For more than a decade, Wisconsin native Douglas Cowgill has helped Americans in Canada navigate the complex task of renouncing their U.S. citizenship, cutting themselves loose from that nation's Internal Revenue Service in the process.

But it was only in 2023 that Cowgill — a dual citizen at the time with a Canadian wife and family — took the plunge himself.

The lawyer based in Surrey, B.C., has no regrets.

"I had to look at it from the perspective of what lies ahead of me for the next 20 to 30 y…