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.
@Petros
In that citations, I would think that any human rights abuse would have been at the hands of UtterlyFrustrated’s new country rather than the US consulate, i.e., “treating naturalised citizens different base on country of origin (!!!). Come now, you cannot be attributing that discrimination (and believe me, I am no stranger to discrimination) to the US consulate.
Is this them posted in this thread, an example of human rights abuse?
“… My CLN is being held up because I need to have official documentation of my date of naturalization. In 1978 the geniuses in Ottawa were not putting a naturalization date on the citizenship certificate. I applied a year ago to CIC for an official document confirming the naturalization date and am still waiting. My local MP’s constituency office kindly enquired for me and got a lame excuse about funding. And just try contacting CIC by phone yourself to ask about the status of your request! The Canadian Government has sold US-born citizens down the river and insults all citizens with its failure to provide citizenship-related documentation in a reasonable and timely way.”
So is Canada discriminating against it naturaliized citizens, or is is just a bureaucratic foul-up?
EC, just remember, Stephen Harper kissed Obama butt because Obama threatened him. The ultimate cause of our woes is the United States. I reserve particular disgust for the US.
Canada is discriminating against citizens with US connections to be sure, but they are doing it at the behest of Washington. Washington remains Mordor even if Ottawa has become Isengard.
@Petros
Yes, I read that article just today, ridiculous comments I agree.
But I think I have not successfully explained what I’m trying to say. I acknowledge and feel for the “victims” who were probably the original intended participants of IB, has not the scope expanded somewhat? I myself, nor certainly UtterlyFrustrated is one of those victims. We are venturing on new lives and find IB to be a valuable sour of information and support, but I just cannot see any merit in citing UtterlyFrustrated’s case as an example of a “human rights abuse”. More like a case of impatience. I don’t know what it was like to naturalise to Canada in the ’60s (?), but was it really that easy?
In any case, I initially intended to limit my comments to reflect that I just did not consider this case a good example; no more, no less. So I’m sorry if you have taken offense.
So the CIC is slow-footing it at the behest of Washington????????
I think I’ll stick to Bagend.
I am not so much offended as frustrated with your attitude. But people get used to human rights abuses. They don’t even know that they are experiencing them. They just stand there and let it happen. But they happen all the time these days.
Standing in the way of someone’s expatriation is a human rights abuse. If a person needs a piece of paper and you refuse to issue it to them, you are abusing their human rights. Every country has a naturalization process. It is within the jurisdiction of that country to decide what the rules are. That is not an abuse. It is however an abuse of human rights to withhold a document, sine quo non, of expatriation, since everyone has a right to expatriate. It would be like saying, go ahead and vote but refusing to issue a ballot.
I just do not see a delay in paperwork processing as either a systematic or systemic human rights abuse.
FATCA is a human rights abuse, FBARS are a human rights abuse, CBT is a human rights abuse.
Having to wait 3-4 months for a CLN is bureaucratic incompetence, as is having to wait more than a year for a reply from CIC (whatever that is).
@ Petros Ali Matheson actually posted a comment to that article to apoligize. She claims that she actually said much more that was printed. That is one of the problems with talking to reporters. I am not defending her, I don’t agree with her comment either, I object to her use of the word “many”. There are a few US citizens living in Canada, but not citizens here, that I have heard about that do not file, so her statement is somewhat correct. For the most part the article was good with only a couple of errors. It was also published Aug 15 in the Calgary Herald and the Regina Leader Post, although a shortened version of the one in the Vancouver Sun. I hope the Human Rights complaint to the UN does something. The US needs to be stopped
It is not about delaying the issuance of paperwork. It’s about control. They seek approval from DC but they have added this step as Cover-Your-Ass procedure which has nothing to do with the person relinquishing. As I said, there is absolutely nothing in the world preventing them from issuing the paperwork on the spot. But they have instuted the procedure only for the reason of preventing some people from expatriating–those who in their eyes are being forced to expatriate or who are insincere, etc. The policy has created a human rights abuse, as it is an obstacle to exercising a fundamental human right, and it causes actual suffering in the lives of people, not just UtterlyFrustrated, but people I have met in person who gone up against the State department bureaucracy so uttlerly contemptible and full of their own crap. I don’t know how I can be clearer. I know people who have met this obstacle and afterwards were in utter tears because they could not get on with their chosen life, to be a non-US person.
As for other countries having a long waiting period for getting citizenship, that is not a human rights abuse. It is merely part of the procedure. What is a human rights abuse is this: CIC issued a citizenship ID to my friend Friday, then said, “Oh, you have to wait until next week Tuesday before you can apply for a passport, because we have to upload the information into the computer.” So his mobility rights (which we learnt on the exam) were violated because he could not obtain a passport, costing him hundreds in cancellation fees, and he was unable to meet his job obligations that required that he travel to Africa that weekend. So the first thing that happened to him as a Canadian citizen, is that Canadian government violated his mobility rights. Sometimes bureaucratic bullshit is human rights abuse. We have to know our rights in order to know when it happens.
