Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Posted on by Posted in Issues regarding US persons abroad 82 Comments

Review Previous Isaac Brock Society Post and Comments re Boris Johnson, Mayor of London

and then listen to this current interview of Mayor Johnson’s feelings about his own US citizenship (he renewed that US passport in 2012):

The Diane Rehm Show – Interview with Boris Johnson, November 13, 2014, which begs someone to contact him again regarding our existence and his possible assistance in the cause as he is one of them there “Accidentals” having apparently left the US when he was five years old. This will best be a job for someone who can get through the layers of bureaucracy to actually reach and communicate with Mr. Johnson.

82 thoughts on “Boris Johnson – revisited”

  1. Also I meant for them to be distributed in Uxbridge / South Ruislip constituency probably a fortnight before the General Election.

  2. @Blaze – An email was sent by me suggesting a story about Boris along with an MP3 of his NPR interview the other day.

  5. I’ve tweeted Mr Wood’s story about Boris to a couple of Twitter accounts with his name attached to it – for my Twitter followers, please retweet blast to get his or other’s attention to the article!

  6. I’m still confused about the exit tax. If you are a dual but your assets are >$2 million doesn’t the exit tax still apply?
    Relevant to Boris I’m sure.

  8. @Bubblebustin, thanks. I think I have it all straight and then it all falls apart again. If they don’t accept my relinquishment I think I’ll just say to hell with them anyway. I’ve never been very good at being bullied. We’ll see.

  15. @Bubbles, that is a brilliant story for our cause as it generate publicity!!

    Boris is a resistor.

    @Moderator, please put this on the front page.

  16. @Just Me @George

    I read a handful of comments and they we mostly favourable to us and what we hope to accomplish (which is RBT).

  17. Boris probably received some bad advice from the compliance industry.

    We know Boris did not have a US Passport in 2006. We also know that Boris committed a potentially expatriating act in 2001 when he was elected MP.

    He could have applied for a retroactive CLN when he was PO’d in 2006 pre FATCA and it would have been dated in 2001, no muss no fuss.

    I suspect the compliance complex talked about renouncing being covered…blah blah blah….. They then likely said file going forward and since you pay a high rate of tax you will get an offsetting credit.

    But…..that fell apart with the non-taxed house sale.

  18. We still don’t know for sure that Boris has in fact sold his home. And yes, since he mentioned how hard it is to renounce, he probably blew any chance he may have had to relinquish.

  19. @Bubbles, the Guardian story implies that he sold a property and there is a demand for payment.

    Also because an Aide said no more comments, me thinks he did sell a property.

    He can relinquish but it will be post 2012 when he got a Passport. He could relinquish when he is elected as an MP in 2015.

    As he was a dual at birth he can avoid the exit tax but he will need five years of returns w/tax paid.

    It would be in his best interest to relinquish this May when he is elected MP again.

  20. We will never know the full story, but I suspect that Boris has been VERY badly advised and would have done well to lurk on this site a while to learn his true situation before acting rashly. Doubtless he lacked the time.

    What we know is that (i) he was born in the States but left as a young child (I believe his parents were either students or temporarily posted in NYC); (ii) a couple of years ago, he was denied boarding at Heathrow on a flight on a US Airline (Continental I believe) because he was travelling on a British passport that disclosed his US place of birth. He was travelling to Mexico on vacation with his family and he was forced to let them leave without him, joining them the next day on a different routing.

    At this point, he should have slammed the airline and or the USG. They wouldn’t board because he lacked a US passport and they told him that he was a US citizen and that, as a citizen, he had to carry a US passport when entering the US, even in transit. He evidently was ill-enough informed not to know (a) how completely toxic US citizenship is to the life of any person residing outside the United States on a permanent basis; and b) that he very likely had several relinquishing events to his credit and therefore had reasonable and credible grounds for disputing the claim that he still retained US citizenship. Being Mayor of London, being an MP – all of these were potential expatriating events. He may well have had others stretching back years – I don’t know enough of his personal history. The point is, he allowed them to talk him into believing he was a US citizen when he should have responded with firm resolution that they were and are mistaken. It must have seem strange to have someone tell the Mayor of London and an MP that he was a citizen of a foreign country – he should have listened to his gut and pushed back.

