Confirming reports passed on by commenters at the Isaac Brock Society, DiploPundit points to a State Department interim rule just placed on public inspection for printing in tomorrow’s Federal Register, which raises the fee for renunciation of U.S. citizenship (but apparently not relinquishment) to US$2,350, more than twenty times the average level in other high-income countries. As they state:
[D]emand for the service has increased dramatically, consuming far more consular officer time and resources, as reflected in the 2012 Overseas Time Survey and increased workload data. Because the Department believes there is no public benefit or other reason for setting this fee below cost, the Department is increasing this fee to reflect the full cost of providing the service. Therefore the increased fee reflects both the increased cost of the provision of service as well as the determination to now charge the full cost.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality”, while the Expatriation Act of 1868 says that renunciation of citizenship is “a natural and inherent right of all people” and that “any declaration, instruction, opinion, order, or decision of any officers of this government which restricts, impairs, or questions the right of expatriation, is hereby declared inconsistent with the fundamental principles of this government”.
As of press time, the State Department has not yet commented on whether it sees “public benefit” in other human rights such as freedom of election or freedom of marriage, or whether anyone seriously believes that charging people a month’s salary to get a ballot paper or a marriage certificate would not restrict or impair those rights.
Practical effects
Because this fee hike apparently does not apply to relinquishments, ex-Americans who naturalise in most other countries will still be able to obtain a Certificate of Loss of Nationality from the U.S. government for no more than the cost of taking a day off work and driving or flying halfway across the country to the nearest consulate which isn’t backed up for months with renunciation appointments. (“Most other countries” means those which allow dual citizenship, like Canada and France, or those which forbid dual citizenship but allow new citizens to submit proof of loss of their former citizenship after the naturalisation ceremony, like Japan.)
However, Americans seeking to naturalise in countries which require new citizens to give up their former citizenship before the naturalisation ceremony, like Taiwan, or those who have been foreign citizens for decades or all their lives and never exercised any benefits of U.S. citizenship but now need to acquire a formal CLN (for example because their bank will discriminate against them if they don’t have one), will feel the full impact of the new fee hike, and also have to wait for months or even longer than a year for the State Department to give them a CLN before they can get on with their lives.
What changed?
The State Department has always claimed that processing renunciations has a high cost, but four years ago when they first introduced the renunciation fee, they at least pretended to take a very different attitude to the cost:
The CoSS demonstrated that documenting a U.S. citizen’s renunciation of citizenship is extremely costly, requiring American consular officers overseas to spend substantial amounts of time to accept, process, and adjudicate cases. A new fee of $450 will be established to help defray a portion of the total cost to the U.S. Government of documenting the renunciation of citizenship. While the Department decided to set the fee at $450, this fee represents less than 25 percent of the cost to the U.S. Government. The Department has determined that it must recoup at least a portion of its costs of providing this very costly service but set the fee lower than the cost of service in order to lessen the impact on those who need this service and not discourage the utilization of the service, a development the Department feels would be detrimental to national interests. See 31 U.S.C. 9701(b)(2).
They also note the per-hour cost they use to calculate the new fee:
The Department previously charged a consular time fee of $231 per hour, per employee. This fee is charged when indicated on the Schedule of Fees or when services are performed away from the office or outside regular business hours. The CoSM estimated that the hourly consular time charge is now lower. Accordingly, the Department is lowering this fee to $135 per hour.
This implies that they take about seventeen employee-hours to process each renunciation (assuming that none of the fee goes to other expenses such as travel or printing). Oddly enough, in their 2012 Paperwork Reduction Act filings on Form DS-4079 (which is filled out by both renunciants and relinquishers), the State Department indicated that the cost for processing the form was just $33 per hour. I don’t understand how these two estimates relate to each other.
