Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

1,795 thoughts on “Renunciation and Relinquishment of United States Citizenship: Discussion thread (Ask your questions)”

  1. Unfortunately, you are not the only married couple who has considered divorce maybe being a solution, me included. It is indeed obscene — and I don’t mean the living in sin part.

    Hang in there with us and do pass along the site. It is still my contention that there are a lot out there that really don’t know about this. I have talked to a few I met by chance and somehow the subject came up.

  2. Thanks, Dawid. We’ll be pleased to have your statistics on the growing list of relinquishments and renunciations. Good luck on your relinquishment!!

  3. @Em
    Nice to have you on board here! Your husband may wish to consider becoming a Canadian citizen. He would have dual, and could freely go visit his mother in the U.S. But, if he ever wanted to renounce his U.S. citizenship, he must have another citizenship in place. I was a U.S. citizen who married a Canadian and moved here in 1973. I took out Canadian citizenship in 1996, but did not renounce U.S. citizenship until 2012.

  4. @ Cecilia
    Yes, my husband would definitely take out Canadian citizenship before renouncing. I should have mentioned that. Happy to have you as a Canadian with American roots and no strings attached anymore.

  5. Em When you said divorce yourself from the IRS startng with 2011 I hope you are not going to file for 2011. You are a small fish in a very large ocean. They don’t have the resources to peruse you. You don’t owe them the time of day. Good luck.

  6. Em – A switchover to “married filing separately” by your American spouse should not be an election that will attract unwanted attention. Also examine the possibilities for discontinuing joint accounts and ownerships. Separation in the accounting does not require discontinuation of marriage.

  7. @ Chester12
    I meant I will not be a part of my husband’s 2011 tax filing. I don’t really think they could do much to me either, especially since I don’t and won’t travel to the USA.

  8. @ usxcanada
    Not to worry, the only divorce will be me from the IRS. My husband was being jokingly gallant with his offer (grin). We won’t rearrange our accounts at this point because they may be looking at continuity from his 2010 FBAR and we did as much as necessary prior to that.

  10. @Chester12: “Your green card is expired. The I 407 is not needed. Go for it!”

    The IRS disagrees.

    http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p4588.pdf

    “What if I have been absent from the U.S. for a long period of time?
    Your tax responsibilities as a green card holder do not change if you are absent from the U.S. for any period of time. Your income tax filing requirement and possible obligation to pay U.S. taxes continue until you either surrender your green card or there has been a final administrative or judicial determination that your green card has been revoked or abandoned. Therefore, even if the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) no longer recognizes the validity of your green card because you have been absent from the United States for a certain period of time or the green card is more than ten years old, you must continue to file tax returns until there has been a final determination that is not subject to appeal that your green card has been revoked or abandoned.”

  11. Watcher. You may well be technically correct but please reread Em’s post and then use some common sense. Here is part of what she said:

    “I was issued a green card in 1982 which I never used — did not earn any wages in the USA — did not access any USA benefits — did not pay into SS and will not therefore be claiming it for myself in retirement.”

    If she were to apply for a change in status their response would probably be ‘WTF, 1982, what is this all about?”

    Don’t confuse the issue any more than it alreadyy is.

  12. I think I would be tempted to go with the letter of the law and not what “would probably be…” when dealing with the IRS. Not noted for their sense, common or otherwise.

  13. If we are all going to go with the letter of the law, many of us are in a very dark deep hole indeed. The law is an ass. The taxpayer advocate within the IRS has stated that it is impossible to figure out. Be my guest.

  14. @Chester12: “You may well be technically correct… The law is an ass. ”

    Yes, and yes. It may indeed be appropriate for Em to let sleeping dogs lie. However, it’s important to realize that this is the line that’s being taken. Your simplistic answers that appear authoritative but which ignore the technicalities of this horribly complex area give a different impression.

  15. @ Watcher
    I became aware of the IRS passage you quoted just recently which was why I started to worry so much about this. However, I will never be going to the USA and can only hope that Canadian authorities will never pursue me at the behest of the IRS. I refuse to hand over the key to my bank accounts to any flunky at the Treasury Dept. OR the IRS and I totally resent the idea that I can arbitrarily be designated as a US “person” when I never considered myself to be one even while living in the USA. I got a green card only because I had to have one in order to live with my husband while we were in the USA. I wish we had chosen Canada to live in but we were enticed by the gift of a plot of land on which we built a home with our own two hands.

  16. @Em: Both CRA and Minister Flaherty have said repeatedly CRA will not collect any penalties for failure to complete FBAR on any Canadian resident and will not collect any tax liability for IRS on any Canadian citizen. Because you will never again go to US, my opinion is you personally have little to worry about.

  19. Further to the headline about more Americans giving up citizenship than is being reported:

    I am very seriously wondering about the very long waits for getting a CLN after filing for relinquishment or renunciation (especially here in Canada, as far as I know no one has yet actually received a CLN in Canada in the past 12 months at least, certainly no one since the hike in applications began last October in Toronto).

    I am wondering whether there is a deliberate policy in State, or in the US Embassy in Ottawa, or both places, to delay all applications until after the election, so the actual numbers won’t hit the press before election day and maybe affect Obama’s re-election chances. I wouldn’t put that kind of sleazy behaviour past anyone in the current or any past US administration.

    There’s an easy way for the US to make me eat those words. How about releasing some CLNs to folks in Canada and elswhere, Obama? Clinton? Ambassador Jacobson? Any of you?

    I’m not holding my breath.

  20. @Schubert1975

    I certainly would not put it past them. It would be the sort of thing I have come to expect from American politicians. (Perhaps some of our own, also.)
    Or could it be that there have been so many applicants for CLNs, world-wide and they only have one lone person reading the applications – and he/she works 8 – 4?

  21. @tiger

    I did find one name on the latest Federal Register list though who does appear to be Canadian. The woman in question is the wife of the CEO of MasterCard Canada and is the head of clinical research at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. According to her LinkedIn page she previously worked in clinical research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston(a very prestigious hospital in the US) and prior that went to college and appears to have grown up in the US. I’ll try to lookup the her name again to see if I can put a link to her linkedin page.

  23. The lawyer I consulted said he handled a case which resulted in a backdated CLN. No other details of course but perhaps a glimmer of hope for the rest of us. He also said that to his knowledge there was no backlash from the IRS but without a complete story who knows what the situation was.

  24. @Tim
    Has to be the same person. The name is too unusual. I wonder when she filed for the CLN ie how long did it take her to receive it!

    @hijacked2012
    I like ‘glimmers of hope’ – they help me sleep better. Oh,how I hope it is true and there is no backlash from the IRS. It would be so nice is some of our Brock posters who have filed for their CLNs, with no intention of filing tax returns/forms would hear something from the consulates.

  25. @Expat4ever

    That is a GREAT find at Daily Kos. I haven’t seen it posted before.

    That is about as progressive a blog as there is, and it is widely read in the progressive circles. This gets the issue on the radar like writing for the Daily Caller or the Drudge Report gets it on the Conservative radar…..

    I think some comments on this site are in order to elevate the awareness…

    Thanks again…

Comments are closed.

%d bloggers like this: