The Q2 2015 Quarterly Publication of Individuals Who Have Chosen to Expatriate has been placed on public inspection for printing in the Federal Register for 31 July 2015, one day later than required by law. This is the seventy-fifth list to appear since the passage of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or maybe the seventy-fourth. (That depends on whether you count the 52-days-late Q3 2000 list, which was an exact duplicate of the Q2 2000 list.)
The list this quarter contains 460 names. This is the smallest quarterly total since the absurdly-small Q4 2012 list, which contained just 45 names. On the other hand, it’s also the second-fastest publication time since then too (the fastest being the Q3 2014 list, the only one to appear on time since then). During the same period covered by the newest list, the FBI’s NICS gun control database went from 28,646 renunciant records to 30,117, an increase of 1,471 renunciants — similar to the number added to NICS during the first three months of the year.
Working from the (possibly outdated, and if so probably too low rather than too high) estimate of four or five relinquishers for every six renunciants, the NICS figures suggests that at least 2,700 people gave up U.S. citizenship during those three months. On top of that, perhaps 4,500 ex-permanent residents cancelled their green cards during the same period (based on USCIS statistics from 2013).
Table of contents
- Media articles about specific relinquishments
- Comparison with NICS
- Who shows up in the expat honour roll anyway?
- Conclusion
Media articles about specific relinquishments
Here’s a table of people mentioned by name in media reports as having given up U.S. citizenship since the beginning of 2013. Only one person from the table showed up in this quarter’s list: Camillo Gonsalves, a diplomat and politician from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines who says he renounced citizenship back in September 2013. I have no idea what took State & the IRS so long to get his name printed, seeing as some people who gave up citizenship in late 2014 already showed up in last quarter’s list. On the other hand, some folks like Shere Hite took six years to get their names printed back in the early 2000s, so I guess the IRS is getting better at this after decades of practice.
| Name | Occupation | Other citizenship |
Giving up US citizenship | Appeared in Federal Register? |
Source | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reason | Date | |||||
| Naftali Bennett | Politician | Israel | Members of Knesset cannot hold foreign citizenships | January 2013 | Q2 2013 | Jerusalem Post |
| Dov Lipman | Politician | Israel | Members of Knesset cannot hold foreign citizenships | January 2013 | Q2 2013 | Jerusalem Post |
| Orlan Calayag | Bureaucrat | Philippines | Become head of National Food Authority | January 2013 | Q2 2013 | Philippine Star |
| Mahmud Karzai | Politician | Afghanistan | Launch political career in Afghanistan | January 2013 | Q1 2013 | Radio Free Europe |
| Bernard Chan Pak-li | Scientist, bureaucrat | Hong Kong | Join Commerce & Economic Development Bureau | February 2013 | Q2 2013 | HK Economic Times |
| Fauzia Kasuri | Politician | Pakistan | Pakistan does not allow politicians to hold dual citizenship | March 2013 | No | Dawn (Pakistan) |
| Marshall Nicholson | Investment banker | Hong Kong | Unclear — probably career-related (he worked in a Chinese-owned fund) | April 2013 | Q4 2013 | Reuters |
| René González | Intelligence | Cuba | Part of deal with DOJ to end parole & return to Cuba | May 2013 | No | Washington Post |
| Quincy Davis | Basketball player | Taiwan | Naturalise & join national basketball team | June 2013 | Q4 2013 | China Post |
| Glen L. Roberts | Writer | None | To become stateless | June 2013 | Q4 2014 | Int’l Business Times |
| Camillo Gonsalves | Diplomat, politician | St. Vincent & Grenadines | Join Senate of SVG | September 2013 | Q2 2015 | I-Witness News (SVG) |