To explain the new fee hike, the State Department point to procedures (such as the pointless and repetitive double in-person appointment system) which are required neither by the Immigration and Nationality Act nor the Foreign Affairs Manual, nor used by any other countries:
For example, consular officers must confirm that the potential renunciant fully understands the consequences of renunciation, including losing the right to reside in the United States without documentation as an alien. Other steps include verifying that the renunciant is a U.S. citizen, conducting a minimum of two intensive interviews with the potential renunciant, and reviewing at least three consular systems before administering the oath of renunciation. The final approval of the loss of nationality must be done by law within the Directorate of Overseas Citizens Services in Washington, D.C., after which the case is returned to the consular officer overseas for final delivery of the Certificate of Loss of Nationality to the renunciant. These steps further add to the time and labor that must be involved in the process.
As demonstrated by the experience of other countries, the State Department could greatly lower their costs by simplifying their procedures, but apparently such a common-sense step has not occurred to them.
But look on the bright side! 31 USC § 9701 says that “[e]ach charge shall be … based on … (A) the costs to the Government; (B) the value of the service or thing to the recipient; (C) public policy or interest served; and (D) other relevant facts.” Given how valuable a CLN has become these days, imagine how high a fee they could charge for it if they set the price based on its value.
Timeline for fee hike and comments period
The State Department ends with an excuse for why they can’t be bothered to tell us about the fee hike more than two weeks in advance, while keeping renunciants waiting for dozens of times that long to get the CLNs in the first place:
The Department intends to implement this interim final rule, and initiate collection of the fees set forth herein, effective 15 days after publication of this rule in the Federal Register …. The Department is publishing this rule as an interim final rule, with a 60-day provision for post promulgation comments and with an effective date less than 30 days from the date of publication, based on the “good cause” exceptions set forth at 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(3)(B) and 553(d)(3). Delaying implementation of this rule would be contrary to the public interest because the fees in this rule fund consular services that are critical to national security, including screening visa applicants.
You have until 4 October to submit a written comment on this rule. I will update this post with a link to the docket page on Regulations.gov once the fee hike is officially published.
Tomorrow I’ll mention the rise of the renunciation fee to a journalist I’m speaking to in the UK. He’s going to do fact finding with me with the view to publish an article about FATCA and the problems it’s causing dual citizens.
It’s time to raise awareness and opposition to FATCA in the UK and get a legal challenge started.
@Don, be sure to mention that dual UK/US are being shut out of National Savings and Investment.
I’ll make a formal comment on this at the link provided at the Federal Register. I want to be careful as to the wording because I want to be clear that the price INCREASE isn’t necessarily the biggest issue. I don’t want to make it sound like I’m objecting only to the exact amount and agree with the idea of a fee in principle. There should be no fee at all (as was the case until fairly recently), especially for those “accidentals” who have never exercised their alleged US citizenship and/or thought they relinquished decades ago.
So the comment period closes on 10/21 but the fee increase will be implemented on 9/12?
@CanadianGirl,
Soooooo, processing Renouncing requires far more hours than processing ANY Visa catagory to enter the United States?
Renouncing requires far more hours than anyone applying to become a citizen?
Renouncing requires far more hours than an ILLEGAL MIGRANT to be processed under the Dream Act?
My answer? My ass……it does.
@George
The total fees for an H-1B visa, when you add it all up, can be more:
http://www.hooyou.com/h-1b/h1b_filingfee.html
But–yes–renunciations are now indeed going to be costing an order of magnitude (at least) more than most other transactions that should be similarly priced.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wendy-n-powell/expatriate-tax-sense-or-b_b_5716039.html needs some comments for those who have Facebook. It’s a good article on FATCA and Victoria has updated the author on the increase in renunciation fees.
Victoria Marie Ferauge · École nationale des ponts et chaussées
Wendy Lenning Powell · Works at Wendy N. Powell, Author of Management Experience Acquired
**************
Here is a link to Victoria’s excellent blog and today’s post, including comments: http://thefranco-americanflophouse.blogspot.ca/2014/08/us-citizenship-renunciation-fees-to-be.html. Always lots of good information at Victoria’s Franco-American Flophouse. She is inspiring to so many of us here.
Want to Get Rid of US Citizenship? Fee Just Quadrupled — to $2,350. Patrick Cain, Global News.