So what is it that one should do now. Wait for a dissision through the courts, which could take a couple of years or forever. Renounce or Relinquish. Do both these avenues get you to the same place, away from the US? Go to a tax accountent and take a chance, which to us is totaly ridiculous, I’m not paying anybody anything.
Thanks heartsick, I read her apology, and good for her. I still think it is wrong for the Vancouver Sun to have printed it in the first place. And she doesn’t like the way her interview was portrayed either.
@petros
If you read the comment section of that Vancouver Sun article, you will read that Ms Matheson’s claimed that the author has taken her words out of context. I’ve ask for clarification in an email to Mr Todd…
To claim that you relinquished many years ago is better than going and renouncing today. Read the posts on the side bar with regard to relinquishing, under “Our Resources”
@Petros
I guess my view of “basic human rights” does not include immediacy, so that while everyone has the right to renounce, there’s no guarantee that it can be do right this instant, same as getting a driver’s license or a marriage license (we don’t have those in Japan, just a registration, but you can’t registered on holidays, including an entire week at the year end/New Year).
Anyway, I’m sorry that I was not more convincing in getting my point across, but I’m afraid I have to call it a night, as it’s closing in on 3 AM.
In any case, regardless of such minor disagreements on semantics or whatever, keep up the good work (and I guess you’ll have to go after Saruman before you can take down Sauron).
@TokyoRose I don’t think you read what my problem was with the situation of the CLN taking at least 4 months. If it just came down to waiting, then it’s frustrating, but so be it. The problem is that I work freelance and am being forced to keep my income the same. Freelance is not an easy business, and sometimes jobs get canceled without any warning. I recently just had three weeks worth of work canceled within days of the job that was supposed to be done. With no passport, companies are not as willing to do business with me before. So you see, waiting can be a matter of starving and being out on the street, as I’ve already used up my savings paying for the exorbitant costs of getting citizenship. I’m not just sitting here like, “Wah, woe is me, I have to wait.” It’s more like, “How am I going to pay my rent and eat on 100 Dollars for the whole month?” RE informing myself, I did try to inform myself by people who were supposed to know and I did not go anywhere unprepared for any foreseeable circumstance. And I didnt ask just one person, I asked multiple people. Each person gave me a different answer, and as it turns out, every single one of those answers were wrong.
The consulate did not treat me badly, that’s true, and I have no bad things to report about the actual renunciation itself except for that they were somewhat standoffish, but I can most certainly deal with that. However, your claim that my new country is treating me worse than the US is incorrect. The US has never done anything to help me since I’ve been here. I asked the consulate for help on three different occasions – with legitimate issues that they were supposed to, by law, help me with, mind you – and they told me to fend for myself. However, my new country has given me money for months at a time when I had none without ever asking for it back, has accepted me into their culture, got me home from other countries I visited where I wasn’t aware I needed a visa for, and the list goes on. I have a wide support group of nationals here who are standing by me every step of the way, but my reason for posting in the forum here was that they don’t know what it feels like to go through this, and I wanted the support of someone who did. I guess that still doesn’t meet sympathy criteria, but those were my feelings at the time.
Yes, I feel sorrier for the accidental citizens or people who did not even know they had a US nationality. It’s a travesty of justice in and of itself. But my feelings of hurt and fear are also real, and I came here looking for camaraderie, not snide remarks about my situation. Then again, perhaps I’m misreading your statement entirely.
I’ve also said that this is not an issue of waiting 3-4 months for the CLN. This entire process is now entering into it’s 9th month. The CLN deadline was EXTENDED to 3-4 months past what I’ve currently been waiting.
Oh, and by the way, the US has also threatened to deny me entry three times just because I live abroad, tried to make me go through the line for foreigners because I was no longer a resident, and held me for questioning where I was asked if I was a terrorist, if I hated America, and why would I want to live outside the greatest country in the world. After trying to answer their ridiculous questions the most diplomatic way possible, I was handed a pen and piece of paper and told to write down the address of where I was staying and when I was leaving. “And trust me,” the customs agent assured me, “we WILL be checking to make sure you’ve left.”
Every time I go to the US – which has only been four times in the last 10 years – I get the third degree. When I come back, all I get is a smile and ‘Welcome home’. Is it perfect here? No, of course not. This country has problems just like any other, but it’s a lot more welcoming than what i have to endure trying to get through US customs.
@Petros, @TokyoRose
“I guess my view of “basic human rights” does not include immediacy”
I tend to agree with this when it comes to things like applying for a passport. All processes must be within the scope of what is technically and humanly feasible, and it is hard for me to see a two business day delay in issuing a passport as a basic human rights abuse. Canadian passports typically take 10-20 business days depending on whether it is done by mail or in person, and that seems reasonable to me. It can and should be expedited, to the extent feasible, in certain circumstances. It sounds like in this case they couldn’t issue a passport the very same day as the citizenship certificate was issued. A bummer, perhaps–a basic human rights issue, not so much.
