reposted from citizenshiptaxation dot ca
An interesting conversation is taking place on the FB group American Expatriates. Journalist Serena Solomon from the publication VICE has requested stories from expats describing the emotional effects of renouncing. You might want to go over and take a read as many are quite interesting. It is a public group so I believe one can read without being a member; not sure if one needs a FB account.
Earlier today, there was the following comment, which forms the basis for this post:
Tom Paine A question for those in Canada: It appears that few or no renunciation appointments have been confirmed since January of 2016 when they switched to a centralized Renunciation system for all of Canada. Has anybody in Canada received a renunciation appointment in Canada who applied after February 1, 2016. If so, where was the appointment location? Again, I am asking about those who have applied for an appointment NOT those who had pre-existing appointments under the old system. For those outside of Canada, what has happened is that the demand to renounce in Canada is so great, that DOS has created a centralized renunciation system for all of Canada.
How to renounce US citizenship in Canada and other countries https://t.co/sbRUTf0Pyk
— Citizenship Lawyer (@ExpatriationLaw) July 12, 2016
The change to a centralized renunciation system for Canada occurred this past February. A detailed post describing the procedure can be found here.
Delays, costs mount for Canadians renouncing U.S. citizenship https://t.co/FemWd9ZMTw
— Citizenship Lawyer (@ExpatriationLaw) July 12, 2016
From the Globe & Mail:
“It’s very clear that there is no particular attempt to make it easier to get out – to provide more resources or expedite the process,” complained John Richardson, a Toronto citizenship lawyer, who has guided numerous Canadians through the complex process. “Toronto may be the renunciation capital of the world,” Mr. Richardson said.
A U.S. embassy spokesman would not comment directly on the reasons for the long wait times, but he confirmed that it currently takes anywhere from 45 days to 10 months to arrange a mandatory meeting, depending on the location. He acknowledged that the process is not meant to be easy, even as the embassy works to “refine” it.
“Due to the serious implications the decision to renounce U.S. citizenship carries, the process is intended to be deliberative in order to permit individuals to reflect upon their decision before returning to execute the Oath of Renunciation,” the official said.
Is this man serious? A 15 month wait is required to contemplate the seriousness of the action? Since only one appointment is now the norm, the wait is from application until the appointment. Sorry, but this is ridiculous beyond belief. The previous policy of requiring two appointments was designed to accommodate this perceived need to reflect. I originally scheduled my second appointment a week following my first. Seven days. Point being, there was no huge wait necessary before. What could possibly justify the difference between waiting a week and waiting 19 months for an appointment? Are there that many people renouncing and if so, why does the Federal Register not reflect those numbers? We know the Federal Register falls short of what is reported on the FBI’s NICs list. Something just doesn’t add up here (in more than one way).
The original attitude of the Toronto consulate back in the last quarter of 2011 was to try and accommodate the new surge of people applying. I remember phoning Mrs. Anderson at the Consulate for an appointment in late October and she told me it would have to wait until the 2nd appointments of those 22 people were finished. My first appointment was November 30, 2011.
An interesting comment from Kevyn Nightengale:
““It does not look good to have a lot of Americans renouncing their citizenship because of stupid rules – rules…” https://t.co/lrkbzJnUKD
— Citizenship Lawyer (@ExpatriationLaw) July 12, 2016
Over a year and a half before this change of procedure (November 4, 2014), Stephen Kish had a most interesting discussion with 2 members of the U.S. Consulate in Toronto.
I had conversations with the C-G and two Consular officials on the wait time to obtain a renunciation meeting in Toronto.
This evening I attended a Toronto meeting of students, Democrats, Republicans, and Toronto US Consular officials which was sponsored by the Munk School of Global Affairs. U.S. Consul General James Dickmeyer gave a short speech and I had conversations with the C-G and two Consular officials on the wait time to obtain a renunciation meeting in Toronto.
Consular Official “R” — I pointed out to R that there are many Canadians in the Toronto area with unwanted U.S. citizenship who need to renounce this citizenship. R advised that the wait time is now up to September 2015, in part because of a three week or so delay caused by the Pan AM games (yes, you heard that right).
C-G — I then spoke to the C-G, explained the situation that these unfortunate people need to get on with their lives, and asked that since he is the “boss” he needs to reorganize staff duties and shorten the time to a renunciation appointment as bookings are now in September. There was some confusion as he felt that I must have meant September past (I believe that he was unaware of the wait time). Once this was clarified he argued that the boss really does not have that much power and that I should go back and speak to R (apparently the man with the money) which I did (see below).
