Brockers are interviewed in Patrick Cain’s new article at Global news. He writes:
Is a second citizenship in the United States an asset? It depends.
Many Canadians have built careers in the U.S. that were simplified by the accident of their birthplace, or of a parent’s. If you want to work in the U.S., it’s useful to not have to worry about visas and green cards. (“Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to let you in,” wrote New England poet Robert Frost.)
But it became a potential liability in February when Canada made a deal with the U.S. on the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA.
Read the entire article here: http://globalnews.ca/news/1217871/how-to-get-rid-of-an-unwanted-u-s-citizenship/
Welcome lucieaubrac! I’m not the relinquishment info lady that Pacifica777 is (I think she is away for a couple of days) so all I can suggest, if you haven’t already found it, is to read through this thread:
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2011/12/12/relinquish-dont-renounce-if-you-can/#comments
There might be something helpful in there for you. If you haven’t done anything to assert any USness since your 1996 naturalization (e.g. US passport, US voting, US taxes, etc.) you should be able to insist that when you took your oath to your new country you had the intention of relinquishing. Now, how you convince a stubborn consulate or embassy of that is beyond me.
Thank-you so much Em says. Exactly the detail I missed. I have renewed my passport therefore it will have to be renounce and not relinquish. That solves the problem of getting an appointment.
I’ll check back to the link you mentioned.
Yup, it is even hard to escape.
@ lucieaubrac
Ah the passport dilemma! Some people have stated they felt coerced into getting the US passport by border agents and the consulate took that into consideration and did not insist on renouncing (the Halifax consulate here in Canada for instance) but it’s dicey as to how well that will work at other consulates. Keep reading and maybe look through the consulate experiences here:
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/consulate2/
GOOD LUCK!
I think you would enjoy reading Victoria’s blog too:
http://thefranco-americanflophouse.blogspot.ca/
@lucie– As Em says, passport renewal doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t relinquish. I was told I had to enter the US on a US passport (not true). Because the passport was renewed under duress and with incorrect information, I will still be relinquishing. As Em says, keep on reading. Good luck.
@lucie, we assume that you also have a valid French/EU Passport.
Do you use your French/EU Passport for all worldwide travel except the USA?
If you went through your US Passport pages is the only stamp for the USA, meaning you have not used it to enter any other countries.
If the only reason you have it is to enter the USA because you were verbally told to get it by the consulate or border agent, you have a case.
But did you do anything else, like vote? Voting would negate the relinquishment.
George et al, thanks so much. Yes to all questions: I have French passport which I travel with. US passport only has one French/US stamp. Unfortunately I have voted Obama. But all this is now beside the point.
As it turns out I am running out of time for the CLN. The bank needs it rapidly and it is not easy to get an appointment about renunciation. My first chance at the Embassy in Paris will be June which is also about the time the bank needs the CLN. I have also requested in an appointment in Marseille. Here in EU there is no doubt about why people are dumping US citizenship.
In fact banks do not like what is happening and when I talked to the bank they were almost in jubilation that I was renouncing US citizenship. Some Embassies, like Bern Switzerland, have a backlog of appointments of one and one half years. Sure maybe some tax avoidance there but all Swiss people bank in Switzerland, including dual nationals. Like me in France their accounts are not foreign, they are home. Like me they had no clue until recently. I think in the end I will be proud for having done this.
We should all be proud for dumping US citizenship. No citizenry is more enslaved than one who falsely believes it is free.
@lucieaubrac, voting and voting for Obama sealed the envelope for you, sadly.
You can renounce at ANY consulate or embassy. It does not need to be in France, so you should send emails out to all within a one day drive or train journey.
The good news about renouncing is that because you are paying, you will get a receipt and if you are real nice to the staff, they may give you documents that you can give to the bank such as a letter or a copy of the not yet approved CLN.
@lucieaubrac, have you looked at the French FATCA/IGA to see what financial institutions are exempt?
You may want to close your bank accounts and move them.
In Canada, many credit unions are exempt or have only minimal requirements.
In the UK, credit unions and building societies are largely exempt.
Here is a link to the agreement;
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/treaties/Documents/BilateralAgreementUSFranceImplementFATCA.pdf
Read starting on Page 47.
If you can move your accounts to a financial institution that has what is called a local client base, there is only reporting if you return to the USA.
I love visiting your Country (France) as a fellow EU Citizen, but I know little as to what financial firms in France would qualify as the local client base exemption.
My other close Embassy is Geneva. I will send an email but if Bern is saturated, probably same for Geneva. I have a possible 10 June date for Paris, Marseille said they will suggest a date AFTER I send in all paperwork. I wrote back I need a possible date before paperwork.
Sounds unfriendly unless early date.
I’ll start checking French FATCA/IGA, credit unions, and local client base shortly. So much I did not, do not, know about. The most urgent thing seems to be to get rid of US citizenship.
Nice to hear you like France. Another reason to stay in touch.
To BC_Doc:
Thank you for sharing your situation! It sounds similar to mine and you have given me a glimmer of hope! Until I read your post this morning I was of the understanding that I would have to go through the whole messy renunciation thing because of my passport, applied for under duress.
On the Consulate Directory thread you mention that some of your paperwork had to be sent to the State Department. Would you mind sharing if that was your passport stuff? Also, I would love to hear how you approached the consulate with the idea of relinquishing instead of renouncing. Did you have a hard time convincing them that this was right for you to do or were they accepting of the idea right away?
Thank you, ever so much, for any details you feel comfortable sharing.
@lucieaubrac
You should try the embassy in Luxembourg. A friend of mine renounced there, he was given an appointment in 3 weeks, his first and second appointments were two days apart, and friendly, understanding staff. CLN received in 2 months.
