Vice magazine recently published an article by Serena Solomon featuring interviews with ex-U.S. citizens about their reasons for giving up citizenship. The article doesn’t question the government’s more absurd policies, such as the obscenely-high fee or the so-called “Billionaire’s Amendment” exit & gift tax (which actually applies even to thousandaires if they can’t afford to come into compliance before renouncing). However, the author generally seems to understand the issues at stake, and over on Reddit she’s doing her best to defend herself against the usual knee-jerk Homelander reactions (sample: “It’s not meant for everyone to be a part of the Greatest Nation in the World”).
The debate’s mostly over by now, but Reddit user BrassAge, who claims to be “someone who administers renunciations” (which is possibly true, given that s/he is a frequent poster on the Foreign Service Officers’ subreddit), felt compelled to revive the mostly-dead thread to put in his or her insulting and incorrect two cents (archived).
Doesn’t know the law, tries to nitpick about it
3) Serena, I wish you also would have mentioned that only dual citizens can renounce their citizenship — the Hague convention on statelessness compels the U.S. to decline renunciation requests if it would leave the renouncee stateless.
The U.S. signed neither the 1954 or 1961 conventions on statelessness, and 7 FAM 1215 says that the State Department “will accept and approve renunciations of persons who do not already possess another nationality”. (Maybe BrassAge thinks the prohibition against voluntary statelessness is a peremptory norm of international law and should thus bind the U.S. even without its signature, though that’s a giant stretch, and really not something I’d expect to hear out of the mouth of a U.S. government employee.)
But all that is neither here nor there: very few people voluntarily make themselves stateless anyway, and everyone Solomon mentioned in her article was already a citizen of another country, so it’s unclear why BrassAge is getting so agitated about this non-issue. (Maybe s/he’s one of the folks who’s been getting yelled at for all the mess caused by Harmon Wilfred’s renunciation.)
Insults people trying to conduct ordinary personal finance
Solomon mentioned on Reddit that “Another guy I spoke with has an 11 year-old daughter in Europe. She can’t find a bank to open an account for her because of her US citizenship.” (I’m disappointed that her editor apparently thought Eduardo Saverin was worth mentioning in the final article but this wasn’t.) Our State Department friend’s response to that:
2) The argument that an 11 year old can’t get a bank account strikes me as particularly weak. Outside of the Mary Poppins Universe, what children have independent bank accounts? Do they have independent income to fill those accounts, or do their parents want to use those accounts for their own purposes?
This reflects the usual Homelander view that “foreign accounts” are nefarious and used only for money laundering, drug dealing, and terrorism. Meanwhile, most Homeland financial institutions, including the State Department Federal Credit Union, offer accounts to minors as well, even if they have no “independent income” and just want to deposit birthday checks from their aunts. (Clearly, if U.S. laws cause minors to be denied an account in the country where they live, the solution is for them to open offshore accounts in the World’s Greatest Tax Haven.)
Tries to justify the world’s highest renunciation fee
4) For most people, the entire process takes about 6 months. The final interview itself is about 45 minutes, but there are months of legal review before the act, which is largely responsible for the high cost. After all, it seems silly to charge American taxpayers for legal hours spent reviewing the process of unmaking an American.
Seeing as changing your nationality is a human right, enshrined in Article 15 of the UDHR, it seems equally silly to put all these absurd make-work barriers in the way of people who don’t want any further affiliation with your country, which is why other countries don’t do it, and instead figure out how to get the work done more quickly and cheaply. For example China — recently lambasted by the American press as a racist violator of international law for its policy (analogous to the U.S.’ own policy) of not letting Hong Kong dual citizens use their foreign passports to travel to the mainland — lets you renounce citizenship for US$19 by mail. Taiwan charges $30. Chile lets you exercise your right to change your nationality for free.
This is hardly the most Orwellian thing that the State Department has said in the service of defending its indefensible fee — that award goes to the statement last year by Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy claiming that all this nonsense “does not impinge, but rather protects, the right of expatriation”. (Imagine the reaction from Homelanders if the U.S. government started trying to “protect” the right to marry or the right of free speech in a similar fashion.)
