I am putting this informative comment into a post where it will garner more attention.
I wanted to share my brother’s and my experience today of applying for US citizenship at the Toronto Consulate. We are both Canadian born children of a US parent who is now deceased. Given the information we have taken from the internet, IRS and US citizenship sites, we came to believe that we had to obtain US citizenship (we were never registered as born abroad by our US parent). We completed all the paper work, obtained the documents and booked the appointment and attended for that today. We were to be granted US citizenship, however when we advised them that we actually did not wish to obtain the citizenship and in fact the only reason we had come was because we believed the US required it of us they were dismayed. We were told by the consulate officer and her direct superior that they cannot force anyone who is born outside of the US to acquire citizenship – it is a choice. When we pressed her further stating that this is not the information we are getting she advised clearly that we are not US citizens unless we willingly apply for and accept the citizenship. She stated we can say unequivocally that we are not US citizens unless we wish to be. We respectfully declined the offer of citizenship (to their amazement) and left with our refund and documents in hand. I will certainly sleep better and breathe easier! I hope this helps other Canadian born who are concerned about this.
@SueBee,
I want to thank you for sharing the experience of you and your brother applying for US citizenship at the Toronto Consulate today and being advised that you are not a US citizen unless you wish to be.
I have just sent the following to my Washington DC immigration / nationality lawyer, to my US tax lawyer and to General Consul of Canada, Ottawa Embassy Sylvia D. Johnson. This is a very important question for many in Canada!
But that is the policy of immigration department, the IRS and Treasury may use another measurement on citizenship, beside their term is an US person which is different form a citizenship. Maybe they should get a written letter from the consulate.
Calgary. You seem shocked. This is not at all surprising. It is however good news and should put your mind at ease.
The lesson I see from this is: Do not do anything that will trigger US citizenship. Do not get an American passport, do not sign your children up for anything at the US embassy/consulate. Stay as far away as you can from this leech of a nation.
@calgary,
Please keep us posted on your responses to your letter. If true it is such good news for you and many others in Canada and other countries.
I know my three sons would be delighted to know for sure that they did not inherit the albatross of American citizenship from me.
@KalC,
No, I’m not at all shocked and have made my choice for my son as such. But, I would absolutely love to have it “carved in stone.” It should be shouted from the hills!
@Mjyung,
The Toronto Consulate is part of the US Department of State. If that is DOS policy, it needs to have the light of day.
This is an interesting development but one that shouldn’t surprise us given the fact that the State Department really pushes the idea of registering foreign born kids. Clearly, they know that they can’t force citizenship on foreign born off-spring who also hold citizenship in their birth countries via their other parent.
But, it’s troubling b/c from the tax angle, this isn’t being made clear and probably deliberately so.
American citizenship then is not a choice for those born on American soil but it is for those who merely inherit the right to apply for it. Very good know.
Calgary411, it seems the State Department hasn’t been very honest with you about your son. I mean, if he can’t understand the concept of citizenship well enough to renounce it, than clearly, he can’t seek it willingly either – which he has to do in order to be a USC in the first place.
Animal, looks like your kids are free and clear, congrats!
Letter to US / Canadian Son on the Occasion of His High School Graduation
If nothing else, may we learn we should not give or have given the gift to our children of registering them as US citizens. They can make this choice when they are “adults” when they have learned all of the benefits and all of the consequences. Claiming US citizenship should be up to them — not us, their parents, and not the USA or the IRS.
@YogaGirl,
If this is absolutely true, precisely so. The US Consulate in Calgary did not give me all the facts, a full answer to questions about my son — and I, too, feel that is deliberate omission.
Calgary411, in your shoes, I would be more than a little pissed off.
In so many shoes, we should be pissed off. If this is indeed fact, it should not be hidden to any family with children born in other countries — it should be stated clearly, upfront.
This is, of course, only one aspect of US obfuscation. Those immigrating to the US are not told of their tax obligations that go along with getting a green card. Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan unsuccessfully looking for work in the US and having opportunity for work in Canada’s oil & gas industry (at least the labourers who will not have their US tax and reporting returns prepared as part of their employment contract) are not / will not be given full transparency on their US citizenship-based taxation and reporting obligations as they leave their families once again for employment in other than their home country to support their families they leave behind.
How many of us knew of our obligations? We were lulled into complacency — few knew, even the accountants we hired for our own country’s tax returns.
I call it bloody entrapment into the US citizenship-based taxation maze. Tell us in plain English and tell us often what US citizenship-based taxation means, the clear, plain English rules. Again, how many learned about US citizenship-based taxation in their US schooling? I didn’t — or at least I don’t think I did. It’s true — my old memory fails me at times. The how many pages long US Tax Code is an abomination that further entraps us — small mistakes are very expensive.
Yes, those who were discussing terminology earlier today, we US Persons Abroad are US tax vassals.
@Calgary
Here is a post that I wrote on this topic on January of 2012. I thought I posted it here, but if not feel free to move it over. I remember this as being a complicated area that is dependent on the law in place at the time you were born abroad to a U.S. parent(s).
http://renounceuscitizenship.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/accidental-u-s-citizenship-does-it-stay-with-you-for-life/
Basically, I think (like everything else) that it depends.
To set the context:
@calgary411, as YogaGirl stated, your son obviously never chose to be a US citizen and thus cannot be claimed by the US. Maybe it is time for all of us to get all of the human rights groups in the world active on this issue.