Regarding the Robert Wood article on this, I think it is significant that he linked to the Isaac Brock Society. Perhaps that is not the first time he has done so but it shows the attention this site is getting.
People commenting on these articles please mention http://www.adcs-adsc.ca
I received the email with my renunciation appointment date (for early October) earlier this week. It says to bring $450 to the appointment. Wonder when they will bother to tell me about the fee hike. I presume they won’t leave it until I actually turn up at the embassy.
Monalisa and Arjan, trapped and second class in your home country is the likely scenario for many. My daughter has years to go until the US will deign to concede that she knows her own mind and can renounce. Will she have to also give up university in order to afford to renounce citizenship in a country she already can’t remember living in?
Renouncing for the newly adult is ridiculous anyway. They should simply be allowed to run the clock out by avoiding actions that imply USC status. When they hit 21, times up and they lose the right to repatriate. Isn’t that how sensible countries do this?
I sent a note to the Cain guy. We need more press. People will never understand the real issues if we stay quiet.
@YogaGirl
“When they hit 21, times up and they lose the right to repatriate. Isn’t that how sensible countries do this?”
That’s how some countries used to do it but it is becoming less common. Canada used to have provisions where Canadians born outside Canada would lose citizenship at, variously, age 28 or 24 if they didn’t take certain actions–but no such rule is currently in effect. And it never applied to Canadians born in Canada.
That said, Canada has never had CBT. It is not possible to lose Canadian citizenship automatically anymore but it doesn’t really matter as long as Canada never imposes CBT.
@ Stephen Kish
“Always mentioning the Alliance for Defence of Canadian Sovereignty in any comment or letter to editor.”
However keep in mind that some commenting systems – and some sensitive email firewalls – will block any comment or email with an embedded web link.
Unless you know a direct link is OK, consider spelling it out or suggest readers “just Google ‘Alliance+Defence+Canadian+Sovereignty’.”
The Wendy Powell segment on Talk Radio 600 begins at 11.18 on Hour 1.
http://www.wbobradio.com/2014/08/28/cindy-graves-show-hr-1-82814/
Great phone in commentary by a caller called Keith.
@George – I’ll mention the NSI problem to the journalist. They say US citizens, however, the NSI is breaking banking discrimination rules. There was a case up in Cheshire where Iranians where being denied banking services. They ultimately won and were allowed back into the financial system.
See this link for the article –
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/28/iranians-uk-banks-closed-accounts-claim-racial-discrimination
The Iranians mounted a legal challenge under the Equality Act. The challenged on being subjected to Racism.
The UK legal definition of race is as follows:
Race
(1)Race includes—
(a)colour;
(b)nationality;
(c)ethnic or national origins
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/9
So there you have it nationality. The NSI is breaching the Equality Act 2010 in my opinion.
That’s probably why you have on banking websites every nationality under the sun so they won’t fall foul of the Equality Act.
One other question would be does the bank need to know your nationality by UK law/Know Your Customer rules. It may be a case of you’re volunteering information. Perhaps that could be another legal avenue?
If you refuse to answer and not offered an account then what?
It goes on and on….
@Don
Disturbing actions by the UK banks.
I’m thinking we may need to eventually file a similar suit against the Canadian banks or join the Canadian banks as additional defendants to the existing ADCS-Arvay action (if that is permissible under Canadian law) in addition to the AGC (Peter MacKay).
I wouldn’t be surprised to see the banks violate the law if C-31 is struck down. The good news is that there are only a few banks of any size in Canada.
Interestingly the defendant in the ADCS action, the AGC Peter MacKay, is married to an Iranian Canadian woman.
@Don
I would love to see KYC eventually struck down as well. KYC strikes me as an unhealthy marriage between banks and law enforcement.
Banks IMHO can legitimately demand ID when opening an account. Banks shouldn’t need to know anything more about their customer than that when opening a deposit account. If extending credit, especially if the bank’s deposits are backed by government insurance, there may be more reasonable grounds for knowing more.
