One of the commonest responses by those who have never studied the issue of US personhood is,”If you don’t want to pay your taxes, then renounce your citizenship.” Well, just off the top of my head here are some reasons that people may be reluctant to renounce United States citizenship:
- There is a $450 [now $2350] fee for renunciation. I don’t want one stinking penny to support the evil Federal government of the United States.
- It is possible that I am not a US citizen, and I don’t think that I am one. If I renounce I am admitting to them that I am a United States taxpayer. Relinquish, don’t renounce if you can.
- I don’t want to show my face to a US consulate: that will put me on their radar and I am better off them not knowing I even exist.
- I don’t want to stand in line. Waiting times have been over one year at some US Consulates.
- I’ve never been in compliance with the IRS, and I don’t have a Social Security Number. I’ve never paid taxes to the United States, but if I renounce, I will have to certify five years of tax compliance under threat of perjury. If I can’t do that, then I can’t fill out the exit tax form (Form 8854), which has me reveal the value and kind of all my assets to the IRS against my will. I may owe a huge amount of money in back taxes and fines, not to mention that I am afraid of 300% FBAR fines of my financial wealth. I’ve had PFICs in my portfolio, and I know that will cost a lot to bring into compliance. I have had a pretty good TFSA increase and TFSA’s are not tax free in the US. I have had a personal corporation or a sole-proprietorship business in Canada which has permitted me to defer taxes on retained earnings in Canada–but this is not allowed in the USA. I’ve made heavy RRSP contributions which have deferred my taxes in the Canada, but I can’t defer personal RRSP contributions in the USA. I sold my house and paid no taxes on it because it is my primary dwelling–the US expects taxes on anything above $250,000 capital taxes, money which I’d refuse to pay if I could.
- If I renounce, I may not be able to visit my relatives in the United States because I will have to give up my passport and the United States has threatened anyone who renounces for tax purposes with permanent exile from the United States.
- I have to be able to travel now, and if I renounce I won’t have a travel document.
- I will not expose my spouse and family to threats of fines for innocent financial accounts.
- I don’t want to become stateless. My country will not allow me to become a citizen until I renounce US citizenship which means I will become a stateless person.
This is by no means a complete list. But here is one more: (9) I don’t want to go through the hassle of dealing with American bureaucracy the way that this person has:
Hello All,
I’m new to posting here but have been reading up on the comments for quite some time. Since I’m in desperate need of support from people who know exactly what I’m going through, I’ve decided to make my first post here. I’ve been living in another country for about 10 years (won’t post which one, just in case), and I renounced last month. This whole process of receiving another nationality has been going on for nearly a year now, where the other government needed 3 months to approve my case after I had already spent 4 months jumping through hoops for them and taking all kinds of tests to ‘prove’ I was capable of being a citizen. Still, I was fine with all that, and I got the approval under the condition that I renounce my US citizenship. I was born and raised in the US, but never felt American, as odd as that may sound to some. So right after I graduated college, I left, and I integrated myself into another country so well that I can speak the local language without an accent and whenever I go to the US (which isn’t often), I get culture shock. I don’t really have any ties left in the US (all my friends are here), except for my mother, whom I love very dearly. For health reasons, she cannot visit me here, and I always have to go visit her. When I moved abroad, I was told by our CPA that I didn’t need to file a US tax return unless I worked for an American company. Like an idiot, I believed her, because I thought, “Well, she’s an accountant, she should know.” You can imagine my shock when I contacted the US embassy for an appointment and found out they were all lies. I am already paying crippling taxes in this country, and now the US wants a piece of what very little I have left? I don’t think so. I don’t make a lot, and in fact, I haven’t made over the required reporting amounts for about 2 of the five years. The other 3 I was barely over. I’ve only been allowed to work here freelance since I got here, and my citizenship is only guaranteed providing that I can shed the burden of my US citizenship AND keep my standard of living the same. When you work freelance, how in the world are you supposed to do that?
