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.
@Tim.
Thanks, I really don’t need any more projects these days (like everyone else on this forum, I too have a life that doesn’t involve the US, IRS, FATCA or any related crap), but this is easy for me to do, as it happens.
I will send Mai an email with the order-paper link and tell him I can’t find the government response to his questions, may I please have a link or a copy. He won’t likely reply, it will be one of his assistants in all likelihood. Anyone else could do this, but I will, because unlike almost anyone else on this web page I happen to know that my MP Paul Dewar is hosting a constituents’ meeting near my home a week from next Monday on the subject of FATCA. The meeting will be addressed by a lawyer and an accountant but introductory remarks will be by Peter Julian (NDP finance critic) and, guess who, Mr. Mai the national revenue critic himself. So unless something comes up, he’ll be there, and if I don’t have a reply from him by then, either I’ll raise it from the microphone next to which I’ll be camped in the audience, or I’ll approach him right after the meeting, or if time permits beforehand. I haven’t met him, but I’ve met Dewar and can ask him to point me to Mai.
When I get a response, hopefully with either a link or a document, I’ll post a reply or a new thread. Actually probably a new thread, this one is getting a bit lengthy and Mai’s questions and the reply really have little or nothing to do about renunciation and relinquishment per se.
BTW when I received the invitation from Dewar’s office for the meeting (lots of other constituents got the invitation, I think it went to all constituents who’ve ever emailed him), I replied telling him that there would be folks in the audience (me and Deckard for sure, probably a couple others) who are going to have questions about what our government or the NDP is doing or maybe can do about people like Deckard, Blaze et al who relinquished their USC decades ago and may unfairly and arguably illegally get snared in the FATCA net, as a “heads up you should be prepared to address this.” I got a quick reply from Dewar’s legislative assistant saying my request would be passed on to the presenters for their information and consideration. If they don’t address the question, I bloody well will ask it from the floor during the meeting (the invitation says they will accept questions from the audience).
No doubt one or more of us who attend the meeting will report on this forum anything of relevance and interest that comes up at that meeting, especially if it’s new or different from what we’ve all been hearing.
@ Stephen Mospick
Would you be so kind as to veiw two of the recent Phil Hodgen’s blog posts titled “Expatriates failing the certification test create trouble for themselves” and “The exit tax paperwork for people who have never filed”.
What action would you recommend to these dual US citizens born abroad who have never made a claim to US citizenship and who have never known that they would be considered to be a US dual at birth.
Your perspective on these questions as to what are the possible/likely consequences to such “inadvertent US” unknowing dual citizens who want to exit the system willing to certifying their non-compliance by utilizing the “covered exptatriate” rule and coming under the “exit tax”. The non- compliance frequently being characterized by such scenarios as having not having filed the nil balance owing 1040’s nor filing the reports on accounts producing no taxable income but which the huge penalities for not having been timely filed by these unknowing “inadvertent US citizens”. Many of these duals may have never made claim to their dual at birth status because they never knew they were regarded duals at birth and are just trying to find an honest way out to exit a citizenship they never knew had.
Phil’s comments have been invaluable. To have the perspective from a 30 year IRS vet could offer further clarity to many such “inadvertent duals at birth” who want to find the way out of a surprise dual citizenship status in a way that involves the least risk and effectively closes the loop. And, one that allows them the freedom to cross the US border as a non-US citizen who has done what is required.
@OMG
Re: Steven Mopsick’s post above about ‘taking with a grain of salt’ what a ‘lower level worker says’ brought to mind something that happened to me involving a ‘lower level’ worker and our own CRA.
Approximately, 1 year after my late husband died and I still had not received the tax refund due to the Estate, I phoned the CRA office. I explained that I was phoning with regard to “my late husband’s tax refund and they had on record that I was the executrix of his estate”. The response by the individual was: “I’m sorry, we are only allowed to speak to the taxpayer”. I said to him “Let me run this by you again” and repeated that I was calling on behalf of my late husband’s tax refund. He again repeated the same line “I’m sorry…………”. At that point, I was in tears, but before I slammed down the phone, I did say to him: “If you can figure out how to talk to him, please let me know, because I, too, would like to speak to him”. I only tell you this story because Steven is correct; never trust what a low level employee will tell you. And I think it particularly holds for government agencies.
