Ask your questions about Renunciation and Relinquishment of United States Citizenship and Certificates of Loss of Nationality.
Please note that the guidelines for this discussion are published here.
Ask your questions about Renunciation and Relinquishment of United States Citizenship and Certificates of Loss of Nationality.
Please note that the guidelines for this discussion are published here.
@tiger, my pleasure – but, the idea was Calgary411’s, I just jumped on it because it immediately struck me as such a great idea. Even if they can’t help, maybe they can offer some avenues to try.. that’s my hope anyway.
@Calgary411 et al, the stats tracking idea is so great, I wondered if it might be worthwhile to also keep track of who we’re contacting, and with email addresses or phone numbers so they can be bombarded, um, I mean, contacted by others.:) Might be just extra work? What do you think?
Okay, just send email to Univ of Toronto’s David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights:
Dear Ms. Milne,
I apologize for taking the liberty to contact you out of the blue in this way, but I’m feeling a more than a little desperate and reaching out to find someone who might be able to provide assistance. I believe the University of Toronto’s David Asper Centre for Consitutional Rights might be perfectly placed to help me, and close to a million other Canadians.
I’m not sure if you’re aware of all the issues that have cropped up in the last while regarding the hundreds of thousands of people who became Canadian citizens (many of us decades ago) who fear that the US is attempting to re-claim our citizenship in order to levy huge non-reporting penalties on us. Many of us have requested clarification and assistance from our government and have not received that.
For example, my mother became Canadian in 1975 and knew she was relinquishing her US citizenship at that time, but is now panic stricken at the thought of being considered a US citizen and potentially being left destitute in her senior years. I am concerned because I became a Canadian in 1976, as a sixteen year old minor, and also thought I was Canadian only. We have lived as Canadian since then – paid our taxes in Canada, voted in Canadian elections, travelled on Canadian passports, and truly believed it when we were told we were relinquishing our US citizenship. The IRS and US Treasury Department and their media releases are now putting that in doubt.
My mother and I are just two of literally hundreds of thousands of Canadians across Canada in this horrible situation.
We are looking for someone to help us – to help us clarify and determine if we are safe from US taxation, invasion of privacy (FATCA) and having to report on our bank accounts (FBAR). We truly feel our constitutional rights are in jeopardy through this situation. For some truly frightening and sad stories you could check out The Isaac Brock Society, http://www.isaacbrocksociety.com
Perhaps your institute could take this on as a research project or a case study for students? Or perhaps you might have other suggestions or avenues for me, and for others to try?
I thank you for taking time to read this, and would be extremely grateful for any assistance you might be able to provide.
@outragec,
Sure, that would be good information to gather so it’s a resource, all in one place. My view would be that it should be done separately from the Relinquish & Renounce tracking.
@Calgary411, maybe a different thread? I would be willing to gather the informatin and collate it.
@outragec,
I think what you suggest would be a valuable resource, keeping it as simple as possible. Once you have the framework, it should be easy to add to as new information is posted or commented, just as it is getting easier on the R&R database. (Pacifica777 will be posting further information regarding what she additionally wants to do with the R&R thread — maybe wait for that to see if what you have in mind is incorporated?).
What do others think about this?
@Outragec, @hijacked2012, @tiger, @Blaze, and others
I apologize to all the readers of the Isaac Brock Society if I was not clear about my understanding of the law on this point. What I was trying to say, as @Outrage accurately quoted, was if you haven’t been in the United States for a while and you haven’t heard from the IRS since the 1980’s and you started to file US tax returns from Canada, if the IRS were to respond to you at all, it would be to ask, “Are you kidding me?”
Even though the law says, all Americans whether at home or abroad, are required to file federal income tax returns, in certain circumstances, it simply does not make sense to apply that law to people who have little or no connection to the United States. Everyone has different blends of factual situations but there comes a time when simple common sense tells you, you don’t have a problem.
If you have had no connection with the United States government, make no money there, or engage in no commerce in the United States, even if you are technically an American under American law, at some point in time common sense just takes over and it reasonable to conclude that you probably don’t have to worry about the United States, a foreign government, interfering with your financial affairs.
Respectfully submitted,
30 Year IRS Vet
Holy Toledo!!! All of us accidental Americans have been wasting our time worrying!
@Steven J Mopsick, thank you for your answer, I appreciate it! And I absolutely hope you’re right!
Oh my God I just got off the phone with the most ignorant employee at the State Department in Washington DC. I wanted to confirm some information on their website and she kept contradicting it.