We debated a few points: C-G feels that citizen-based taxation is not “so bad” as taxes are never owed to the IRS because Canadian taxes are higher (I corrected this impression). C-G complained that Canadians are “only now” coming to renounce. I explained that many are only now finding out that the U.S. considers them to be U.S. citizens. I mentioned our FATCA IGA lawsuit and C-G responded by saying that we will just hurt the banks etc…
Consular Official R (second conversation) — Told R that his boss claims that R has the power to shorten renunciation wait times. R responded by saying that the renunciations are a low priority that do not compare with high priority activities such as passport renewals, and that there will be no change in priority. R advised that Toronto people should go to Calgary or Montreal to renounce. I asked R how would a low income person find the funds to do this.
IRS compliant American — Happened to get into conversation with American very proud of filing tax returns to IRS for 30 plus years and paying no tax. Feeling nasty I asked him what does he think will happen when he sells his expensive house that he has lived in for all these years (now he knows).
Dems Abroad — In a short speech Dems Abroad promised that Americans abroad should not worry about the safety of voting in an election because the information is not passed on to the IRS (I think the fellow was serious). One DA presented to R their approach to FATCA (modify but do not kill). I explained that the Alliance and Republicans Overseas want to kill the entirety of the beast.
There was nothing else for me to say, so I left.
Could an official’s personal perception (negative) have an effect on policy? We have seen before, that the State Department is sometimes slow to follow changes that they are legally required to make. One instance of this concerns the issue of CLNs for reqlinquishment via an expatriating act and intent. This affects thousands of Canadian citizens who relinquished in the late 1960’s – 1980 when case law began to include “intent” as a factor in whether citizenship was lost by performing an expatriating act. The difficulty is that those relinquishants were not advised to come down and apply for a CLN. Since at least the 1940 Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), the State Department was supposed to issue CLNs (see Section V Miscellaneous – Paragraphs 501 & 502-but this in no way amounts to a a relinquishment being valid only if one has a CLN).
Another post appearing on FB today:
Today (July 13) Just received an email from Milano Consulate saying to contact them in September for the 2nd appointment for renunciation. My first appointment was in April in Genoa – Her lame explanations were that they are backed up in Milano because of all the renunciations from Switzerland being handled and that there are 200 death certificates to handle.
Why such a difference time-wise? Yes, likely more Canadians trying to renounce but less than 2 months compared to over a year? What gives?
At what point would the actions of the State department amount to disregard for the law and the right of citizens to expatriate?
*****
To reiterate, the primary focus of this point is to determine if the State Department is shutting down/seriously limiting the number of renunciations in Canada by making it more difficult/longer to obtain an appointment. In order to verify that, we need to know/ask:
- Has anyone who has applied for renouncing in Canada since mid-February received an appointment (your application would have been processed through Vancouver via the email address: CanadaCLNInquiries@state.gov
- Has anyone who has applied for renouncing in Canada under the new system actually completed an appointment?
NB: We are NOT asking if anyone has actually renounced after this date because the appointment may have been made before these changes took place.
(Comment 25 continued) Here is a Link that claims Boris remains a US Citizen!!!
https://heatst.com/politics/boris-johnson-remains-an-american-citizen/
This off topic I know, but I found some information about this on the IRS web site regarding the “Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures”. Is anyone familiar with this? From a quick read, it seem to allow a “U.S. Person” living outside the U.S. to come into filing compliance without penalty. I’m hoping I can handle the paperwork myself as I am a pensioner on limited income.
@Henry, you should buy back issues of the US tax prep software from amazon or ebay. That way you can see where you stand and do what ifs. Plus it will help minimize the errors compared to doing it with pen and paper.
@badger – One recourse option would be to challenge the State Department’s practices in the U.S. courts, but that would require time and expense beyond what the current wait/cost is (although if one were to do a class-action lawsuit on this with many expats as the plaintiffs that would mitigate those effects).
Henry, this post and all the comments might be helpful,
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2014/10/12/what-are-the-benefits-of-the-coming-into-u-s-tax-compliance-through-the-streamlined-program/
I forgot to mention this in my earlier comment on Toronto booking history.