“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.”
I ABSOLUTELY AGREE. The only outstanding issue for me is the issue of crossing the border and I have opted to not do so. I appreciate that many of you have opted in and hope for your sake this cab be resolved and you can relinguish/renounce without too much penalty. For me, I guess I will die an exile.
@Steven: Thanks for your honesty about IRS and DOS in this statement: “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.”
If we can’t trust DOS or IRS to give us accurate, reliable information, where can we get it? Lawyers all have different answers, accountants have different answers.
It absolutely boggles my mind that the country which claims to be the greatest on earth and wants to tell all other countries how to run their governments could have employees who cannot quickly and correctly answer a question about something as basic and as important as citizenship.
Of course, if we somehow get caught up in the IRS snare and claim we honestly didn’t know about filing requirements or had every reason to believe we were not US citizens based on what the Consulate told us, it may not be considered “reasonable cause.”
It feels like anarchy–everyone making up the rules as they go along!
Steven, please tell me you can see how absolutely unreasonable it is that Consulates, Embassies and DOS have not trained their employees to give factual, accurate information on citizenship!
@Joe Smith
I certainly agree with the message that Steven is giving many of us, particularly those of us who have had no contact with the IRS for decades. However, what has me very concerned are the FATCA rules that might finally be agreed upon by my government and their effect on myself and others.
No, move all investments to a Credit Union. Try Alterna. End of story.
And even if you do not move to Alterna, and the Royal Bank sends your bank records to Washington, what happens next?
@joesmith- Credit Unions may not offer the refuge that is hoped for. A lot will depend on to what extent non FATCA compliant financial institutions can interact with compliant FFI’s without risking the compliance status of the compliant FFI’s.
No, No, No. This is not reasonable thinking. 1,000,000+ Canadian residents are going to have their financial accounts audited, reported to Washington, and then somehow garnished? Please deal with reality.
@tiger
I called Overseas Citizens Services, Bureau of Consular Affairs, U.S. Department of State in Washington, DC
The number is at this link: Advice about Possible Loss of U.S. Citizenship and Dual Nationality
I called to confirm the following information which I found at the above link:
I repeated what the website said to the DOS employee several times but she refused to even go look at it insisting that every American that ever lived was still an American because why wouldn’t they want to be?
When I told her about the ability to relinquish she insisted that would not be possible which directly contradicts what the State Department website says. She had difficulty even forming sentences correctly so I thought I better get off the phone before I lose my temper!
@pacifica777, thanks for the comforting words and hugs back to you.
I didn’t do the link correctly, here it is: http://travel.state.gov/law/citizenship/citizenship_778.html
@Schubert1975
Re your post from earlier today. Oh, how I wish I could attend that meeting (a week from Monday). There are many of us (like Blaze, Arrow, Johnnb and all others who expatriated years ago) who would love to be able to attend and hear your questions. Living across the country as I do, I will just have to await your reply. Again, Schubert, I personally thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your tireless work on these issues.
@Therapist 604, @Blaze and @All: I reread the thread with Phil on renouncing citizenship. I understand the extreme frustration everyone is feeling about this issue and @Blaze, Yes! It is absolutely unreasonable for State Department employees to be allowed to talk to the public freely especially when they don’t have a clue about what they are talking about.
In my post above I said,
Even though the laws 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.
I believe the people who read the Isaac Brock Society web page represent a full spectrum of Canadian and others from the Jacks and Jills of the world at one extreme, to the accidental American at the other extreme who may now be living in the Yukon Territory making a living fishing in the Beaufort Sea for the past 40 years.
The readers who are having the most angst over this issue are the folks whose facts put them somewhere in the middle. People who may own property in the US, go back and forth for business purposes frequently; or people who have filed US tax returns for some of the past few years and not for others, people who are receiving retirement checks from the United States but have no other U.S. connections, marriages where one spouse has a history of close US connections but the other spouse has none. The possible scenarios are limitless.
What Phil reported to you in his previous posts is absolutely true and correct “black letter law,” nicely summarized and easy to understand. But no American lawyer is going to give you advice on a web page that you can rely on.
