I am making a post of this comment by Muzzled No More.
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Could I suggest that Brockers make comments at the following link.
http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=DOS_FRDOC_0001-2956
Comments on the fee-hikes for consular services are being accepted until Oct. 21.
I am unable to do so (still Muzzled in some regards) but if I could, my comment would be as follows:
“It is every American’s constitutional right to renounce his citizenship. As a right, renunciation of citizenship should be free of charge or, at worst, available at an extremely nominal fee, certainly no higher than the “user-pay” fee one would be charged for a passport. A $450 fee was bad enough. For many citizens, the new fee of $2350.00 has priced renunciation beyond their ability to pay. The $2350.00 fee effectively denies them their constitutional right to renounce.
“Renunciation of citizenship is a right guaranteed to all, not a privilege reserved for a few. As such, the US government *must* provide the necessary service at no or low cost. If a renunciation application actually costs the State Department $2350.00 then it is its responsibility to simplify its procedure thereby reducing those costs.
“Perhaps a lesson can be taken from the German government’s renunciation procedure. The application form is available online. The applicant fills out the form and mails it in with certified copies of a couple of documents. No fee. No in-person interviews. No fancy ceremonies. The renunciation is considered in effect when a certificate is received by the applicant. Simple. Efficient. Cost-effective. There is no need for the complexity with which the US State Department’s process is currently burdened.”
If anybody wants to submit that comment under their own moniker I’d be delighted!
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“ricard” notes:
At the site you mention one can submit a comment with complete anonymity. There is no requirement to give any name. I mention this in case anyone else has been put off from commenting by thinking it is necessary to give real identification. Take you chance.
I am inclined to feel trusting. I do not think they will be recording IP addresses and hunting down people whose comments they don’t like.
It surprises me that they are only showing 34 comments received.
yes, recommend it
you can do it anonymously or with real name
I just posted the comment for you. The receipt is 1jy-8ekg-mdpv
Yes, please, everyone, tell them what you think. Mine is in there and by God I did give them my name. I said what I thought and I stand by it.
It is just my luck. In July I was given a date for a relinquishment interview at the Consulate in Amsterdam for next week. I have an extremely solid case for having relinquished in the 90s in the UK when I became a magistrate. But I suspect that it will be rejected so that they can shake me down for the new extortionate fee. Watch this space.
I thought I’d do a little research into how many comments these regulation changes typically garner. A quick look at various dockets relating to “consular fees” shows that the comments range from 0 to rarely more than 10, EXCEPT when the broad sweeping consular fee hikes took place in 2010,
http://www.regulations.gov/contentStreamer?objectId=0900006480a8ffe8&disposition=attachment&contentType=pdf
…that had 1567 comments, and at glance are mostly complaints about the passport fee increase from $55 to $70. Many of those complaints would have been from homelanders, which would not be the case here. So maybe 34 would be enough to get someone’s attention, if they care.
You also have to wonder how likely those who’ve made up their minds to make a final departure from the US would be to to lodge a grievance with the US government. All I think it would do is just confirm to them why they’ve had it with the USA.
Looking forward to reviewing them when they’re out. A hunch is that many of them will be from immigration lawyers po’d about their clients getting thrown such a rotten curve ball.
Is there any way to see the actual comments that have been posted yet? I can see that 34 comments have been posted but can’t find the actual comments.
Now even the IRS has issued a warning about FATCA fraud!
http://www.thinkadvisor.com/2014/09/24/irs-warns-of-fatca-phishing-scams
Official IRS FATCA warning:
http://www.irs.gov/uac/Newsroom/IRS-Warns-Financial-Institutions-of-Scams-Designed-to-Steal-FATCA-Related-Account-Data
My input.
Since an expat would save approximately $2k / year in tax pro fees. A ream of paper needed to print out the crazy tax forms is about $3 and postage about $5. The risk that the IRS turns on you and drops a $10k charge / account because you misspelled the bank name could be valued at around $1k. Filling cabinet to keep the 7 years of bank information required by the FBAR law is going to cost say $200. A home safe to keep your money in because no foreign bank even wants an American to step in the door let alone have an account is going to cost about $600. Bodyguard to protect you from the terrorists that come after your cash because the FATCA data was stolen by ISIS is going to cost ~30k / year. ~50k legal fees when your foreign born wife kicks you to the curb because being married to an American means your financial data isn’t private.
Many of these costs will recur yearly because there is little chance that congress will change anything. So valuing this as a perpetual with a discount factor of say 4% should yield a value close to $100k.
This seems like a more realistic cost for expatriation in that it avoids all this bullshit.
The new State Dept FAM on relinquishments actually quotes and references the Expatriation Act 1868.
Me thinks that any fee for renouncing is in violation of that Act.
A few weeks ago @Bubblebustin reminded us that only a few people had complained on the site — and so I made a short submission. Today only 34 comments have been submitted — DOS will probably emphasize the poor response and one could argue that the lack of response might negatively affect our submission.
If you are afraid of disclosure, have someone else make the submission and have that person make the important point that you are afraid to submit on your own.
I have the tracking number and wonder whether it will be accepted. This is what I said:
“…The 8 September 2014 response of our organization to your decision to increase the fee to renounce citizenship has been to retain a Washington D.C. attorney, Mr. Jim Butera of Jones Walker LLP, to explore options to take the Department of State to court over the fee increase. We will do this at the earliest possible date.
I enclose for you our press release in the two official languages of Canada.
You can expect a submission from our attorney, representing our organization, and can also follow our progress at http://www.adcs-adsc.ca
Sincerely,
Stephen Kish
Chair,
Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty
Toronto, Ontario”
.
My comment (from the recent post on this subject — http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2014/09/22/the-widening-gap-for-the-cost-of-freedom-from-us-citizenship-and-us-tax-compliance/), on behalf of low-income *US Persons* living abroad / Tracking Number: 1jy-8eko-mvii:
I believe that highlighting the ever-widening gap for those of low income to ever be able to free themselves from US citizenship, which is their Constitutional right if they so choose, is so very important. These are the families I worry about the most — and, believe me, I worry about ALL *US Person* families who live abroad. For these low-income families, how will they ever have enough for the US citizenship renunciation fee, let alone the cost of compliance either to remain a US citizen abroad or to check out of the USA properly? How will many of these low-income persons even understand all of the complexity? Who at a US Consulate, the U.S. Department of State will take responsibility for helping these low-income persons after subjecting them to this, their rights having been waived by the signing of US Treasury (not Congress) intergovernmental agreements for FATCA?
U.S. “homelanders” continue to bring up the fact that *US Persons Abroad* have a “foreign earned income exemption” of $97,000. Unfortunately, they don’t understand that is for “earned income”. Earned income means being paid from an employer for their work. That may not be most sources of income for those expats of low income or on social assistance.
I have paid the US $3,661 of taxes because I hold for my son a disability savings plan meant to help in future costs of disabled persons living in my country. Some other “benefits” that are taxable by the US, not covered by the US / Canada Tax Treaty or the Foreign Earned Income Exemption are:
a) Welfare payments, not considered “earned income” in IRS’s POV.
b) Disability payments, not considered “earned income” in IRS’s POV
c) Employment Insurance, not considered “earned income” in IRS’s POV
d) Worker’s Compensation, not considered “earned income” in IRS’s POV
e) Child Support Payments, not considered “earned income” in IRS’s POV
f) Canada Child Tax Benefit payments, not considered “earned income” in IRS’s point of view.
It is a catch-22 as persons receiving the above do not have the monetary resources to get into compliance nor usually the financial literacy to understand what they are up against. Their choice is between putting food on the table for their families or starving and coming into compliance. They will likely never, in addition, be able to come up with the punitive increased US renunciation fee of $2,350 per person in their families. For these people there is no way to come into compliance that would not bring financial ruin, and on top of everything else, they may have US FBAR penalties heaped upon them should they wilfully now know about FBAR but be financially unable to file those back information returns.
There is no way for those of low-income to think of coming “into compliance” or for even entering a US Consulate to renounce a US citizenship that with each year entraps them further in additional renunciation and compliance fees they cannot come up with. What will be the next punitive increases further entrapping these persons into US citizenship?
I submitted anonymously:
This was submitted by me to Regulations.gov a few moments ago (receipt 1jy-8ekq-eb58):
As a recent renunciant (2012) I deplore the rise in fees for renouncing US citizenship. In fact, there should be no charge at all since the act of renouncing is a right, not a privilege. Surely the cost of processing a citizenship application requires much higher and lengthier scrutiny, yet clearly this is not being charged at full price! It appears the Department is hiding behind other motivations for charging higher fees to give back citizenship than to obtain it.
According to the Federal Register, 8,248 persons renounced citizenship in the four years from 01 July 2010 and ending 30 June 2014. That is an average of 2,062 per year. Look at the data over each 12 months of this period: 1976, 1412, 2092, and 2768 — the trend is definitely upward, and if it continues will rise to 4,000 or 5,000 yearly over the next three years. Interestingly, the imposition of the $450 fee didn’t deter those seeking a moral change; nor will the higher fee.
To the rationale behind the Cost of Service Model, an individual contemplating renunciation does not need a consular officer to personally explain the implications of this act, nor to help in preparing the application forms. The written instructions are very clear, and the impact well explained online. Two interviews are not necessary either. This whole process could be done online with only the final receipt of the Certificate of Loss of Nationality sent by registered mail to an address. The Department pretends this is such an earth-shattering experience for which only their wise counsel is necessary. I prepared everything before my first interview on February 6th, and told the embassy staffer that I fully understood the decision I was making, that my reason for doing so was because it was my right to do so, and at my urging the second interview was conducted as soon as a consular officer was available, two days later. That was it. Other than having to make an additional visit to re-sign one form because the embassy used an outdated version, my CLN was delivered within four weeks, necessitating another wasted two hours to receive it. I did all the work and had to pay $450 for the privilege! That was proof enough that I had made a good decision. Learning about this latest rise to $2,350 was abhorrent!
I predict this will increase and not decrease the number of renunciation applications because it will have the opposite effect to what the Department, and probably high-level policy making, hopes to achieve. People make this decision to give up US citizenship after years of observing government meddling in the affairs of individuals and other nations, after watching their taxes squandered on foreign military intervention in the name of a crusade, and a host of other things. Imposing a fee and increasing it when the demand rises will not change that. This is a pure money grab, plain and simple.
Watch how many would-be renunciants will now switch to relinquishment because of this immoral fee increase. That will make fine press for the Department.
The Department should review its cost model because it is based on broken processes. Fix the processes to free up the implied valuable consular services, reducing the fees for all users of such services. These embassy people are there for a reason, and are already being paid to provide the exact services you want to double bill. If they would do more than a few hours of public contact per week then the efficiency would rise.
Someone who is afraid to put his own name on a similar complaint stated it this way:
“It is every American’s constitutional right to renounce his citizenship. As a right, renunciation of citizenship should be free of charge or, at worst, available at an extremely nominal fee, certainly no higher than the “user-pay” fee one would be charged for a passport. A $450 fee was bad enough. For many citizens, the new fee of $2350 has priced renunciation beyond their ability to pay. The $2350 fee effectively denies them their constitutional right to renounce.
“Renunciation of citizenship is a right guaranteed to all, not a privilege reserved for a few. As such, the US government *must* provide the necessary service at no or low cost. If a renunciation application actually costs the State Department $2350 then it is its responsibility to simplify its procedure thereby reducing those costs.
“Perhaps a lesson can be taken from the German government’s renunciation procedure. The application form is available online. The applicant fills out the form and mails it in with certified copies of a couple of documents. No fee. No in-person interviews. No fancy ceremonies. The renunciation is considered in effect when a certificate is received by the applicant. Simple. Efficient. Cost-effective. There is no need for the complexity with which the US State Department’s process is currently burdened.”
Please consider this from a user’s perspective. Cut the erroneous process, and cut the fee.
Good comment Leonardo. You didn’t miss a thing.
Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention @calgary411. Have commented anonymously.
I submitted a comment, as follows:
I object to the raising of the consular fee for administration of a renunciation of United States citizenship from $450 to $2,350. I am a lawyer who has dealt with many renunciations in London over the years. My reasons for objecting are:
1. I find it hard to believe that the provision of this service actually costs $2,350 per renunciant. That represents some 17 hours of attention at the $135 hourly rate. The right approach to the problem of having to administer so many more renunciations than previously must be to reduce the paperwork and bureaucracy involved, rather than increase the fee. These days, renunciants generally know what they want to do and what the consequences are; all this consular attention could be better directed to young or potentially mentally unstable applicants.
2. A fee as disproportionately high as this one is actually a deterrent to expatriation. It is a recognized human right to leave one’s country. The United States is the only country other than Eritrea which imposes its taxes on citizens who reside outside the United States on the same worldwide basis as on those who reside within it; hence, it is only US citizens who are forced to renounce citizenship in order to ensure that they are subject to worldwide tax only by the countries where they live and work and from which they receive government services. The stated objective of Congress in the expatriation tax arena was to make expatriation tax neutral. Congress clearly has not done so and the rhetoric coming from Congressional leaders on renunciation is simply hostile. This State Department increase can be perceived (reasonably, I believe) as an attempt to stem a rising tide of expatriations. Why cannot State ask Congress to address the question of why so many people now wish to expatriate, rather than just blindly raise barriers to it happening? If the objective is actually to deter expatriation, the fee increase may well be counterproductive. It is not unreasonable to expect people to adopt the attitude that, if the fee is now four times what it was when it was first set, it is better to expatriate now, before the fee is 8 times what it was when it was first set.