That said, many Brockers have testified to meeting polite, efficient, and competent State Department officers on their big day — so let’s hope that after you’ve waited 10 months for an appointment, you get one of the good ones, rather than a rude, ignorant ultranationalist.
Thanks for the update and support. I’ll reply to BrassAge later when I have time.
As said here many times, “The beatings will continue until morale improves”.
Eric, thanks as always for the fine write-up, this time on an errant and ignorant DOS employee.
The mentioned Undersecretary of State for Management, Patrick Kennedy, is indeed a work of art. It was he who orchestrated the cover-up of the pedophile activities of the former US Ambassador to Belgium. This is an excerpt from a Catholic League post on this criminal matter in 2010:
“STATE DEPT. PEDOPHILIA COVER-UP?
At a June Senate Finance Committee, it was reported that the State Department found in 2010 that the majority of domestic victims enslaved in the sex industry are runaway and homeless youth. It was not said whether the child that was allegedly raped by the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium was homeless. Perhaps that is because the investigation into what Howard Gutman did was spiked by Patrick Kennedy, the Undersecretary of State for Management.
The State Department under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seems to have been infinitely more concerned about punishing whistleblowers than pedophiles. Aurelia Fedensin, a former senior inspector general investigator at the State Department, said Gutman “routinely ditched his protective security detail in order to solicit sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children.” Evidently, lots of people knew about it and did nothing. Gutman raised a half-million dollars for Obama in 2008 and helped finance his inaugural.
Worse, the Inspector General’s (IG) office compromised its independence by lying about the events: Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security, Eric Boswell, ordered reference to pedophilia deleted, and the IG acceded to the request. As for Fedensin, she was threatened with criminal charges, but nothing was done about the child rapist.”
https://www.catholicleague.org/state-dept-pedophilia-cover-up-2/
CBS News reported on Undersecretary Patrick Kennedy’s efforts to suppress the report containing the pedophile allegations against the then US Ambassador to Belgium:
“The argument that an 11 year old can’t get a bank account strikes me as particularly weak. Outside of the Mary Poppins Universe, what children have independent bank accounts?”
Well, here in the real world, for starters how about the UK’s junior ISA — formerly child trust fund — then? At least half a million UK children hold them. Presumably none of these is a dual US/UK citizen (if they were, what would be the point?).
Sheesh, what a tool!
Fine article, Eric, you just made my day. Guess they forgot about all those trust fund US kid accounts. But only Homelanders are entitled as we know.
Guess they don’t know nor would they care about the article Blaze wrote about Baby Ella ‘s account being redlined in Canada.
“Make work” project is an interesting concept. But it is the lamest of excuses. Suppose we stationed a cadre of personal information experts at each polling station in the next US election: their duty was to charge $2350 to each voter to make sure that they were not being coerced into voting a certain way. It would be for the voters benefit of course. The fee would of course only cover costs.
That US State Dept. flunky ‘BrassAge’ is an ignoramus.
His/her reference to a “Mary Poppins” universe is woefully ignorant and insulting; accusing us and our minor children of being potential taxevadingmoneylaunderingdruglordorganizedcrimelords since we bank where we live – outside the US – minors in Canada can have bank accounts to save for their education, disability or other basic life needs, and to hold their wages (since most employers now do payroll as direct deposit only) via our legal, local financial institutions. Lots of students have jobs (ex. See Statistics Canada. Table 282-0006 – Labour force survey estimates (LFS), by students during summer months, sex and age group, unadjusted for seasonality, monthly (persons unless otherwise noted), CANSIM. accessed: July 20, 2016 http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a26?lang=eng&retrLang=eng&id=2820006&&pattern=&stByVal=1&p1=1&p2=31&tabMode=dataTable&csid= ). Some youth actually work to support the rest of their family. Some are supporting themselves at 16 or older. There are significant numbers of 17 and 18 yr. olds living independently and attending post-secondary training, and/or working.
The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada says:
‘Opening a personal bank account: Understanding your rights’
http://www.fcac-acfc.gc.ca/eng/resources/publications/yourRights/Pages/OPENINGA-Ouvertur.aspx
It does not state that one has to be over 18 to hold an account.