| Michael Putman | Librarian, translator, editor | Canada | “[F]ully assimilate into the civic and cultural life of my new country” | September 2013 | No | BBC |
| Tina Turner | Singer | Switzerland | Unclear | October 2013 | Q1 2014 | Forbes |
| Lu Shu-hao | Military | Taiwan | Service in Republic of China Army | January 2014 or earlier | No | Taipei Times |
| Sandy Opravil | Housewife | Switzerland | Save her mortgage | February 2014 | Q3 2014 | Newsweek |
| Roger Ver | Bitcoin investor | St. Kitts & Nevis | Libertarian political opinions | February 2014 | No | Bloomberg |
| Sophia Martelly | Politician | Haiti | Run for Senate of Haiti | March 2014 | No | Haiti Press Network |
| Ya’aqov Ben-Yehudah | Writer | Israel | Complicated; see source | March 2014 | Q2 2014 | Times of Israel |
| Sean Cavanaugh | Technology | Canada | FATCA | April 2014 | Q1 2015 | Tweeted own CLN in August 2014 |
| Mona Quartey | Politician | Ghana | Become Deputy Finance Minister of Ghana | July 2014 | No | Graphic News (Ghana) |
| Alex Kim | Pop star | South Korea | Obtain South Korean citizenship & serve in military | August 2014 | No | Herald Business (South Korea) |
| Nicole Beaudoin | Unknown | Canada | FATCA | September 2014 | Q3 2014 | La Presse (Canada) |
| Kim Sungkyum | Military | South Korea | Be commissioned an officer in the Republic of Korea Army | December 2014 | Q1 2015 | Kookbang Ilbo (South Korea) |
| Lin Jou-min | Architect | Taiwan | Take position in Taipei city government | December 2014 | No | Central News Agency (Taiwan) |
| Rachel Azaria | Politician | Israel | Members of Knesset cannot hold foreign citizenships | January 2015 | No | Times of Israel |
| Jonathan Tepper | Macroeconomic analyst | United Kingdom | FATCA & other U.S. tax reporting requirements | January 2015 | No | The New York Times |
| David Alward | Politician | Canada | To become Canadian consul-general in Boston | April 2015 or earlier | No | Canadian Broadcasting Corporation |
Comparison with NICS
On 31 December 2014, NICS had 27,240 renunciant records, according to the FBI’s 2014 NICS operations report. The below table lists the monthly additions to NICS since then, compared with the quarterly lists in the Federal Register. The FBI has the bad habit of uploading the new NICS report each month at the same URL as the old one; the only way to keep a verifiable collection of old reports is to save old ones in the Internet Archive each month, and unfortunately we didn’t remember to do this for all months. As a result, the January and February links go to Innocente’s comments, rather than copies of the FBI’s PDF files.
| NICS | Federal Register | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Month-end total | Increase | Quarter | Count |
| January 2015 | 27,511 | 271 | Q1 2015 | 1,336 |
| February 2015 | 27,616 | 105 | NICS Q1 Total | 1,406 |
| March 2015 | 28,646 | 1,030 | Est. non-NICS relinquishers | ~1,200 |
| April 2015 | 29,413 | 767 | Q2 2015 | 460 |
| May 2015 | 29,956 | 543 | NICS Q2 total | 1,471 |
| June 2015 | 30,117 | 161 | Est. non-NICS relinquishers | ~1,200 |
Who shows up in the expat honour roll anyway?
There’s two major disputes over the contents of the Federal Register lists: is it required (and does it bother) to include (1) former long-term permanent residents, and (2) non-covered expatriates? Both of these disputes revolve around some horribly-ambiguous wording in the last sentence of 26 USC § 6039G(d):
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, not later than 30 days after the close of each calendar quarter, the Secretary shall publish in the Federal Register the name of each individual losing United States citizenship (within the meaning of section 877(a) or 877A) with respect to whom the Secretary receives information under the preceding sentence during such quarter.
877(a) doesn’t define what it means to lose United States citizenship at all; it only defines what it means to be subject to the tax in 877(a). However, 877A(g)(4) does define what it means to “relinquish citizenship”.