3. There is an unjustified perception that people who renounce citizenship are rich tax dodgers living lives of luxury in tax havens. In fact, they generally are not. This fee will be a burden for two particular groups of Americans who live outside the United States. The first are young people, who are beginning to learn through the publicity surrounding FATCA and the Swiss banks that their American citizenship will subject them to lifelong tax obligations to the United States, a country with which most of them have had little or no contact other than because of their birth citizenship. These young people are increasingly aware that they cannot choose freely where they wish to live and what they wish to do if they start out already tainted by burdens placed on them, their employers, their bankers and their partners based solely on their United States citizenship. The second group of people who will find the new fees a burden are the large numbers of ordinary people who are reaching retirement. They are not living in tax havens, but in ordinary high-tax countries like Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Again, the publicity surrounding FATCA and the Swiss banks has made them aware that they may not have been completely compliant with their US tax obligations over the sometimes 40 or 50 years they have been living outside the United States. Their retirement savings are vulnerable to draconian penalties imposed by the United States because of these older people’s failure to report their very existence (not failure to pay tax owed). They want to renounce citizenship to simplify their lives and take advantage, if they can, of the legal retirement planning they have already put in place in the countries where they reside. For an elderly couple in this situation, a “price” of $4,700 for giving up US citizenship in their retirement years is very high indeed. Not many of them have that kind of nest egg.
freedom is not free, it will cost more to break the bonds of birthplace slavery
I submitted a comment as well, using a considerable part of Muzzled’s text. However, I did have a few things to add:
My mother did not consult me when she decided to give birth to me in the US. I had no say in the matter, of course. Now that I am an adult, I choose to live elsewhere in the world and have neither sentimental nor financial ties to the US, and have not had them for the past 11 years. However, the US government would like me to pay a steep price for my freedom. According to most definitions, this would be called slavery.
The fee for naturalization is only $680, and one would think it would be in the US government’s interest to spend more time investigating a potential new citizen than letting one leave. In essence, the US government is holding its citizens hostage for an unreasonable ransom. This should be appalling to any American who still believes the US was founded on principles of personal freedom.
Calgary: Thank you *so* much for taking the time to make a separate post for this issue! Many, many thanks!
Thanks to those who have sent my words along to the State Department on my behalf and to all of you who have commented on the link.
Stephen: I somehow missed the fact that the American lawyer was hired to potentially sue the State Department over this issue. Fantastic!!!!
You’ve all gotten my day off to an excellent start. Thank you!!
Leonardo,
Thank you very much for mentioning information on the simplicity of German citizenship renunciation. I just passed on this info on to our U.S. attorney, who is interested in the point you raised, and who is exploring legal approaches with the Department of State and Treasury related to the total “cost” of “renunciation”.
“Perhaps a lesson can be taken from the German government’s renunciation procedure. The application form is available online. The applicant fills out the form and mails it in with certified copies of a couple of documents. No fee. No in-person interviews. No fancy ceremonies. The renunciation is considered in effect when a certificate is received by the applicant. Simple. Efficient. Cost-effective. There is no need for the complexity with which the US State Department’s process is currently burdened.”
@Stephen Kish
Good points but…
‘There is no need for the complexity with which the US State Department’s process is currently burdened.’
I didn’t think this was actually the problem. I thought that the problem was that State’s process is NOT especially complex but they are charging an astronomical fee commensurate more appropriate to a process much more complex than this one actually is.
Posted by someone I know:
“The sudden huge increase in the renunciation fee, and its application even to people whose appointments for renunciation had already been booked, has been a devastating blow to many of limited means.
“People whom no reasonable homelander would see as American, whether emigrants or ‘accidentals’ whose entire lives are lived abroad, are desperate to escape the stranglehold of ill-conceived laws which force them into paying thousands of dollars each year to ‘compliance experts’ to prove they owe little or no tax to a nation which increasingly imposes a vicious system of reporting penalties and PFIC rules.
“One does not have to be a cynic to consider that ‘raising the exit fee’ is a sign of something badly wrong with US policy.
“We can do better than this. Yes we can!”
@ Dash1729
The complexity is more on the side of the renouncers, not on the side of they who pronounce the renouncers renounced. It’s the renouncers who have to travel sometimes hundreds of miles to a consulate, endure intrusive security procedures, fill out ambiguous forms and then wait months for their CLNs to arrive. The renunciation pronouncers spend far fewer hours vetting renunciations than renouncers spend preparing for and attending renunciation interviews. And the pronouncers get paid for their hours of work while the renouncers pay to put in their hours of work — now 5 times more than before.
I do lots of costing in my work. There is no accurate method to cost anything. The cost in the end is never actual. It can only be comparative between 2 options.