Originally, I was told before I went to the embassy that I would have my CLN in approximately 5 weeks. Upon arrival, one woman said to expect 8-10 weeks while another said 6-8. I e-mailed the consulate a while ago to ask if the wait times were still the same because I have lost a lot of work recently and cannot make it up because I have no passport. I have a driver’s license, but it’s not recognized here for whatever reason as a valid form of ID, so no ID, no job. I’ve spoken to my new country about getting a replacement ID from their system, but they said that legally my residence permit should be enough. I’m finding, though, that many companies around here are turned off and disturbed by the fact that I no longer have a passport and consider me some kind of risk. Anyway, I received an answer that the wait times are now around 12-15 weeks. This is the THIRD time that my wait time has been doubled. First 5, then ten, now 15! I asked if it was 15 in total or 15 from today, and they answered with “Hopefully in total :)”. They don’t even know!
This is absolutely ridiculous and unacceptable. I was supposed to start a new job in October – my dream job – which I can now no longer do because these idiots are just sitting on their hands while my life has been turned upside down. If my mother dies or gets even sicker, I will not be able to visit her because I have no passport, I can’t find decent work, and nothing in my personal life is allowed to change. I’m not even allowed to move or get married, meaning that I’m holding people at arm’s length just because I have absolutely no idea how long this is going to take. I’m not a person who cries, and in fact, I can’t even remember the last time I did before that, but the moment I got that E-mail, I just burst into hysterical tears. Every day feels like a year, and what happens if my renunciation is not even approved? I’ll have to start all over!
I’m also being ostracized by any and every American that I know, who can’t fathom that I would ever give up ‘the most precious and coveted citizenship in the world’. (Barf). I’ve had people start yelling at me on more than one occasion just because I simply said that I renounced. I didn’t say I hated the US, I didn’t say anything bad about the US, just that I love this country and I made the decision that I was a citizen here and not the US. Seriously, do people think we’re going to just magically change our opinions when they freak out like this? My feelings of apathy for the US have just slowly turned into loathing during the course of this process. People ask me every day if I have my passport from my new country, and all I can do is get tears in my eyes and beg them to please stop asking me that because this process will take a while. Still, they care, so they constantly keep asking. It’s like digging in the knife a little deeper, especially when my citizenship approval here can still be revoked if the government so chooses. I just want to be free, want to belong to a country that I feel so at home in, and I find it so ironic that a country which preaches freedom from the rooftops is taking so long at granting me mine. And if and when it does, it will punish me for that by ‘naming and shaming’ me on some stupid list and trying to paint me as a tax dodger. If it weren’t for my mother, I’d never set foot in that country again and have gone so far as refusing to buy US made products or even speak English.
Anyway, I’ve basically just stopped believing anything the consulate tells me because I have to in order to protect my sanity. I’m worried that when 15 weeks rolls around, they’ll extend it to 25 or something. My life stayed constant for a while, but now it’s starting to roll backwards like a boulder down a mountain and of course the US doesn’t care. Sorry I’m ranting to all of you for probably what seems like no apparent reason, I was just wondering if there was still anyone here in the forums or whatever these are outside of North America and what they were originally told about their CLNs vs when they actually got them.
@anonanon and petros, The collective wisdom of comments on IBS blog exceeds anything anybody can find anywhere (also the collective support). I suspect the two good articles published today in Vancouver Sun and at Calgary Herald must have clued into the situation portrayed by contributors to IBS. Maybe I have wishful thinking but I have faith at least. That we will win!
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@Calgary
That clip was so upsetting- to listen to those hecklers and scoffers in the background when this man was talking about the suffering of so many people made me sick to my stomach.
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@AnonAnon
I wish I could also relinquish, but those of us born dual do not have that luxury – which makes it all this even more absurd.
@LivingToRenounce
The fact that you are born dual means only that you can’t relinquish by taking on the citizenship of the country that you were born with. All other options (including renunciation)
are available to you including becoming the citizen of a third country.
@USCitizenAbroad
Yes, I’m in the process of becoming “compliant” and hope to renounce at the end of the year. But at great financial costs.
@George
Your comment on August 14 at 6:59 p.m. includes:
Staying on this point, there is a difference between the following two statements:
1. The U.S.A. says that I am not a U.S. citizen and therefore I am not a U.S. citizen. The U.S. says that I am not a U.S. citizen according to their laws of acquisition, retention or relinquishment; and
2. I am not a U.S. citizen because I live outside the United States, the U.S. laws do NOT apply outside the United States, and therefore I and I alone will decide whether I will allow the U.S. to define me as a U.S. citizen.
In the first scenario you are allowing the “slave master” to define the terms of your freedom.