Former long-term permanent residents?
Beginning from the Q1 2012 list, the IRS began to claim that “For purposes of this listing, long-term residents, as defined in section 877(e)(2), are treated as if they were citizens of the United States who lost citizenship.” However, those who believe this claim, or who repeat it without fact-checking it (e.g. most of the media), have never provided the name of single person who was verifiably a non-citizen long-term permanent resident and who appeared in the Federal Register.
The one country in which it is easiest to find media reports of named people giving up U.S. green cards is South Korea, because of the legal requirement there (soon to be abolished) for people who obtain foreign permanent residence to cancel their South Korean resident registration, and for them to prove cancellation of their foreign permanent residence to regain that domestic resident registration. None of the people named in those reports showed up in the Federal Register list (and all of them were pop stars, suggesting they had sufficient assets to meet the “covered expatriate” threshold, in the event that’s relevant at all to the list).
The question of whether the list is supposed to include ex-LPRs is a bit more challenging. Even after the most recent revision to Form I-407 in February 2015, USCIS still doesn’t collect Social Security numbers or length of time since the person obtained the green card from the 1,500 or so people who cancel their green cards each month. This means that the data they provide to the IRS on green card cancellations probably remains as useless as it was back in 2000.
Furthermore, Virginia La Torre Jeker, in comments at AngloINFO, disagrees that 6039G(d) even gives the IRS the authority to print the names of green card holders in the first place:
Frankly, the law in Sec 6039G states per below that the name of each individual “losing United States citizenship (within the meaning of section 877 (a) or 877A)” should be published in the Federal Register. First, it is not clear to me that United States citizenship is the same as holding a green card! Second if one refers to the referenced Code sections of Section 877(a) and 877A – these refer to those persons who are deemed to have a tax avoidance motive / fail to make the tax certification and either lose US citizenship or long term lawful permanent resident status (i.e., after having such status for 8 tax years out of the preceding 15 tax years). As such, certainly not all green card holders should be listed in the Fed Reg. and further, I wonder if ANY should be listed at all given the wording in 6039G, to wit — “losing United States citizenship”.
877A definitely does not include abandonment of a green card under the definition of “relinquishment of citizenship”; it only includes it under “expatriation”, and since, as Ms. La Torre Jeker mentions, the statute only permits publication of the names of people “losing United States citizenship”, it’s doubtful the IRS has the authority to print the names of ex-green card holders. So if you do happen to know the name of an ex-green card holder appearing in the Federal Register, it could indicate that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is in violation of 26 USC § 6103. Try dobbing him on Form 211 for your whistleblower reward!
Uncovered expatriates
David Lesperance and several others have suggested that the list only contains covered expatriates.
From Bill Yates’ earlier interview with Virginia La Torre Jeker (discussed by Brockers here), we know that in the early 2000s the U.S. government was thinking of trying to enforce the Reed Amendment by comparing names of arriving travellers to the expat honour roll and making them waive their Section 6103 privacy rights so the IRS could release their records to the Justice Department and the Attorney General could determine whether or not the person “renounced United States citizenship for the purpose of avoiding taxation by the United States”.
Similarly, William J. Krouse of the Congressional Research Service wrote back in 2000, in the context of Reed Amendment enforcement:
As required by HIPA, IRS publishes a list quarterly in the Federal Register of the names of persons who have renounced their U.S. citizenship (expatriates) and who, by having renounced citizenship, may have done so to avoid taxation and may meet tax liability or net worth tests under 877(a). The IRS, however, does not make a preliminary determination based upon its records whether these expatriates meet either test and, thus, would be inadmissible into the United States. Consequently, these lists include expatriates whose motivation may not have been tax avoidance, and whose exclusion might be an embarassment to the United States.