The problem is you cannot take what you read on a web site which was not written with your specific facts in mind and rely on that for a course of action on these complex issues of citizenship and taxation.
My strong advice to anyone in the middle who doesn’t know which way to turn is to engage a Canadian lawyer who is knowledgeable in the fields of taxation and immigration. Disclose to that lawyer all of your facts and ask him or her to give you a written legal opinion on what you should do. Assuming you picked a competent and capable person, take that advice and rely on it and then move on.
The Isaac Brock Society is a fantastic resource. But in MHO as a federal tax attorney down here in Sacramento, California, I can say with a high degree of certainty that nothing you read on this web site or any other web site can be relied upon for your own personal situation. The US courts which have ruled in this area have a notion called “reasonable reliance on the advice of a professional.” Nothing that you rely upon here is “reasonable reliance” under US tax law. Once you establish reasonable reliance on the advice of a professional you will be protected from penalties and possible extreme IRS enforcement under US tax law in the event you end up sideways with our beloved Internal Revenue Service.
Reliance on anything short of consulting with a person who specializes in this area and advises you with respect to your individual tax situation is pure guess work.
Respectfully submitted,
30 Year IRS Vet
@Tiger
Thanks for your thanks. I can’t promise we’ll get clear answers, or the answers we want to hear, but I think I can promise the questions will be asked or covered. My wife will be with me and has warned me that she’ll poke me with a very sharp stick if I’m not asking a question that should be asked, or not challenging something I hear that needs challenge or debate. Also, I won’t be the only person from this forum who’ll be at the meeting … and none of us are shrinking violets.
Wish I could be a ‘fly on the wall’
I’ve just read through the recent welter of comment. Phone call to idiot at DoS. Desperate gasps of relief at perceived exoneration via SJMopsick. Today’s face-to-face with local consular bureaucracy, dashing those naive one-time hopes. Etc.
It all reminds me of the basic principle in “know your rights” training. The cop in front of you with soles on the concrete is “the law” and gets to make any outrageous claims or demands he/she wants to. A pile of lawbooks off in a library makes no difference whatsoever.
You always have the “right” to stick up for what you understand to be the case – and then possibly to get embroiled in months or years of subsequent wrangling and sorting out, with big bucks flowing all the while to “professionals.”
IRS is a cop. Department of State is a cop. A consular official is a cop.
Case law is rare and extremely expensive.
We in the middle are all tangled in an expensive mess that offers good livelihood to state functionaries – and far too often to unscruplous accountants and lawyers who can offer much advice and probabilities and no guarantees. O Drudgery!
Those who think they lost US citizenship before the magic 1986 or whatever will be subjected forevermore to cretins who think otherwise. Unless they can trot out a CLN.
Gotcha! Catch-22! To get a CLN may put you on the radar and may result in discovery of some bit of fuzz that means renunciation rather than relinquishment. So at the least, the US gets $450. At worst, never-dreamed-of exaction of unpaid taxes and varieties of penalties.
I will be astonished if the heartless system allows many to “relinquish.” Administratively it will be easier and more profitable for the United States routinely to demand renunciation, an act in the present with intent as clear as it ever can be. With no need to investigate or to assess all those contradictory past histories. And leaving the applicant less elbow room for future comeback.
Potential relinquishers may find that their route, if ever effective, takes more time, and may require appeals to succeed.
Speculation. As paper piles up in Washington, bureaucrats cobble policy together. Policy is slow business and takes at least 6 to 12 months?
OK Now I’m impressed. How many Americans (let alone Canucks) know that the Yukon territory borders on the Beaufort Sea? A little cold for fishing. A few narwhales perhaps.
Further to Stephen’s excellent points about the need to get professional advice on your own situation — once in a while, you may find that a professional has given you some advice that turns out not to have been fully correct or not effective in achieving what you and the lawyer thought it would achieve. Without going into specific examples (for some good reasons), when that happens, do politely contact your professional and inform them what went wrong (documenting this with anything you got in writing) so that they don’t perpetuate the error on other clients, and to give them a chance to make some amends or provide some reasonable advice as to a plan B or whatever.