Now if Canada were indefinitely delaying the issuance of passports for new citizens far beyond what born citizens experience–then that would be a human rights issue. A delay of two business days for understandable technical reasons–not so much.
Dash, the abuse is the passport itself as a sine quo non of mobility. If I leave the country, I should be able to get back into the country with my citizenship certificate. But no airline will let me on the plane without a passport. This is because they follow the entry requirements of the countries they fly to. Thus, the Canadian bureaucracy abused my fellow Canadian’s mobility rights through their requirement of a passport to return to Canada. The only thing necessary to enter Canada, by rights, is proof of citizenship. He had that in hand, at his citizenship ceremony. He has dual citizenship and could have traveled with his other passport. But his PR card was taken away. So he had more rights before becoming a citizen than the next 5 days or so after becoming one. This is a clear violation of his vaunted mobility rights which we are told about when we study for the Citizenship examination here in Canada.
As I said, to me the withholding of a CLN beyond the time it takes to print the document, which in our day is a few seconds, and to put the Consulate stamp on the document, is about control. It is a clear violation of a right to expatriate, if the document is need to claims the other rights of a non-American. Since the US has made Americans persona non gratia in their countries of citizenship, then the US has become a serial human rights abuser, with the withholding of the CLN as just one of a litany of abuses.
As an American you have an right to return to the United States. You don’t have to tell them where you are staying. I’ve been asked that question, and didn’t realize that my right of return was being abused. You don’t have to answer questions about why you live abroad. That’s bullshit.
“The consulate did not treat me badly, that’s true,…” Human rights abuse with a smile.
There should be no wait time between renunciation and the issuance of the CLN. Have you folks seen one? It’s just a sheet of white paper with a consulate seal on it. It’s not even like a passport or drivers license, which require lamination, gluing, etc.
In other words, it should take all of 1 minute to print it, 30 seconds to stamp it and sign it, and 15 seconds to hand it to you.
So in other words, why do they withhold it from the renunciant? Is there any justification? What is it? A renunciant, does the expatriating act right in front of the Consular officer. Now I can understand that someone who has relinquished might be investigated–but I don’t see why that can’t be done after the fact and the document rescinded in case of mistake. But if they weren’t so fucking afraid of losing tax payers this bullshit would be taking place at all. It is all about control, or Dash can you think of good reason why State can take up to a year to issue a simple sheet printed on white paper? I’ve been studying this for four years now, and I can think of only pretexts, no reasons. So human rights abuse, it is clear that this is a case of it. Especially when you take into consideration the various horror stories that I’ve heard.
@ UtterlyFrustrated
I’m sorry if you felt my comments to be snide. I only intended to use you case as a example of what I do not feel to be a violation of “basic human rights”. If your recall, I recommend that you might request the consulate to allow you to keep your passport while you await your CLN, since without it you are essentially in a stateless condition, which is agains DOS policy and agains the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
My reference to your new country was based only on your statement, “that every naturalized citizen is processed different based on his or her country of origin”, which is clearly discrimination. Maybe you did not mean it the way you said it.
As for the question of immediacy, if it is a fundamental right, it must be allowed in a timely manner. I never go to the ballot box and am told you may vote, but you will have to wait one year while we process your ballot.
@Petros I didn’t answer them about where I was staying, and that’s when I got taken into a room and questioned by two customs officers who looked like they wanted to split me in half. I’d been on a plane for more hours than I could count and hadn’t slept for nearly 2 days. The only thing I wanted to do at that point was get out of there. Thankfully, I used to be a police officer in the US so I didn’t give them the information they wanted . . . well . . . they thought they got information from me, but they didn’t.
As far as the passport thing goes, I was actually supposed to be in the US right now visiting my mother. As I’ve said, her health is quite bad, and I wanted to help her out with some things. We lost my father earlier this year to cancer, which has made me twice as paranoid that she will get worse or even possibly die when I’m not there. For me, this isn’t about ‘just waiting’ for so many reasons. She needs me, and I can’t get there because I don’t have a passport. If anything happens to her, we have no relatives left who can look after the situation until I get there. Originally we had planned for this earlier in the year a long time before because we thought it surely wouldn’t take this long. After all, I’d seen everyone from other countries getting their new passports in as little as one month. I didn’t realize Americans were so ‘special’ that we had to wait much longer. Still, we held out hope that I would be able to go only to be strung along little by little. I was not able to go to America for my father’s funeral due to money issues and other things, so it messed me up somewhat because it’s still fresh in my mind that I wasn’t there and since we’ve lost a lot of family members unexpectedly, that’s kicked my sense into overdrive. Yeah, it’s a personal issue that I’ll just have to deal with, but the US is not making it any easier.
Thanks to everyone who expressed their sympathies. I would’ve posted to each of you individually but I wasn’t aware I was even on this thread. I’ll be all right . . . just frustrated that I finally – after so many years – got my dream job only to lose it to US bureaucracy, as well as my standard of living, is annoying to say the least.