Both Yates’ and Krouse’s statements seem to imply that non-covered expatriates are supposed to be in the list. This would also square with the previous observation that almost all ex-citizens of 2006-or-earlier vintage showed up in the Federal Register — even South Korean apple farmers supporting a family of five on US$25,000/year.
Obviously, the biggest relevant legislative change since Krouse wrote that quoted passage was the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004. Before it passed, there was a definite procedure for deciding that an expatriation had avoidance of taxation as “one of its principal purposes”: people who met the “covered expatriate” test of 877(a)(2), and who didn’t fall under any of the statutory exceptions, could apply for private letter rulings about the “principal purposes” of their expatriations. Afterwards, however, Congress took away the IRS’ authority to make judgment calls, and there would be no more investigations of the “purposes” of an expatriation; if you met the asset, tax liability, or missing tax forms test, you were subject to the expatriation tax.
However, if Mr. Krouse accurately described the IRS’ procedures for compiling the Federal Register list, I don’t see why the AJCA would have spurred the IRS to change those procedures. Besides, if the IRS were trying to restrict the list to covered expatriates, they would have to wait until each expatriate’s tax return due date — as late as October in the year following the loss of citizenship or green card — before publishing the name. Without a Form 8854 in hand, the IRS usually has no way of knowing whether a person is a covered expatriate (unless & until they become one by passing their tax return date without having filed that form), but as the table above demonstrates, some lucky people appear in the expat honour roll during the same year in which they relinquish citizenship.
There might be one case in which a person who has not yet filed a Form 8854 could already be known to the IRS to be a covered expatriate: if the IRS receives the person’s CLN, the person did not file U.S. taxes in the past five years prior to the expatriation date, and the IRS has proof that the person had sufficient income to generate a filing requirement. The third condition in particular should have been rather rare up until now, unless the person had U.S.-source income; FATCA might change this situation, though.
Other theories
Some folks think that non-renunciant relinquishers do not appear in the Federal Register. We’ve discussed this idea in the comments section here a few times, and John Gaver once advanced this theory on his blog and specifically predicted that Tina Turner would not appear. According to the Washington Post, Turner confirmed to the U.S. consulate that her acquisition of Swiss citizenship was performed with intent to relinquish U.S. citizenship under 8 USC § 1481(a)(1). Turner’s name showed up in the Q1 2014 list. The Post also claimed that relinquishers don’t pay the exit tax, and had to issue a correction a few days later, so maybe they’re wrong about everything else they said too; however, other people whose publicly-posted CLNs show that they relinquished instead of renouncing (e.g. Petros) have also appeared in the list.
Robert Wood wrote last year that the list does not include “[w]hat is often called consular expatriations, where people don’t file exit tax forms with the IRS”. I’m not quite sure what “consular expatriations” are; these days, all expatriations involve showing up at a consulate in person, unlike the good old days when you could get rid of your unwanted citizenship by mail (something which you can still do in civilised countries like Ireland — and without paying an absurd fee, either).
Conclusion
The list has some names in it. They belong to people whose names the IRS decided to publish. There are other people whose names the IRS accidentally forgot to publish, or deliberately decided not to publish, or whatever. Ex-green card holders probably aren’t in the list. Everything else is a toss-up. Even lawyers can’t figure it out. Caveat lector.
@Victoria,
I also wonder why Amanda states unequivocally twice in the article http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/americans-abroad-disillusioned-diaspora that expats abroad were NOT the intended targets of FATCA. She cites no sources for that assertion. In my mind, though that statement has been repeated from time to time, the IRS, Congress and Treasury have neither confirmed nor refuted it, and I don’t remember any definitive source being given. FATCAfather Richard ‘Dick’ Harvey did not exclude expats from the intent and design of FATCA, nor have any of the usual suspects like Levin, etc.. If it is the case that expats outside the US were not the intended targets, then one would think that would speed up redress of some kind – even half-assed ones – like most ‘fixes’ coming from IRS/Treasury/Congress.