After Toronto stopped booking renunciation and relinquishment appointments online through “Notarial and Other Services,” wait time for “Notarial and Other Services” appointments quickly went down to about 1 to 2 months although they cut the number of “Notarial & Other Services” appointments from 144-192 per month (when r&r was included) to 12-36 per month (after they stopped using it for r&r).
Note: I have only checked the booking site very sporadically since they stopped using it for r&r, maybe 4 times, but at widely spaced intervals and it seems to have been pretty consistent. Also you can see the schedule for several months, not just one, each time you look.
Another thought about Toronto. Toronto didn’t appear to be trying to limit renunciation/relinquishment appointments in 2011-2013. They seemed to be keeping up with the demand for appointments (although it did grow to six weeks, more than I think it should be, it was comparitively pretty good, even back then). And they tried that mass renunciation session (22 people) in late 2011 (I suspect DoS HQ, upon learning of it and the publicity it got, told them to stop it, purely a guess on my part – anyway, they never had one again, but they did try it.) There did not appear to be an “attitude problem” at Toronto in this time period. The two consuls, including the ACS (department that handles renunciation/relinquishment) chief, that I spoke with at some length about the r&r situation were very positive/pleasant/matter-of-fact to speak with. This attitude is consistent with reports I’ve read from, and conversations I’ve had with, others who dealt with Toronto for r&r during that time period. After getting excellent reports about Toronto for two years, we started to get mixed reports, still some excellent, but also some down-right bad, about Toronto in early 2014, on-line booking stopped in May 2014, and wait time skyrocketed to 10 months by the end of the year. Toronto had an excellent ACS chief for several years, but she left and was replaced in late 2013.
Thanks to @George and @Rebecca for their responses. What a Kafkaesque nightmare the IRS is turning this into!
@Rebecca
Even though you never officially registered him with a consulate, your youngest is still legally an American citizen and I’d highly recommend you still encourage him to renounce as soon as he’s able. Renouncing at 18 means almost no paperwork (as he’ll likely never have exceeded the thresholds for having to file taxes or FBARs) so that it is really the ideal time to sever ties.
The alternative is having to pray he gets away with living under the radar, which is becoming more and more difficult and will probably soon be impossible.
Someone named fn0 reports requesting an appointment via the new system — using CanadaCLNAppointments@state.gov — at the beginning of June and being offered a September appointment at the end of June.
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/renunciation/comment-page-259/#comments
Rebecca it seems nuts to me to do anything about child no. 3
I don’t put anything past these people. Q2’s Liberty List is due out within the next couple of weeks. If there’s a drop, we’ll know something’s rotten.
@Henry
A lot of people just quietly backfile five years of taxes and FBARs — since that’s what the IRS calls for when someone renounces and wishes sever ties with the IRS — without going through OVDI or streamlining. I haven’t heard of anyone being penalized for this approach, but hopefully someone will pipe up if they know otherwise.
WestCoaster, I understand that the Report of a Birth Abroad is, according to the US, simply confirmation, rather than conferring, of citizenship. But with the current situation, with little or no movement on appointments — which is what we are finding with Child #2, who is 17 now and will be 18 in the middle of NEXT year, and why he thought he should get started now, with the apparently long wait for appointments — I am reluctant to introduce Child #3 into the system if there is little indication/hope that he would definitely be out by 18-1/2. After reading this post, Child #2, is getting panicky that he won’t hear about, or get, an appointment for a year, which lands him awfully close to 18-1/2. He is hoping to get a summer job one of these years, which we’ve discouraged to limit paperwork for him.
If the process picks up and there’s movement, then we’ll definitely proceed as we had planned with Child #3. Thanks very much for posting about fnO in Vancouver — it’s heartening to hear that there HAS been progress, with the request for appointment sent on June 2nd, and a reply received June 28th with a September consulate appointment. Child #2 had specified Calgary, but maybe we need a family vacation to BC : ) .
@Rebecca
I understand your concerns, but your third child (as well as #2) shouldn’t have any problems renouncing. Late last year Vancouver was so backlogged they even stopped booking appointments for a while, so it’s promising to hear that someone just got an appointment within four months of requesting it. That said, kid #2 was very smart to set the wheels in motion as soon as possible.
A suggestion for child #2: When offered an appointment, let the consulate know that he’s interested in being on their cancellation list. I ended up getting a much earlier appointment that way, when a cancellation opened up more than seven months ahead of my scheduled appointment.