I have warned my offspring about US citizenship and they have stated that they are prepared to make the choice of renouncing US citizenship in 10 years if things do not improve by then.
@calgary, this is very interesting – and I hope it turns out to have a sound basis.There will be many waiting, hoping that some of the children of US parents in Canada and elsewhere will be given that choice. It is too late for some, but it would certainly exempt many current and future RESPs, RDSPs and TFSAs out there from FBAR and US unjust extraterritorial taxation – if many children born in Canada and elsewhere outside the US but with US parentage were not deemed UStax vassals right from conception – and thus did not ever have a reporting obligation.
If it is true that this is a choice if the child was never registered, then some US tax lawyers here in Canada have been advising actions which resulted in the conversion of the Canadian-born children of US born parents into US taxpayers – subjecting their RESPs and TFSAs to the BSA FBAR and 3520 perils and US extraterritorial taxation without good cause. I believe that personal US homeland affiliation of professionals may interfere with the advice given, since some US citizen tax professionals may believe that the current peril and costs of compliance is still worth some theoretical future nebulous ‘opportunity’ to walk the gold paved streets that carpet the US homeland and so default to advice that would preserve that theoretical access. I think that there are some professionals that allow their own personal beliefs about the US to colour their advice when UScitizenship is at stake – re claiming it, and also renouncing it.
This sounds like a grey area that can be exploited by those who would want to take advantage of certain groups of people.
This brings to mind the story I read of the person who applied for a Vvsa to enter the US and was rejected on the basis that he was already a US citizen. Did he want to be? Could he have rejected it at that point, or would he have had to renounce US citizenship to rid himself of it? This is certainly an example of entrapment.
A less clear example of entrapment is how the OVDI offers a 5% ‘in lieu of penalty’ for those who did not know they were US citizens. It all of this is true, who besides those whose parents didn’t tell them they were registered at birth wouldn’t know they were US citizens? Upon learning about this ‘carve out’ in OVDI, would the average person come to the conclusion that if they at some time during their life had learned that they had the legal right to be a US citizen, they might be regarded by the IRS as someone who didn’t know they were a US citizen?
…and if you were to ask the IRS to clarify what qualifies you for ‘being unaware’, what kind of answer would you get and how much would it cost you in legal fees to get it?
I just remembered that the visa applicant was told to get a US passport instead, as he was already a USC!
@All
I know I must sound like a broken record:
But, the first thing you do is make sure that you really are U.S. person!
This is a matter of interpreting the “shifting sands” of immigration and citizenship law.
Although, at face value, it seems simple, it is a complex area of the law. It is NOT an area that many tax people are experts on.
Put it this way:
A small amount of money paid to a good immigration/nationality lawyer could be the best investment of your life (could even determine whether you have any more of a life!)
I’d be sorry to see the consulate run into trouble over this – they’re describing a practical reality in a helpful way. The story may have been mangled a bit along the way.
Legally, yes, the foreign-born children of US citizens will in most cases be US citizens themselves.
In practice – they’re not on anybody’s radar, they may not be aware of it, or want it, or any of that. In practice they have an invisible dormant citizenship that can be activated, or not.
is a perfectly reasonable and humane summary of this kind of situation.
From the thread “About the Isaac Brock Society” just to bring the conversation to this thread, here are two comments.
From nobledreamer: http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2011/12/14/about-the-isaac-brock-society/comment-page-4/#comment-365071
From SueBee: http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2011/12/14/about-the-isaac-brock-society/comment-page-4/#comment-365727
and my response: http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2011/12/14/about-the-isaac-brock-society/comment-page-4/#comment-365793
I would hate to see the consulate run into trouble over this as well. It all boils down to “With FATCA (and eventually GATCA?) I want a US statement that proves to my Canadian bank that my son is NOT a US citizen because he was not registered with the US, never lived in the US, never had any benefit from the US, has no ties (other than relatives in the US); that he or I are no liability to our Canadian bank — one because she has renounced US citizenship and has a CLN in hand and the other, my son, who has never claimed his right to US citizenship.” I want out of the entrapment and the opaqueness of this that I would need lawyers to prove or disprove or fight for my son or me as his trustee holding “US foreign trust” accounts in Canada — or any kind of Canadian financial account.
I suspect that if they had to put it more formally they would say that the US does not require citizens abroad to document their citizenship. SueBee and her brother were under a misapprehension about this, and the consular officer did her job and corrected it.
Therefore, SueBee and her brother are, in fact, responsible for US income tax and FBAR compliance, right?
It should not be right, accidental Americans, they and many others who have not chosen US citizenship are entrapped in US citizenship / criminalized. They had no choice in being born to “US Citizens.”
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This is excellent news, if it is confirmed and upheld by the State Department. I look forward to hearing whether anyone gets written confirmation of this interpretation from a US State Department official on departmental stationery. If anyone gets such a letter, please consider posting a copy on this website or sending a JPG or PDF scan of the letter to one of the website authors or admins so they can post it for you if you can’t do that yourself. It is simple enough, if you know how or know someone who does and has the software, to open a scan of the letter into Photoshop or any other image editing program and black out any personal identifiers (your own name, address, file number) from the copy before posting, using a black brush tool or similar device in the software, which will utterly obliterate that information from the copy. That will protect your identity but provide tangible written official evidence of the policy interpretation for the benefit of others, IMO.