有的歌曲作者兼社交名媛丹妮絲?里奇【她被《游艇》雜志（Yachting）稱為“蓋茨比女士”】以及作為Facebook聯合創始人之一的愛德華多?薩維林。

????如果最近這個季度的趨勢繼續下去，2013年將成為人們因稅務問題而告別美國的里程碑式的一年。

????加州帕薩迪納市的國際稅務律師菲爾?霍奇遜表示：“這是美國國稅局對海外銀行賬戶發起‘圣戰’帶來的累積效應。”他說，越來越多的中東投資者正在命令他們擁有雙重國籍的子女放棄美國公民身份，以便后者在繼承家族企業時不必向美國政府繳納高額的遺產稅。

????盡管放棄美國公民身份對一些批評者來說似乎不怎么愛國或是有避稅的嫌疑，但稅務律師則指責美國稅收條例過于復雜。

????規則“令人困惑，難以理解，復雜到意圖良善的美國人也會輕易違規”，杰弗里?尼曼如是說。他曾經是一名參與調查離岸銀行服務的聯邦檢察官，如今則是佛羅里達州勞德代爾堡的私人執業律師。他說：“這或許可以很好地解釋為什么有創紀錄數量的美國人正在放棄他們的美國國籍。”

????這個趨勢在下面這個背景下正愈演愈烈：美國司法部（U.S. Justice Department）加大了對離岸私人銀行服務的打擊力度，這些服務是由瑞士銀行或類似風格的銀行提供的。將近十多家外國銀行正在接受刑事調查，其中包括以色列的國民銀行集團（Leumi）、 匯豐銀行（HSBC）、瑞士信貸集團（Credit Suisse）、寶盛銀行（Julius Baer）以及瑞士的州立或地區銀行。去年，瑞士最古老的威格林銀行（Wegelin & Co.）遭到起訴，最終因此關門歇業。近幾年來，超過四打的富有美國人和他們的外國銀行家遭到過起訴或控告。

????最近幾年，超過39,000名美國人主動向美國國稅局申報自己的秘密銀行賬戶，以換取減輕罰款和處罰的待遇。不過，政府官員懷疑，在有意或無意不申報自己海外銀行賬戶的人當中，前面提到的人只占一小部分。美國國稅局2012年的數據顯示，當年只有200萬多一點生活在海外的美國人進行了納稅申報，而在海外生活或工作的美國公民總數大約有600萬。根據聯邦政府公布的數據，在擁有海外銀行賬戶的美國公民當中，只有一小部分人根據要求申報了進行信息披露的稅表，即海外銀行賬戶表格（FBAR）。

????Americans are ditching their U.S. passports in record numbers, a sign of growing frustration with a system that taxes U.S. citizens on their global wealth whether they live in Montana or Mongolia.

????The latest bold-faced names to relinquish their U.S. citizenship include Mahmood Karzai, a brother of Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, according to federal data released Wednesday. Also on the list, published quarterly by the Internal Revenue Service, is Isabel Getty, the daughter of jet-setting socialite Pia Getty and Getty oil heir Christopher Getty.

????In total, more than 670 U.S. passport holders gave up their citizenship -- and with it, their U.S. tax bills -- in the first three months of this year. That is the most in any quarter since the I.R.S. began publishing figures in 1998. And it is nearly three-quarters of the total number for all of 2012, a year in which the wealthy songwriter-socialite Denise Rich (christened "Lady Gatsby" by Yachting magazine) and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin joined more than 932 other Americans in tossing their passports.

????If the recent quarter's pace continues, 2013 will become a landmark year for saying goodbye to America, tax-wise.

????"It's the cumulative effect of the I.R.S. 'jihad' against foreign bank accounts," said Phil Hodgen, an international tax lawyer in Pasadena, Calif. He said growing numbers of Middle Eastern investors were ordering their dual-citizen children to dump their U.S. passports if they wanted to inherit family-owned companies without onerous U.S. estate taxes.

????While dumping citizenship may seem unpatriotic or smack of tax avoidance to some critics, tax lawyers blame the byzantine complexity of American tax regulations.

????The rules "are confusing, complex, and so complicated that even Americans with good intentions can easily find themselves running afoul of the law," said Jeffrey Neiman, a former federal prosecutor who was involved in the government's offshore banking probe and is now in private practice in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "This very well may explain why we are seeing a record number of Americans renouncing their United States citizenship."

????The trend has swelled amid a widening crackdown by the U.S. Justice Department on offshore private banking services sold by Swiss and Swiss-style banks to wealthy Americans in recent years. Nearly a dozen foreign banks, include Israel's Bank Leumi, HSBC, Credit Suisse (CS), Julius Baer and Swiss cantonal, or regional, banks are under criminal scrutiny; last year, Wegelin & Co, Switzerland's oldest bank, was indicted and put out of business. More than four dozen wealthy Americans and their foreign bankers have been indicted or charged in recent years.

????More than 39,000 Americans have come forward in recent years to declare their secret accounts to the I.R.S. in exchange for reduced fines and penalties, but officials suspect that is a fraction of the total number of people either deliberately hiding or unwittingly not reporting their foreign accounts. I.R.S. data for 2012 shows just over two million tax returns filed in 2012 by overseas Americans, compared with an estimated six million Americans living or working abroad. Only a fraction of Americans with foreign bank accounts are also filing required disclosures known as Fbars, according to federal data.