Time has long since passed for clarification that expats weren’t meant to suffer or that we’re just collateral damage.
I wonder what Mythster Stack at the Treasury Dept is saying about SCE and the supposed myth that FATCA isn’t causing account closures abroad.
@Badger, I have a source. 🙂 One of the lobbyists for Americans abroad talked about an Overseas Americans week held after FATCA was passed in 2010. They asked Treasury what the hell was going on and the reply was “Oh, we’re not after people like you!” and assured them that Americans living outside the US were not the target.
I’m sure that I’m not the only person who has heard that story and I believe it has been passed around in circles that Amanda (and I) frequent.
@Badger, @Victoria, I agree. The cause of FATCA was the UBS scandal, where all Americans involved were US residents. When I started talking to Congress in 2012, they were barely aware that Americans abroad even existed. One assistant was shocked when I said they were 6 million, he imagined 100,000.
@Badger, “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” In the case of Congress, I add laziness.
Names appearing a couple of years after renunciation, or sometimes in less time, and sometimes never appearing — I can’t imagine what kind of “record-keeping system” they must use to produce such an untimely and inconsistently compiled list of names for each quarter.
But I can imagine people sitting around an office, telling each other their plan worked. That is, cut the number of days and hours available for renunciation and relinquishment appointments to some minimum, and raise the fee by 4-5 times (maybe more considering currency exchange) to something unaffordable by many — and thus reduce the increasing numbers of names on the “Freedom List”. If they are embarrassed to see a longer list, an easy solution would be simply not to publish any list.
@badger: On the bright side, looks like the WSJ has decided to stop granting what Glenn Greenwald would call “stenographic treatment” to the IRS’ claim that the list includes green card holders. Compare to last quarter’s article:
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2015/05/07/record-number-give-up-u-s-citizenship/
@Walt: my personal theory is that the shenanigans started under Hank Paulson back in the Bush II administration. Right in the year after Grassley snuck a massive tax hike on upper-middle-income expats (FEIE stacking) into the Tax Increase “Prevention” and Reconciliation Act, the number of names in the Federal Register fell by nearly two-thirds. That doesn’t pass the smell test.
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2013/02/16/sharp-uptick-in-names-missing-from-federal-register-published-expatriates-list-after-2006/
@Victoria, and @Shadow Raider, sorry, but if that is the case (that expats weren’t the target of FATCA), and they now are experiencing pushback, why haven’t they even offered up meaningless soothing public platitudes to that effect? Instead they continue to deny that accounts are being denied or closed, and refuse to acknowledge the severity of the so-called ‘unintended’ effects.
Sorry, but by now, 5 years later, with the data about to flow, I don’t buy that it is merely due to stupidity or inertia. I think that the IRS and Treasury decided that FATCA is too useful a potential tool, just as they are abusing the FBAR duties/powers they were given, and besides, to them and to Congress, what’s a couple of million expats and their families?
By now the impact cannot be denied. This is willful territory. Even if it is willful ignorance.
What does it matter if it results in the very same ongoing outcome?
Rediscovered this from Andy Sundberg:
http://andysundberg.weebly.com/1/post/2012/08/more-on-the-state-department-foi-follies.html
See:
‘More on the State Department FOI Follies’
08/09/2012
DEAR OVERSEAS AMERICAN FRIENDS,
I thought you’d enjoy the following letter and the three attachments.
I’ve been trying for nearly a year, and without success so far, to get some very basic statistics from the State Department.
State claims that they don’t have these statistics even though every embassy and consulate has to submit them each year. I don’t believe they actually throw them away, but, then again, you never know!
Anyway, it is just another sad example of how indifferent State is, and has long been, to our concerns while we live abroad.
Enjoy, and hopefully you might want to join this Tea Party and send your own similar FOI request.
It would be very interesting to see how they would respond when they had hundreds of the same request in their mail box coming in from all over the world.