In the second scenario, you and you alone are deciding whether you are a free man.
The United States is a vicious tyrannical regime and will not in the foreseeable future agree to its slaves being free people. Freedom is a matter of personal responsibility. You are outside the United States. Therefore the choice really is yours.
As one who has gone through a recent naturalisation and in is in the process of relinquishment, I’d like to point out that in utterlyfrrustrated’s case, his new country is treating him/her considerable wore than the US consulate, and, the poster themselves has come utterly unprepared. Read again for those of us who have naturalised. 10 years or less of residence, 4 months or filing and other requirements, 3 months waiting for approval… Does not seem so bad to me. And then if a CLN takes 3-4 months? Well, that’s better than some Canadians who have reported waiting a year just to get a copy of their natiuralization records.
I have a lot of sympathy for “accidnetal Americans” and similar cases, but this is a poor example. Anyone not looking at up to a 2 year long process probably should not consider naturalising to a new country.
Tokyo, I disagree. The State Department insists on reviewing the CLN before approving it. But it could be given to the person relinquishing on the spot. There is no excuse for me having to wait one year for document that shouldn’t even be necessary. But because of FATCA, you have to have the damn thing to show to your bank–and the State Department makes you wait sometimes a year, for something they could have issued to you on the spot, and is actually necessary to have because of the various problems people encounter in the limbo between renunciation and the receipt of the CLN. This is a USA created human rights nightmare.
You don’t understand one inportant thing. A lot of these people ( now Canadian citizens)have no ties to the US in any way shape or form only that they were born there. I guess they consider that special, we don’t.Not only that but Canada has now put at jepordy the Canadian spouses, which Canada should be concerned about. But it appears that they are more concerned about money than the rights of Canadians. You shoudn’t wake up one morrning and find out that a country that you have absolutly nothing to do with wants something from you in such an underhanded way. When my wife became a Canadian citizen she swore allegiance to Canada not a country (US) that she has had nothing to do with since she was 4 months old.
According to US law you have a right to change nationalities. It is also recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is a fundamental right, just like voting. But you don’t have voters coming to the voting booth and having to wait an entire year before the government decides if they have a right to vote, do you? The refusal to issue the CLN on the spot is a serious abuse. It makes it seem like the State Department has the right to decide if you can exercise your right to relinquish. They don’t. But they are trying to control you through a piece of paper, which they have made the sine quo non of loss of US citizenship.
For one thing, it definitely affects mobility rights. For example, if I had to go in 2011 to the US, would they have let me enter on my Canadian passport showing a US birthplace without a CLN? I had to go in July 2012 to search for my missing father, only a few weeks after receiving the CLN.
EC, exactly right. The United States borrows over 40 cents on every dollar it spend. It is utterly corrupt and bankrupt, morally and financially. Thus, they see no reason not to pick the pockets of other countries, which they are doing with impunity through their weak dollar policy.
@Petros
While there may be innumerable “US created human rights nightmares”, I still think that this is a poor example. Yes, relinquishment, or at least certainly renunciation, could be possible on the spot, there are few countries where everything moves so smoothly. As example, I refer to another poster’s difficulties in getting the Canadian gov to get them copies of their naturalization records. I just do not see the 15 wk wait for a CLN in this case to be evidence of the “evil empire”.
Look again at the example you have cited: 10 years or less in the new county, 4 months for naturalisation procedures, 3 months for approval, and now 3-4 months (admittedly overlong) for the CLN. Seems like a piece of cake to me. 3-4 months without a passport? Goes by within the blink of an eye. I’ve been years without one at times.
I just do not see the human rights injustice that you see with this example. I mostly see a disconnect between the authority in the country in question and the US embassy in that country. They should be cooperating to ensure that newly naturalising citizens are not temporarily made stateless, but I cannot place the blame solely on the US DOS.
But of course, I fundamentally agree with you and with the UN Universal Declaration of Human rights:
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/Article 15.
(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
The fact that the US is slow in issuing, or even refuses to issue, should not affect your basic human rights. If the county of your dominant citizenship, whether it is Canada or Japan or Hong Kong or wherever, discriminates against you because you have not received a CLN from the US, despite requesting one, is that not a problem regarding respect for human rights in Canada or Japan or wherever, rather than a problem with US policy?