On the subject of what to do when getting wonky advice or information from some bureaucrat, whether over the phone or in person — ask for it in writing and a signature, or for a copy of or a reference to a specific piece of legislation or regulation, or ask to speak with the person’s supervisor. If necessary, keep crawling up the food chain until you get someone who seems to be better informed and who can give you something in writing that supports what they’re saying. Or go to the top and file a complaint at that level, if you get frustrated or blocked.
Every government employee is called a “public servant,” at least in both Canada and the US. Notice the word “servant” and keep that point in your mind at all times. They aren’t monarchs or warlords who can do and say whatever the hell they want to. Not and keep their jobs forever, contrary to some popular misconceptions.
@ Steven J. Mospick
I want to thank you for your thorough response and open candor regarding the conundrum that many US duals and otherwise are faced with, both because of the varied nuances of the countless scenarios which many find themselves in and, also, because of the vast difference in the way the IRS has developed the reporting and penalty structure which is being applied to citizens abroad as well as immigrant residents from the reporting and penalty structures being applied to US citizens residing in the States.
It is clear that the US citizen born abroad, citizens living abroad, and immigrant US residents who make an unknowing mistake or “unintentional mistake” are being treated like criminals and are fined in a way that few, if any, US citizens living within the borders of the United States are treated and fined who also make “unitentional mistakes”.
What we see instead is the present government administration, both presidential and congressional, asking the public to look kindly on its resident US citizens who make “unitentional mistakes”. These aware in error US citizens are granted a public amnesty of sorts by the highest government offical of the US stating that these such citizens, despite their advanced legal/accounting education, expertise, and experience in the government/financial arena, have made “unintentional mistakes” and, thus, should be forgiven without penalty.
Steven, your expertise in these matters is valued those who have little legal knowledge or finacial/taxation experience. The recommendation that seeking a paid consultation with a competent lawyer now appears to be the best next step for many before they are able to decide how best to navigate the perils of coming into compliance when, as of yet, the IRS is not offering a clear, reasonable and just amnesty to the innocent and oftime unaware minnow. As all are aware, to date there is only an official amnesty being offered to the knowing criminal and a presidential publicly stated forgiveness to those taxpayers holding special political value to this current government; a government which does not treat its citizens born abroad, living abroad, and recent immigrant residents with respect and which does not offer to them a justice that is equal to the amnesty offered to the criminals and political “friends” of the US government. This is certainly a sad reflection on a once great nation that has lost its way.
So, it’s either cock-eyed useless advice (that some might take as gospel), or
the more savvy persons, as for every question that I ever asked at the IRS (that is, when I finally got through, my dime), advising me to consult with a US tax lawyer or cross-border accountant — a good answer to most any but the most basic question they get.
And, indeed, I’ve taken their advice as I’ve certainly have not found anyone at the IRS who either has interest or knowledge in helping me AT ALL — and then they follow up with a survey for me to answer or read the script, “Is there anything else I can help you with? Have a nice day.”
Tiger, that’s so outrageous. My belated sympathy for some incompetent’s treatment of your question. Someone like that should not allowed to deal with the public. PERIOD.
@calgary411
Thank you for your sympathy. It is 19 years ago and yet it is as fresh in my mind as if it was yesterday. I even to this day would recognize the voice of the person. I did garner a valuable lesson from that experience – I don’t trust the answer I get from the first person that I speak to in any government agency, and if I don’t like their answer, I ask to speak to their supervisor and ALWAYS ask for their name. Some lessons are learned the hard way.
Please accept my correction. The highest official of the United States, then President-elect Obama, made a public statement implying that public understanding be extended to his pick for the Tresury Secretary position, Timothy Geithner, after it was revealed that he had tax issues. As many know, the public was asked to consider these tax issues be looked on as “honest mistakes” (rather than the term I used of “inadvertent mistakes”). Suggesting to all that this could be forgiven. This story is no doubt familiar to most here. Please forgive my “honest mistake” of a misquote.
I found this article written by a German law firm “The end of exit taxes in Europe” which appears to show that there are precendents in Europe which might apply to US policy in this matter:
https://www.henleyglobal.com/media-events/articles/the-end-of-exit-taxes-in-europe/