Rebecca We’ve had this discussion before. Child no 3 was born in Canada. S(He) doesn’t have a s.s .number and wasn’t registered.
She has a claim to USness but otherwise they don’t know she exists.
To renounce something he doesn’t have seems pointless. It isn’t easy to get a s.s. number or passport in her situation only to turn 180deg. and dump them.
WestCoaster — Thanks for the tip about the cancellation list, but Child #2 will be a 12th grader with a number of extracurricular activities and commitments, as well as college classes. While it was a pain in the neck for Child #1 to have to wait six months, at least we were able to plan around the date, and it was for a time when nothing else was scheduled.
Duke of Devon — Yes, our family has gone back and forth a few times already : ) and if the SD is shutting or slowing down appointments, well, that makes the decision easier. On the other side, there’s a measure of comfort knowing that renouncing would avoid the looking-over-the-shoulder business through adulthood. Fortunately we have a few years to go before deciding. Nothing has made me more anxious as a parent of three teens than unwanted citizenship AND driving, sigh…
This makes me think…… I have a boy 16 1/2 right now, and another 14. Their mother is the unfortunate one who passed on her infection to them (yes, I love her, no FATCA divorce yet). However, unlike Duke of Devon seems to insist, I know for sure that at least one of my boys was “inventoried” during a land border crossing by a guard who, after much interrogation about mother’s years in US (26) and stuff about wedlock, (Canadian passport w/US birthplace shown) strongly suggested we go to the consulate of the USA and register him “because there’s a whole world of opportunity available to him” …… (of course, as soon as we were out of earshot burst into laughter).
So, does anyone else here have any experience with their children being “inventoried” as well, or is this too premature a question?
Test.
We’ve had the same suggestion in a friendly way – as in ‘I’m trying to do you a favour ‘. I don’t think ‘inventoried ‘ is a problem.
@ Henry…Entered Streamline for those who didn’t realize they had an obligation to file Tax returns or Fbars. I filed everything including declaration that I did not know that I had an obligation in October 2015. I renounced December 1, 2015 and received CLN in March. I file my last return, Foreign Trust, Fbars and form to exit in June. I have never heard anything form the IRS. In fact, I needed a EIN number for a Foreign Trust (RESP). The accountant wrote applied on every piece of paper related to the RESP. I still have never received a number and filed my last return as “applied for” in June.
I would like to second George’s request for a post about Boris, our new Foreign Secretary who called CBT ‘outrageous’. As a fellow British dual citizen severely bogged down by FATCA, banking/investment lockout, national origin discrimination, etc, I have gained a little bit of hope from Boris’s appointment and think it would be a nice post, especially for your UK counterparts who are fewer in number and have less of a voice on this so far compared to our Canadian friends.
@PierreD
Very surprised to hear about a US border agent having that kind of detailed knowledge about the transmission of US citizenship – most of them seem to not care a whole lot or have no real clue. It seems likely he was a “one off”. However, (donning tin foil hat) could he be the result of a new push to identify below the radar USCs?
‘In fact, I needed a EIN number for a Foreign Trust (RESP).’
EIN or ITIN? For ITIN you need to submit Form W-7 and some supporting documents.
‘The accountant wrote applied on every piece of paper related to the RESP. I still have never received a number and filed my last return as “applied for” in June.’
It’s illegal to write “Applied For” even when it’s true. When the Social Security Administration has never granted nor rejected an SSN application and the IRS has only rejected ITIN applications, you have to report an SSN anyway. When the only way to report an SSN is to fabricate one, you have to do it.
Diamond et al. v. United States, Fed. Cir. No. 2013-5036, Dkt. 29-2 (September 12, 2013). The United States (represented by the Department of Justice) explicitly wrote that they did not oppose my motion to make precedential the ruling that a filer has to report an SSN even when they only way to do so is to fabricate one. Tthe Federal Circuit gave no reason for denying my unopposed reason, but it doesn’t matter because that becomes the law anyway. US Supreme Court denied cert.
@ Norman…Reminder to US owners of Foreign Trust, IRS site…EIN FOR 3520 AND 3520A which the IRS have decided the RESP and TFSA fall under. I did get a social security number, but I also had to get a EIN number. The IRS issued instructions for those waiting for the EIN to “write applied.” It seems they aren’t able to keep up.