@Wondering,
Thanks for pointing out that commenters should mention the ADCS website in comments in a way that passes the firewall. I am one of those luddites who won’t use facebook etc. and have little experience in commenting on any site other than Brock and Sandbox.
@Dash1729: I’ll make a formal comment on this at the link provided at the Federal Register. does the link actually work for you? I get “We’re sorry, but we couldn’t load DOS_FRDOC_0001-2956 for commenting”?
http://www.regulations.gov/#!submitComment;D=DOS_FRDOC_0001-2956
@Don
BTW is there a right to have a bank account in either Canada or Europe?
I found the following website for Canada:
http://www.settlement.org/sys/faqs_detail.asp?faq_id=4000635
This website calls a bank account a ‘right’ but, sadly, it seems a pretty flimsy right. The bank account can be refused if the bank simply ‘thinks’ certain things. A right which others can ignore based on nothing more than their own opinions isn’t much of a right at all.
With regard to Europe the following web link seems to imply that the right to a basic bank account is in the works:
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_STATEMENT-14-237_en.htm
However I don’t know anything about how the European Commission goes about its business so I’m unable to interpret from the above (even though it is in English) exactly how close this means the EU is to guaranteeing the right to a bank account. Can anyone help here?
@Eric
The link opens but I haven’t tried actually commenting yet.
I just got an email from a sometimes-Brocker who says he heard from ACS (American Citizen Services), Calgary that they received notice that the fee changes are a “go”, effective September 12th…no warning, or anything.
Here is U.S. Department of State announcement: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2014/231128.htm
Talk about an about-face:
“That’s a policy change from 2010, when the State Department explained it had decided to set the $450 fee lower than the cost of handling a renunciation “in order to lessen the impact on those who need this service and not discourage the utilization of the service, a development the Department feels would be detrimental to national interests.”
Now should read: “in order to increase the impact on those who need this service and to discourage the utilization of the service, a development the Department feels would best serve national interests”.
I understand other websites’ restriction on hyperlinks. How many spammers abuse this website?
Let’s not fool ourselves, IBS is antagonistic towards many issues (e.g. CBT) considered sacrosanct by the mainstream media (MSM) in the US. At the same time, certain MSM websites (e.g. Robert Wood @ Forbes, Huffington Post) are starting to acknowledge our plight, and report sympathetically. If we choose to submit comments to such articles, direct hyperlinks to IBS might automatically firewall the comment.
A better solution might be to provide Google search phrases, and allow the interested reader to research the topic at their discretion. In this regard we should identify those Google search terms which are likely to elevate IBS to the first page of Google results, preferably the top result.
I spent some time the other day trying to achieve this result, and came up with “relinquish renounce”. However, I felt that these two words, in and of themselves, might immediately offend many homelanders. Ultimately I came up with “OVDI CBT”.
Ideally, we’d like IBS and Maple Sandbox as the first two results. Mostly, I was able to create search terms that put these two websites on the first page, but underneath ‘Hodgen’ and numerous links to ‘renouncecitizenship.com’. Both of these websites are worthy resources, but the latter’s name, and the number of links thereto, might deter a potentially sympathetic homelander. By way of comparison, if I Google a seemingly prominent topic, and the first page of results contain the words “illuminati” or “conspiracy”, I move on to another topic.
Many here are offended by the ambulatory opinions promoted by the likes of Robert Wood, Michael Kirsch and others, but they are homelanders who are at least acknowledging our concerns. If we comment on their articles, we should do so in such a way that they don’t feel compelled to censor us. The negative sentiment towards the US that permeates IBS is a justifiable criterion to censor comments with links to IBS. Robert Wood can’t be seen to support IBS, but there’s no doubt he’s sympathetic to our cause.
Brockers, and particularly any SEO’s amongst us, should try to identify inoffensive Google search phrases that we can quote on other websites which promote our cause.
Robert Wood has an article on this in Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2014/08/28/u-s-hikes-fee-to-renounce-citizenship-by-422/