Hello everyone. Today my son picked up his CLN from the post office. It has actually been waiting there for him for over a week but he just didn’t have the time to go get it. He expatriated on May 3rd of this year so he got his CLN in record time.
Hello everyone. Today my son picked up his CLN from the post office. It has actually been waiting there for him for over a week but he just didn’t have the time to go get it. He expatriated on May 3rd of this year so he got his CLN in record time.
Congratulations again to that fine young son! Another Calgary renunciant.
I don’t have him on the database, recalcitrant. Can I put him on?
If so, do you know date of first contact; then first appointment (
I know it was some time ago, before Calgary was completing renunciations with one appointmentMistaken.);and second appointment; CLN date. Wow, wonderful news!Another leaves the warm bosom of the USA, congratulations! In the words of Boris Johnson, now London’s mayor who famously renounced in 2006 the citizenship he had acquired through being born in NY: ‘What I want is the right not to have an American passport’. Je concur, je concur.
@bubble There is no evidence that Boris Johnson ever formally renounced his US citizenship after his contretemps with US Immigration in 2006. Loud (and wonderfully humorous) noises and marvelous quintessentially British expressions of high dudgeon yes, but actual renunciation? No evidence of that.
No one by the name of Boris Johnson appears on any of the quarterly lists of renunciants published in the Federal Register since 1 January 2006. I know. I checked.
It might very well be that Boris formally and quietly relinquished – on the basis of holding public office in a foreign government – but there is no public record of that fact.
Now Boris is a good sport and would probably jump at the chance to twit the United States especially if in so doing he could parlay that effort into domestic political gold; perhaps as the defender of British Sovereignty against the madcap antics of the cousins across the pond seeking to make miserable the lives of Boris’ constituents in the Square Mile and elsewhere with their FATCAT nonsense.
Right now, however, I am sure that Hizzoner has his hands full readying London for the Olympics next month and is unlikely to be easily diverted but if you want to write and ask him about his US citizenship and what he actually did about it, try this:
Contacting the Mayor
Boris Johnson
Mayor of London
Greater London Authority
City Hall
The Queen’s Walk
More London
London SE1 2AA
Telephone: 020 7983 4100
Minicom: 020 7983 4458
Fax: 020 7983 4057
By email: mayor@london.gov.uk (please also provide your postal address in the email)
Note that the GLA Public Liaison Unit deals with all enquiries and correspondence on behalf of the Mayor. Any enquiry or request requiring a written response or detailed information should be made in writing (by email or by post) to ensure full and accurate response. Exceptions will be made if the enquiry or request is from someone with a disability which makes it difficult for them to write. If you are unable to write in due to disability, please contact the Public Liaison Unit on 020 7983 4100.
For extra credit you might want to contact the executive producer of whichever US broadcaster is covering the Olympics and suggest an interesting human interest story: Boris Johnson, Lord Mayor of London and host of the Olympic games appears to be a US citizen who is on the IRS’s “most wanted” list for manifold sins, wickednesses and offenses against the divine majesty of the US Tax Code and Anti Money Laundering legislation.
Might make for “must see” TV at a time when all the world is watching.
*I sent a comment but it disappeared into the internet ether. What gives?
@Todundsteuer,
I just found it in spam and ‘unspammed’ it.
@recalcitrantexpat
Congratulations for your son!
*@calgary Thanks. Nothing more frustrating than having a spasm of inspiration only to see it lost.
@Todundsteuer, I found it in http://www.usvisalawyers.co.uk/article14.html from a US law firm based in London. I emailed them and asked them if they can support this claim, and I quoted: ‘No one by the name of Boris Johnson appears on any of the quarterly lists of renunciants published in the Federal Register since 1 January 2006.
It might very well be that Boris formally and quietly relinquished – on the basis of holding public office in a foreign government – but there is no public record of that fact.’
@calgary411- I don’t know the date of his first contact with the embassy. His CLN is dated for May 3, 2012 and it was all done with one appointment.
@recalcitrant,
Thanks very much. Going to update the database.
*@bubblebustin The reference at the law firm site appears in much the same form here and there about the internet but if you track it down to the source you will find as I did that, other than the “renunciation” appearing in his article recounting the incident with US Immigration and possibly a loud noise or two to that effect in an interview, Boris never did anything official about his US citizenship – at least not publicly – and may very well still have it.
