The passport is one of the most important documents for proving national identity. And this stands true for US passports as well. Interestingly, various kinds of updates are coming out on US passports. While some of them are being welcomed by people, some of the updates are not that pleasing. Mentioned below are two of the current updates that are related to the US passports:
Your US passport might be taken away if you are a tax delinquent!
Well, paying your taxes on time is a duty that you must follow in all conditions. However, there are people who are casual about this matter and do not pay the taxes within mentioned dates. An update has been published which mentions that people who owe more than $50,000 to the Internal Revenue Service will have their passport seized.
Senate and House negotiators are working on a long-term highway bill, which would actually help towards funding mass-transit and road projects. Revoking the passport for not paying taxes is a good revenue-raising mode and this has been approved and agreed by both the Houses. However, calculations have shown that the passport method will not be able to raise very high revenues. As per Senate Finance Committee statistics show that it will be possible to raise just $400 million over a period of 10 years, which is not very large amount taking the time into consideration.
There is no clear picture as how many passports will be revoked or how many passport applications will be denied. But one thing is for sure that if the measure is implemented tax delinquents will be motivated in paying their taxes than having their passports revoked. People who travel often like businessmen etc will make sure that their taxes are cleared so that there are no problems with their passport.
The plan is due to become effective from 1st January, 2016.
US State Department not offering additional pages for passports
Frequent flyers often face the problem of passport pages getting exhausted with visa and permit stamps. Till recent times, it was possible to add pages to the passport by following some procedures and formalities. But from 1st January 2016, this service will no longer be available from the US State Department.
Now, for applying for additional pages in passport, one needed to fill in the DS-4085 application form and other documents. After processing, new pages were attached to the passport so that visa and permit stamps could be provided. But from 1st January 2016, one will need to apply for a new fresh passport if the pages in the existing one get exhausted.
Frequent flyers are quite disturbed with the decision as they are apprehensive of the time it would take for the new passport to be issued. In the meantime, their business might suffer due to lack of extra pages in the passport. But the US State Department has viewpoints that cannot be ignored as well. The decision of not providing extra pages to the valid passport comes with a cause and that is security. With terrorist activities increasing all over the globe, US State Department is trying to make things strict for people. This is also a measure to abide by the international passport standards.
To make traveling for frequent flyers convenient and hassle free, the US State Department had been issuing passports with 52 pages to candidates who needed them from 1st October 2014. This was for applicants who resided outside the United States. For people within the country, there was option from choosing a 28-page passport and a 52-page passport. And this facility was provided without any additional cost.
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