By deeming the US to be at fault for discrimination in our own countries, are we not attributing more power to the US than it deserves?
@EC
I was speaking solely to the example of an acknowledged US citizen naturalising NOW, as I myself have done.
Understood, I apologize.
Tokyio, the other countries which are discriminating against Americans are doing so as agents of the United States government. The US doesn’t get a pass on this one. If the USA were not the land of importunity, it would not be insisting on FATCA–FATCA is the sole reason that I need a CLN in the first place, with the exception of the possible need of proving that I am Canadian-only when returning to the US with a Canadian passport with US birthplace. This need for a CLN is abuse whose ultimate provenance is Washington DC. So yes, the other countries discriminate. But it is ultimately the fault of the morally and financiall bankrupt nation called the United States of America.
So this is a problem with US policy, above all.
@EC
No need to apologise. I empathise (as much as is possible by someone in an entirely different situation) with those “accidental americans” and their families, and with others who naturalised to other counties long in the past to only now find themselves in the US trap.
I only meant that I find the example cited to more closely resemble the same type of bureaucratic red tape that is found in many countries than evidence of the “Great Satan” (notwithstanding the abundance of other evidence).
By the way, Tokyo, among the people that I’ve spoken to on the phone was young woman, 20 something, who was harassed during her renunciation appointment, spoken down to, and finally, she was denied a CLN after her renunciation. The United States is a serial human rights abuser.
Something that looks like human rights abuse to me, UtterlyFrustrated wrote on another thread:
@Innocente thanks for the tip. I assume – from what I’ve seen in my country with regards to what I actually needed for a work permit – that every naturalized citizen is processed different based on his or her country of origin. It’s awful to watch people passing me in droves with nothing standing in their way of getting their citizenship while I sit here and wait, rocking back and forth in the corner. The best way I can put it is that it feels like being wrongfully imprisoned for years chained to a wall, and one day, the guard comes by and opens the prison door, saying, “If you can figure out a way to get through this door, you’re free”. But you’re still chained to the wall, and all you can do is keep pulling against it hoping that it gives way.
@heartsick Thanks for posting the article. It was both heartbreaking and scary, especially the end bit where people were just given their citizenships back without warning. That’s one of the things I actually looked forward to when I renounced. Have any renouncers been having any difficulty getting back in the US with their new passport showing a US birthplace? I wanted to get a passport without it, but apparently, the US won’t recognize those. I wish I was rich enough that I could pay whatever government official I needed to to change my birthplace lol.
@Petros
FATCA is not my sole reason for wanting to obtain a CLN. For me personally (and in the case of the UtterlyFrustrated which you cited above), the CLN is mostly the final step in our naturalisation process. Once I have my CLN, I will be able to summit my “Loss of Foreign Nationality” to the Japanese gov, and that will be reflected on my Family Register so that for time an all eternity, I will be only a Japanese citizen. Much like the feelings you had when you naturalised to Canada, I imagine.
I certainly do not want to minimalize the trauma that FATCA has had on many lives. Once again, I only wanted to say that I think that you have taken the case you cited a bit out of proportion. It is not a case of FATCA or human rights abuse or oppression, just the same type of bureaucratic incompentency that is found the world over.
Tokyo, I think you have explained why we put up with human rights abuses when it comes to FATCA issues. We simply down play it to the point where well, it’s not so bad is it?
Since starting the Isaac Brock Society, and even before, I’ve spent a lot of time explaining to the victims that they are in fact victims: that the US government has thrown their rights out the window, and that they are not guilty of any crime. This is why I find it so objectionable that the Vancouver Sun repeated the absolute nonsensical statement by Ali Matheson so outrageous:
Who is she anyway? She’s in the entertainment industry. But she has accused hundreds of thousands of non-compliant Canadians of “wilful ignorance” and she is probably quite unaware that this is a techinical term in the jurisprudence of IRS-speak, and that these people if convicted of “wilful ignorance” could face 300% fines of their financial wealth.
Threatening people with utter devastation is evil. It is human rights abuse. Stop making excuses for the United States. It is an evil country, bankrupt both morally and economically.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Douglas+Todd+persons+Canada+express+fear+loathing+crackdown/10118795/story.html
It’s not just the US that bothers me. The Canadian government bothers me more. If we wnated to live in the US we could have easley done that, but we chose Canada. Maybe a bad choice.