    Having allowed them to talk him into thinking he was still American, he then compounded his error by complying with their demand to get a US passport in order to be able to fly to the US in future without hindrance. Error number two. This brought the IRS into the picture and now his goose is in the oven and the temperature is rising.

    In the radio interview on NPR recently he admitted that he had sold his house (in Britain was my understanding) and the US was seeking tax on what is a tax free sale in Britain (and Canada). Otherwise, the interview suggested that he owed no taxes because UK taxes are higher. That unfortunately suggests that he has not gone very far into the compliance maze because the lack of symmetry between the US and UK tax systems would make him taxable for more than just an occasional home sale in all likelihood, but I confess I have no way of knowing.

    The only way out of this mess for poor Boris is to put the genie back into the bottle and assert his long-ago relinquishment. While the US loves to look at subsequent actions to deny CLN’s, they are only relevant to the extent that they are indicative of intent (to lose or retain citizenship) AT THE TIME OF THE RELINQUISHING ACT. That is just common sense – hard to say that you intended to relinquish on Day 1 when you went and voted or applied for a passport two years later unless you have a reasonable explanation for your mistake or unless you are admitting to attempted fraud.

    In Boris’ case, he may be able credibly to say that when he became an MP, or Mayor or accepted a civil service position (again, I don’t know his biography well enough) he understood that he would lose US citizenship, was content with that outcome and never really considered himself to be an American or to have any actual ties to have made it that important to him. In short, even if he didn’t know the law at the time (as doubtless he didn’t), he nonetheless knew the consequences of his actions in terms of his claim to US citizenship and was happy to accept them. That ought to form a sufficient basis for “intention to relinquish” as the expatriating events were not forced upon him against his will. He then needs to explain getting a passport. Nothing like the truth to get out of trouble. He had long believed he was no longer a citizen- he was told by people who he thought knew better than him that he nevertheless was. He did what appeared necessary in consequence (get a passport as demanded) but has now looked into the matter further and seen that his original view (that he had lost his claim to US citizenship) was correct and had been misled by the subequent events. Now that he has seen the truth, he wants to set the record straight. Given his position and all the rest, I would be surprised if the US tried to keep their claws in him. I’ll bet he gets his CLN back-dated. While Boris may believe his chances of occupying 10 Downing are “vanishingly slim”, there are more than a few others who believe the odds to be somewhat higher and I can’t believe the IRS wants to be seen trying to foist unwanted citizenship on so prominent a figure when the outcome may be to shine a light on their medieval CBT regime, possibly providing a catalyst for getting Congress to change it. Personally, I’d love it if they did (sorry Boris), but the IRS wants the US public to believe that it is running after fat-cat tax evaders, not the Mayor of London or Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since it will not be hard to convince Americans that they OBVIOUSLY have no right to tax him!

    Your’re welcome Boris! (we’d love to have you as a supporter, but I think the IRS will find a way to set you free if you give them half a chance to do so).

  21. Thanks, Anne Frank, for more on the Boris Johnson’s “US citizenship-taxation problem” that we can now compare to our own individual situations — and outcomes.

    One of the very best benefits of reading at isaacbrocksociety.ca/ is learning from others’ mistakes — my first mistake, for instance, was the same that Mr. Johnson made:

    The point is, he allowed them to talk him into believing he was a US citizen when he should have responded with firm resolution that they were and are mistaken. It must have seem strange to have someone tell the Mayor of London and an MP that he was a citizen of a foreign country – he should have listened to his gut and pushed back.

  23. Just wait until poor old Boris gets his bank accounts frozen for not being able to produce a CLN. Then the sparks will really start to fly.

    I am curious how Queen Noor is going to handle the issue. I don’t know if Jordan has an IGA yet.

  24. The Brits will start crying “no taxation without representation” and reopen the legality the America’s unilateral declaration of independence.

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