The first step is rather simple, and can be done right on the State Department website at http://www.state.gov/m/a/ips/
Take care, Andy
att_2_jct_report_1_june_1995_front_page.doc
Download File
att_3_renunciatons_1962_-_1994.doc
Download File
att_4_wendy_sherman_letter_to_packwood_may_9_1995.doc
Download File
ANDREW P. SUNDBERG
9 August 2012
Lori Hartmann,
Appeals Officer,
Office of Information Programs and Services
A/GIS/IPS/PP/LC,
Room 8100, SA-2,
U.S. Department of State,
Washington, D.C. 20522-8100.
U.S.A.
Dear Lori,
Nearly a year ago, on August 17th, 2011, I filed a Freedom of Information Request via the State Department’s website asking for data, by year and by overseas U.S. Embassy and Consulate, on the number of U.S. citizens who had renounced their U.S. citizenship, going back to 1963.
To my great surprise, and dismay, nearly eight months later I received a letter from the State Department, dated April 9, 2012, indicating that the State Department has no such statistical data in its files.
On April 16th, 2012, I filed an appeal to the Chairman of the Department’s Appeals Review Panel, and this appeal was confirmed in a letter that you signed and sent to me on 4 May 2012. You also indicated that the Case Number for this FOI Case is No. 201107020. (See attachment 1).
Since then, now more than three months ago, I have not had any further contact from the State Department on this FOI request.
I have subsequently, however, come across a very rich and relevant Congressional document that hopefully will assist the State Department in finally and efficiently fulfilling this request.
This document is a report dated 1 June, 1995, prepared by the Staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation of the U.S. Congress, entitled “Issues Presented by Proposals to Modify the Tax Treatment of Expatriation”. (The title page of this report is attachment 2)
Page 7 of this report shows the number of renunciations of U.S. citizenship at U.S. Embassies and Consulates all over the world for each year from 1962 to 1994, as documented by the State Department. These apparently are the total numbers of “Certificates of Loss of Nationality” that were issued to renunciators each year during this period by the State Department. (See attachment 3).
Pages G-55 to G-60 of this report is a letter dated May 9, 1995, from Wendy R. Sherman, Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs, addressed to Hon. Robert Packwood, Vice Chairman, Joint Committee on Taxation, United States Senate, which indicates the total numbers of renunciations of U.S. citizenship at U.S. Embassies and Consulates all over the world during the period 1980 to 1994. (See attachment 4).
As it is now perfectly clear and demonstrable that the State Department does indeed collect and retain this data, I would like to once again request that under the current provisions of the Freedom of Information Act you please make this information on the number of Certificates of Loss of Nationality during each year available to me as soon as possible.
Furthermore, as this information has to be aggregated from reports filed by each Embassy and Consulate, I am sure that you also have this information on a per Embassy/Consulate basis, and therefore I would like to once again request that the breakdown of this data by Embassy/Consulate each year from 1963 to 2011 be also made available as soon as possible. A recently retired Foreign Service Officer confirmed to me that each Embassy and Consulate does indeed file reports on the number of such renunciations that take place and the number of certifications of renunciation that are issued each year, so this basic data is obviously coming into the State Department.
Finally, by current law, the State Department is required to send the names of those who renounce U.S. citizenship to the IRS, and each Quarter the IRS publishes names of some renunciators. But the big unanswered question remains of whether these names published by the IRS are all of those who have renounced, or just some of them.
From conversations with some who have renounced during recent years, it is also obvious that the annual quarters of the year when these names are published are not directly related to the quarters during which these renunciations actually took place. And some also claim that their names never showed up on the IRS lists. These are yet more reasons why I am asking the State Department for assistance in the long overdue clarification of this matter.
Therefore, to clear up all of this data size and date of occurrence uncertainty, I am once again appealing, under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act, for data on all renunciations that have taken place by year, and by Embassy/Consular Post, since 1963.
I eagerly await you response. My kindest regards and thanks in advance for your assistance.