Hi MuzzledNoMore,
Because of this website, I was aware that folks like you or I could still relinquish despite having renewed our US passports under duress (I was told I had to have one twice while entering the US). With this bit of info in mind, I e-mailed my info to my local (Western Canada) consulate and was offered an appt by a consular officer. I clarified on the phone that I would be relinquishing and was told, given that I renewed my US passport, I could only relinquish.
To cut to the chase, I sent a follow-up e-mail asking to press the pause button. I also asked if I should send my US passport back to the consulate or the State Department as I believed I was holding it in error. At this point, the consular officer contacted the legal folks in DC and was told that my passport renewal didn’t preclude relinquishment.
I have an appt to relinquish later this month.
Good luck and I hope this info helps!
@George
“In the UK, credit unions and building societies are largely exempt.”
??
HMRC guidance notes 28-2-2014 2.26 Depository Institution:
“Entities within this definition will include entities regulated in the UK as a
savings or commercial bank, a credit union, industrial and provident societies
and building societies.”
Hi BC_Doc,
Yes! Your information helps a lot! I assume you’ll let us know how your relinquishment appointment goes later this month.
The best of luck to you! And many thanks!
@lucieaubrac – having a French passport and a French husband and living in a country that doesn’t extradite its citizens anywhere for any reason, I’d say you are sitting fairly pretty. Voting in the US recently is admittedly an unfortunate fact if you are trying to argue for relinquishment 20 years ago though. If you insist in taking proactive steps to deal with the problem, it sounds like that vote cost you about US$495 (the price of a renunciation application). It has the virtue of being clean and certain though.
Before running off and doing that, just consider a couple of factors/questions:
a) the US has not bothered you for 50 years, they may not bother your for 50 more if you travel on a French passport and have nothing more to do with them;
b) FATCA may possibly have no impact on you at all. You need to consider whether your financial institutions have any record of your toxic citizenship. Having been a French citizen for so long, it would not be normal in my limited experience for them to have such a record. French documents record “domicile” all over the place, but seldom ask for place of birth. You are pure, blue-white-and-red French from what I can see. That at least gives you the option of letting sleeping dogs lie.
c) You might prefer to get the renunciation done anyway, but think long and hard before you start sending forms to the IRS They have it in their power to at least threaten to destroy you for fifty years of non-compliance. They probably won’t, but that seems a heck of a risk to take on faceless bureaucrats with a track record for being mean, malevolent sons-of-b***ches.
Bonne chance.
@CreatureOutside, what you are quoting is simply a definition. Yes, those are all examples of a Depository Institution.
But the question is if the Depository Institution has Full reporting, Limited reporting or No reporting.
For part of that question you go to 2.13 in what you cited. Financial Institutions with a Local Client Base will have a greatly reduced reporting requirement if they meet the relevant criteria.
Basically, they must have no place of business outside the UK, 98% of accounts from residents of the EU and if a US Person resident in the UK leaves the UK, then and only then must they either report the account or close the account. But there is no reporting of a US Person whilst resident in the UK.
If you were to look at the online application for a Building Society and compare it with a transnational Bank you will sense the difference in the compliance burden.
Sections 2.21/2.22/2.23 goes into deemed compliant Depository Institutions but they are small. Local Client Base firms can be very large.
This is why UK Building Societies dumped their offshore facilities a couple years ago.
@George
Thanks, that makes it clearer.
“If you were to look at the online application for a Building Society and compare it”
Very true. Two high street banks I know of, for online applications ask firstly residence, then country of citizenship (OK, fair enough)
THEN country of birth (potentially a breach of the Equalities Act??)
@CreatureOutside, I think the greatest problem is not necessarily the politicians on either side of the pond, or the functionaries in government.
The greatest problem is the compliance industry.
Nowhere in the IGA or the HMRC guidance does it even suggest that you ask Place of Birth. Yes, I too believe asking that is discriminatory. The IGA in my eye seems to imply if you run across an unambiguous US place of birth in doing AML documents.
I think that position is correct based on the CRA guidance. Either the CRA in Canada is right or certain High Street UK banks are wrong. Remember, all these agreements are boiler plate there were no negotiations!!!
I have run into other UK High Street Banks that do not venture into the Place of Birth question.
Hence, I think some have retained hyper FATCA compliance consultants.
Think of it this way. If its OK to ask you your Place of Birth to ferret out if you are a hiding US Person than it is equally OK to ask you the Place of Birth of your parents in order to equally ferret out your US Pesonness. Does that make sense to point out the error?
@CreatureOutside, I do not want to provide links or even mention names of financial institutes on a forum like this. No good can come from that and I do not think others should do that as well.
Go look at the bank that used to support the Labour Party and was formerly run by a fallen and disgraced Minister who knew nothing about banking. They clearly are a local client base exception. yet well known and large asset base.
@CreatureOutside, one other bank to look at. Its owned by the same person who also owned a record store and still owns an airline.
@George
Thanks very much for the info.
There’s also the one who the original founder said something to effect of ‘stack ’em high, sell ’em cheap’ (??)
@CREATUREOUTSIDE “There’s also the one who the original founder said something to effect of ‘stack ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap’”
Do a wikipedia search of _________ Bank. Look who they were a joint venture with at one point.
Now here is where things get interesting, all the back office support is performed by the former joint venture partner. Thats why when you do google map searched you see the buildings branded with one name and not the other. Thats also why the ATM machines are operated by the former joint partner.
Thats why……..the account opening information between the former partner and this entity are almost identical with the Place of Birth question.
Hence my comment, its the compliance industry which is the problem.
For info friend of mine renounced in Bern early January and CLN NOT yet received after 3 months +!