Or rather, it may still have him.
I posted this message at: http://business.time.com/2012/06/22/renouncing-your-citizenship-to-stick-it-to-the-tax-man-not-as-easy-as-it-looks/?xid=newsletter-business
This article only shows the ignorance of the author. Many people are celebrating as soon as they were able to get CLN (Certificate of lose of nationality). We used to see this kind of celebrations when people escaped from Berlin wall, Soviet Union or Cuba by boat. Most people celebrating are neither rich nor owe any taxes to IRS. The IRS is persecuting (by threatening them with imprisonment and 300% penalties of their savings) and making their lives miserable for not filing some obscure forms. Many of them living in foreign nation for decades and have no plans of returning to the USA. The obscure FBAR forms are unknown even to most tax practitioners and IRS agents until 2009, but now IRS is threatening to file criminal cases intended for money launderers and terrorists for holding bank accounts in years since 2003 in the countries they have been living.
We never called the innocent people traitors, if they escaped from Cuba by boat. We called them freedom fighters. The people who are celebrating their lose of nationality are no different than those freedom fighters escaping from tyranny and persecution, if they committed innocent mistakes (e.g. not knowing obscure forms, which are even unknown to many tax experts and IRS agents) but owe no taxes to the USA. How dual citizens raised, educated and have been living in foreign nation for decades could know such obscure law indented for money launderers and terrorists will be used against them for holding bank accounts in their countries? How many of the children of immigrants living in the USA know the laws of their parents and grandparents?
@Todundsteuer, nonetheless it will be interesting to see how a law firm will respond to a request for clarity/accuracy!
*Hooray Recalcitrant! Good thing going for your family!!
Am starting to get rather dismayed….why so long for those of us in Toronto???
*I am amazed that your son got the CLN in only a month. My wife has been waiting since October. She relinquished in Toronto.
Did your son renounce or relinquish? Where?
Very well said, Bharat; re your comments on the article, and “How many of the children of immigrants living in the USA know the laws of their parents and grandparents?”
And how can we keep up with all the changes from ‘abroad’? Even those inside the US do not know many of the complex and arcane tax or other laws. That alone puts us in jeopardy because we can never know when and if we have either missed something, misunderstood, or made an inadvertent error. If even tax law professionals disagree, and we have such trouble getting our questions answered clearly, then the US system for those either living ‘abroad’, or originating in another country, is designed for, and results in punishment, and raising revenues through penalties and not designed to foster compliance.
All of a sudden in the past 10-or-so days, 6 Calgary CLNs came in, for people who attended at the consulate between November and May — 5 renounces and 1 relinquish.
@greyowl- my son was born a citizen of both countries so his only option was to renounce.
I also was surprised that his came so soon. And it certainly came faster than he had been told it would take. It was all done in Calgary.
@badger, agreed, citizenship based taxation is a defect of US citizenship making it a quagmire for anyone holding it, and impossible for anyone to quietly enjoy life if they live abroad. US citizens living abroad either have enough benefits from citizenship to justify the costs associated with maintaining it, or can try to ignore the responsibilities of it, or can renounce/relinquish it. No choice is without pain/risk of some sort. What kind of nation would do this to its people? A nation that doesn’t give a damn about them. And if you live in the US: Citizenship based taxation, don’t leave home without it. Contrary to what you have been led to believe, the world is not your oyster. Be prepared.
*@bubblebustin
PS
The June 25 number of Time magazine has a Q&A interview with Boris Johnson that appears to have taken place in the United States.
Do you suppose he entered on a US passport?
@todundsteuer, Boris Johnson is making the rounds in the US promoting his book about London. He also had an interesting conversation with Fareed Zakaria:
and on the Daily Show…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturevideo/tvandradiovideo/9326016/Boris-Johnson-New-Yorkers-who-love-fizzy-drinks-should-come-to-London.html
*Note his response to David Letterman’s suggestion that Boris could become president of the US one day, it could be most telling of his citizenship status!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9316031/I-could-be-President-of-the-United-States-Boris-Johnson-tells-David-Letterman.html