All the very best.
Andy
Attachments:
1: Copy of your letter of 4 May 2012. (not included).
2: Title page of Congressional JTC Report of 1 June 1995. (see attached).
3. Page 7 of this JTC Report. (see attached).
4. Pages G-55 to G-60 of this JTC Report. (see attached).
Hope it was okay to post that gem above – as a very important primary source and quote from the late Andy Sundberg.
Many have approached Glenn Greenwald about these fudged numbers, and about the FATCA witchhunt. However, he is tied in with the International Coalition of Intrusive Journalists, who are quite happy that they stole the records of 10’s of thousands of innocent people, and spread the contents out to govts and other journalists and published the names of the celebrities they wanted to smear (without any evidence of wrongdoing, just suspicion of tax avoidance). He has also published pro-BEPs articles which is GATCA for business.
There is little FATCA digging, also.
Note also that the UBS numbers given for quantity of US persons never specified where those US persons live. Perhaps a few of them were resident in US, but UBS should have had a large portion of US persons living in Switzerland as customers (for whom would have not have been treated much differently). The total quantity of US persons at UBS was used to support the UBS propaganda efforts. I had once talked to a guy who had been working in CH and had gotten a letter from Treasury (for which he explained the situation but had not yet heard back)
Just remember that the GAO long ago reported their desire to find the 8.7 million US citizens. Remember that the GAO and IRS are fully motivated to perform what they consider is their highest goal, and to do it with larger and larger staff.
Remember that the entire compliance industry is fully motivated for more billable hours. Remember that their key personnel rotate in and out of the administration.
Those motivated people are hooked up in every way with the administration all the way to the top. The entire Administrative branch is fully motivated. They were ecstatic to have received a green light from Congress.
A few key Congress personnel knew about this, and listed it as a revenue generator with analysis from the Administrative branch. These then sold it along UBS lines.
Congress enacts it due to UBS mediastorm and forgets about it.
Congress acts on little of anything unless there is a mediastorm involved. Congress is not motivated to fix it. Administration is fully motivated to keep it in place.
Administration maintains all discretion upon how to implement.
@Patcanadian
Why is your CLN dated January if you renounced in December? This is important because your last tax return would be due for 2014 and not 2015, as on your CLN.
Renounced in 2012 and still not on the list. Non-covered expat, was always IRS/FBAR compliant in the decades preceding renunciation. Go figure.
Someone once mentioned that as the CLN’s are not numbered it would make them susceptible to forgery especially when one is needed to keep a bank account open.
If this becomes common practice, then the only reliable proof one has relinquished/renounced would be seeing one’s name on the federal register list.
Maybe all ‘no shows’ should write to the State dept and insist their names are published.
‘Name and shame’ is really ‘name and gain’.
@Heidi
I’ve considered that, but I’ve had enough dealings with US beaurocracy for one lifetime already and have no desire to pursue it further at present. If banks start requiring it, however, I may have to reconsider. It could very well be an eye-opener for those at the State Dept. if everyone who has a rightful claim to the list demanded that they be put on it.
@heidi & notamused: Maybe all ‘no shows’ should write to the State dept and insist their names are published. ‘Name and shame’ is really ‘name and gain’.
It worked for Mike Gogulski (he had to call the IRS):
http://www.nostate.com/4089/at-long-last/
The footer on the list says the Examinations Operations department of Philadelphia Compliance Services is responsible for compiling it. Philadelphia handles “international” stuff. There’s some Philadelphia (area code 267) IRS numbers listed here:
http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/U.S.-Citizens-and-Resident-Aliens-Abroad
http://www.irs.gov/irm/part5/irm_05-019-019.html
Unfortunately, I imagine that most ex-citizens would be reluctant to call up the IRS folks responsible for international audits and announce themselves.
the only reliable proof one has relinquished/renounced would be seeing one’s name on the federal register list.