Her stance was that even people who legally lost their US citizenship decades ago, were now US citizens again without having done anything to reclaim citizenship. Their website says the opposite. The website says: “Persons who previously lost U.S. citizenship may wish to have their cases reconsidered in light of this policy. “
She also insisted that since my husband became a Canadian citizen in 1980, it was now too late to let them know that he actually intended to relinquish his US citizenship because they wouldn’t believe it after all these years. The woman was retarded!
I said the fact that he’s been a Canadian citizen for 32 years, lost his US citizenship according to US laws in 1980, and never acted like a US citizen isn’t enough proof that he intended to relinquish? She said no. Unbelievable!
I ended the conversation with I guess we’ll have to hire an immigration lawyer to prove that he is not a US citizen, no matter what the US State department wants to think.
I don’t think this woman possesses enough brainpower to be allowed to answer the phone for the State Department in Washington.
I’m hesitant now to try to get relinquishment papers for my husband just in case other people at the State Department in Washington are as retarded as she is. Better just to stay off their radar and let the Canadian government negotiate something on our behalf.
@Outraged, that sounds like a good idea! Thanks for coming up with it and offering to gather and collate it.
I agree with you and Calgary that the contact info is related to, but separate from, the other R&R databases.
So we’ll have:
R&R Statistics (already online);
Consulate Reports;
Consulate Contact Into;
I’m currently compiling people’s comments on their consulate visit experiences, arranged by consulate, and should be launching this on the weekend.
OMG. See Stephen J Mopsick- 3 posts above. What he says is vital to many of us. IRS doesn’t have the resources to find minnows. If we are dumb enough to jump into their net, that’s a different kettle of fish.
@ Stephen Mospick.
Thank you very much for that clarification. I respect it and you. My hope is that the folks still working in the IRS, or perhaps more crucially those at the top of the IRS food chain, are as reasonable as you are in your interpretation.
Unfortunately my confidence is the reasonableness of the current US Congress is vanishingly-small to nil. But then, I have my concerns about our current majority government on a number of points unrelated to this website (google “robocall” if you’re interested and read any CBC news article on that subject in the past few days …)
@schubert1975
If you need a project to work on see if you can find what they actual answers the government gave this week to the NDP written questions submission on FATCA and FBAR. I posted the sessional paper numbers on another thread but if you need them again I can post them here.
Thanks Chester12. Thank God for Steven’s post.
I was busy composing mine while doing some other stuff so I didn’t hit refresh before posting. That woman from the State Department had me hopping mad.
I think Steven’s advice is good, just stay off their radar.
@Steven Mopsick
Thanks for your post. Nice to know you are still following IBS posts. I believe I had interpreted your prior post re “make my day” correctly, in that, I took it to mean DO NOT FILE TAX FORMS WITH THE IRS, or in other words stay out of the crosshairs of the IRS. But it is good to have this re-confirmed.
However, when I read posts like omghesstillamerican, above, I am shocked to find that DOS (and perhaps IRS also), would think of any of us who “relinquished” U.S. citizenship, prior to the 1986 Amendment to the INA as ‘U.S. persons’.
In a previous post, I mentioned that a Vancouver lawyer, from a very reputable and large firm, stated at a seminar that anyone becoming Canadian prior to 1986 was no longer an American. It does not sound like the employees of DOS have got that message.And, of course, we have to hope that our financial institutions ‘get the message’, due to the draconian measures of FATCA.
@tiger
What is interesting to what degree this varies by country from country. For example I have read that in Australia to this day the US Embassy takes the view that any US citizen that took up Australian citizenship prior to 2002(Australia banned dual citizenship before then) lost their US citizenship and employees in Canberra and the consulates in Sydney and Melbourne are under strict orders that in no circumstances should those individuals be treated as US citizens.
@omghesstillanamerican- cross your fingers and hope that FATCA doens’t force your financial services provider to drag you into that net. FATCA is kind of like a gill net, it has the potential of capturing everything in its path. And we know what gill nets have done to the populations of even non-marketable species of fish.
@omghestillanamerican
Brave of you to phone DOS. Sorry to hear that the person you spoke to was so obviously ignorant of their own laws. Did you ask for a specific department as DOS is such a huge government body?