And looking at it from the opposite perspective, the fact that the IRS gave up on using the list as an enforcement tool is another clue that they know it’s incomplete. 15 years ago, Bill Yates said he suggested implementing the Reed Amendment by having border guards check names against the FedReg list and hand privacy waiver forms to anyone with a matching name (so the IRS could tell the border guards if they were “tax-motivated”). Today, even though the IRS are willing to make the diaspora jump through all sorts of other absurd hoops for FATCA, they do not tell FFIs to check the list if someone with a U.S. birthplace claims to be a non-citizen.
@Eric
My reliable proof is my CLN. I am no longer an american citizen and I will be glad when I no longer have ANYTHING to do with american bureaucracy – forms, lists, paperwork, insane rules or regulations.
@badger, thank you for rediscovering and posting the piece by Andy Sundberg. It continues to baffle me why the U.S. will not disclose the numbers of CLNs it is issuing. I guess that, as a former U.S. citizen who grew up with naive belief in the goodness of the U.S. before the Vietnam War severely damaged that belief, I still have irrational hope that their government might behave openly and responsibly on a simple matter of citizenship numbers.
There was that woman who needed to renounce in order to run for office in the Caribbean who got flack for not showing up in the Federal Register as substantiate proof she renounced.
I am printing the list with my name and carrying it along with my CLN for double proof.
Who knows, the FFI’s may decide to check for themselves if they think a few DIY CLN’s are in circulation.
@bubblebustin: to be fair, there had been massive shenanigans going on in Jamaica, Belize, etc. for years: lots of politicians ignored the law prohibiting MPs from holding non-Commonwealth dual citizenship. One lady naturalized as a US citizen while she was sitting in parliament. Another lied about renouncing and then got caught out by Wikileaks. Another claimed never to have been a US citizen and then someone broke into her house and stole her US passport. So now the public is a wee bit over-suspicious.
Same thing is now happening in the Philippines, people are claiming that you don’t officially lose US citizenship until your name shows up in the Federal Register
http://www.journal.com.ph/news/top-stories/grace-poe-u-s-citizenship-in-2012
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/497970/news/nation/tiangco-grace-poe-can-t-use-own-interpretation-of-law-to-meet-residency-requirement
http://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/opinion/when-and-how-did-poe-reacquire-her-philippine-citizenship/ar-BBldMrP
@Polly
I should have specified that my CLN was approved by the State Department in January 2015, The actual date of my CLN was in December 2014. I received the CLN several months later.
@Patcanadian
OK phew! Thats better!
RE: UBS — There has been a lot of recent developments in this “settled” tax case and it helps illustrate how everything we are being told are lies and deceptions.
1. The UBS / Clinton connection in 2009:
http://nypost.com/2015/07/30/ubs-increased-donations-to-clinton-foundation-after-hillarys-help-with-irs/
http://www.wsj.com/articles/ubs-deal-shows-clintons-complicated-ties-1438223492
2. Scott Bennet the Psyop/special forces officer involved in investigating “terrorist” financing, turned whistleblower, who spent 6 months in prison with Bradley Birkenfeld. He delves into those 45000 UBS “tax cheat” accounts and who actually ran them. It turns out that not only were there thousands of PEPS (Politically Exposed Persons) in the list (who clearly were never audited or OVDI’d), but that there were also CIA accounts linked to (among others) the Bengazi weapons smuggling operations in 2012. Even worse, Bennet claims that Birkenfeld was paid out his 104m on the same day the Bengazi attacks occured and it all fits so nicely together with the UBS donations to the Clinton foundation.
3. Birkenfeld, who appears to be singing, is also alluding to this in recent interviews:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=10m&v=PcMBvN2jF8g
If you throw in all the billions sent by the Fed to UBS during the financial crisis and the close connections between UBS and Obama, it seems pretty clear to me that the UBS affair had little to do with FATCA aside for being the fall guy in the false flag operation.