@Tim, do you know if there is anything written – a policy or guideline – for those US consulate staff, that we could potentially access? It would be great to be able to hold that up as an example for those in Canada. Although perhaps I’m being naive to think they’d care or listen. Although it won’t fix everyone’s issue in Australia, I am sure it has provided a huge measure of relief for many
@Tim
One person I was speaking to about this (a lawyer, but actually a First Nations lawyer/not an immigration lawyer) said to me that each country would look upon ‘citizenship’ from the perspective of their own laws. So, because Canada did not allow dual citizenship, prior to 1977, their view would be that an individual being naturalized in Canada, pre 1977, loses their former nationality.
But of course as we have all found out, the U.S. only views things from their own perspective. However, I think we have also discovered through all the research done by posters on this site, the U.S. changed its’ own ‘rules’ on nationality in 1986. It is obvious from omghesstillanamerican’s conversation with DOS, the employees in Washington (and probably at consulates around the world) do not know the “RULES”. Obvious and dis-heartening.
@Steven: Welcome Back. When we hadn’t heard from you for a while, I thought you really had tried to sneak into Canada as the Big Bad Wolf to help Little Red Riding’s grandmother and were detained at the border. Now, it turns out you’re just a sheep in wolf’s clothing. Glad to have you back–and glad we didn’t scare you away.
You advice is very much appreciated by Little Red Riding Hood’s Grandma, all the other Canadian grandmas, their kids and grandkids. Thank you!
It still leaves us in the dilemma about what to do when FATCA hits, but your words are comforting for the moment.
@outragec: Thanks for contacting the Canadian law school centres. It would be great if we got a positive response from one of them–although it may be late in the academic year for them to take it on. Do you think it would help if any of us also sent in a request to support your inquiry.
I’m delighted to hear your mother has decided not to file, at least for now. I hope she will be reassured by Steven’s words. In Chester’s very astute words, it would be a different kettle of fish if she jumped into that net–as we well know from the Andrews sisters and Calgary 411. Let’s try to keep her swimming with us!
@OMG: Unfortunately, I’m not surprised that a DOS employee was contradicting their own website. Somehow, goverment in the US is running rampant with misinformation.
I just did my Canadian income tax return (by myself Steven–no need for a professional!) I want to send a note along with my return thanking them for being so rational, logical, straightforward, and respectful for the four decades I have been in Canada. I would also like to send them some Laura Secord chocolates (Do you think the real Laura and Isaac Brock ever had anything between them?!?) as a thanks. However, I’m sure they would think I was trying to bribe them with my words (no need–I have a very decent refund coming my way–hands off IRS!) and would return the chocolates with a note that Canadian civil servants may not accept gifts.
My experience in dealing with CIC has been exactly the same–quick, accurate, helpful and respectful answers to all of my questions, along with efficient and professional customer service. I think DOS and IRS need to send some of their employees to Canada for some basic training.
@Steven J. Mopsick
Yes, that’s a sensible position, but if everybody was being that sensible the US wouldn’t have citizenship-based taxation at all. They lose lots of money processing all those nil returns – Nina Olsen said that something like 90% of overseas returns show no taxes owed.
The problem, obviously, is the new US insistence on increasing the overseas filing rate. FATCA is one symptom of this, the OVDI penalties are another, practices like border guards asking US overseas residents about their tax status (which happened to me in February) are another.
To @OMG and @All: It is always a good idea when talking to lower level government workers from any agency to take what they say with a grain of salt. Even with the IRS, a taxpayer cannot rely on a verbal statement from an IRS employee that is not later reduced to writing. The rationale behind this rule is simply with over 100,000 employees, there is no way to control what an employee might say over the phone. So the courts have supported the IRS’s position that a taxpayer who relies on the verbal statements of IRS employees does so at his extreme peril. It is simply not reliable.
If it were me, I would never trust something that some anonymous Department of State employee told me over the phone on a matter as important as whether or not I was still a US citizen. The same thing applies to the IRS.
30 Year IRS Vet
@OMG, what an idiot you were speaking with. Someone else heard that same theory from another DOS employee at a consulate, that it’s too late to notify of relinquishment. It sounds like in neither case was the DOS employee actually quoting a piece of legislation or court decision to back themselves up … and as far as I can tell, that’s because no such time limitation exists. I get the impression both these DOS employees are in administrative positions, not at the vice-consul level or in legal department. Although I don’t know, I would guess that persons who actually make the decisions on relinquishment applications are legally trained and not allowed to base a decision on a non-existent statute of limitations.
Sorry I can’t be of any concrete help. But sounded like such a frustrating phone call, I just wanted to send you
my thoughts (and a hug).