And our Income Tax Act requires the bank to ask for a SIN tax number if the account is interest bearing ( https://www.priv.gc.ca/resource/fs-fi/02_05_d_02_e.ASP ), and interest is reported directly and automatically by the financial institution to the Canada Revenue Agency annually.
Maybe BrassAge prefers that those ‘abroad’ use only US banks – like the ones that have been deemed ‘too big to prosecute’, despite ample evidence of opening and maintaining accounts used by drug lords and organized crime to launder money, in contravention of the Bank Secrecy Act;
ex. HSBC AND its US subsidiary;
“…In December 2012, HSBC agreed to pay a then-record $1.9 billion to the Justice Department to settle allegations it failed to spot the laundered proceeds of drug trafficking in Mexico and failed to flag transactions with countries subject to economic sanctions, such as Iran….”…
http://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-department-overruled-recommendation-to-pursue-charges-against-hsbc-report-says-1468229401
BrassAge should read the recent Congressional report “Too Big to Jail” (July 11, 2016), which among other things demonstrates how the US Treasury obstructed requests for documents.
http://financialservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/07072016_oi_tbtj_sr.pdf
HSBC and US subsidiary; “….. admitted to handling hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal narcotics sales proceeds”… and was accused of laundering;”….. nearly $900 million for drug traffickers and processed transactions on behalf of Cuba, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Myanmar, or Burma, when those countries were subject to United States sanctions. ….”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/17/business/a-bank-too-big-to-jail.html?_r=0
So the US Treasury obstructs a Republican staff of the Financial Services Committee report into US banks deemed by the US Attorney General as “too big to prosecute” and “too big to fail”, while no Banksters were prosecuted, and the bank itself gets away with a fine which is too small to significantly harm them.
And yet, the US Treasury and the IRS continues to wield FBAR and FATCA against ordinary people living legal local lives outside the US – who are compliant taxpayers to their LOCAL governments, and torment people for no reason, based on no evidence. See the latest Taxpayer Advocate report, particularly;
‘The IRS’s Implementation of FATCA Has in Some Cases Imposed Unnecessary Burdens and Failed to Protect the Rights of Affected Taxpayers’
http://taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/Media/Default/Documents/2016-JRC/Area_of_Focus_4_Implementation_of_FATCA.pdf
http://taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/reports/fy-2016-objectives-report-to-congress/full-report
What does a kid’s age have anything to do with the price of tea in China? BrassAge is trying to divert attention from the fact that Americans are being refused bank accounts – regardless of their age. S/he ignores this and instead says that a minor shouldn’t have one anyway, or her parents are using it for nefarious purposes. Lame.
I was about 8 when I got my first bank account. I think my parents wanted to demonstrate the power of compounding. Or it could have been the free gift. And I walked away with way more key chains than I had keys.
I have young relatives who are older than I was when I got my first bank account. They both have numbered accounts with the bank of mom and dad.
“Brass Age” is at it again:
https://www.reddit.com/r/immigration/comments/4thjm2/why_americans_renounce_will_think_twice_about/d5k21k0
How can this possibly be someone who really works for the State Department?
Apparently no-one informed BrassAge of the US State Dept. that minors can and should have bank accounts – according to the US government site for kids;
https://kids.usa.gov/money/saving-money/index.shtml
The US government site for kids links to this webpage advice;
“…So, where do you keep your money? In a piggy bank? In an envelope tucked in a drawer? Maybe your dad keeps it in a locked box for you. Or some of you might even have a savings account at the bank. Is that the best way?
The fact is, when you have a lot of money, a bank is the safest place for it…..”
http://pbskids.org/itsmylife/money/managing/article8.html
BrassAge and other US ‘patriots’ should be questioning U.S. resident and Democrat appointees like current Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and her interesting family banking practices http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-05-21/pritzker-s-54-million-family-trust-fee-seen-as-unique instead of casting suspicion on the local, legal savings of ordinary people living outside the US. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-05-21/pritzker-s-54-million-family-trust-fee-seen-as-unique or Treasury SecretaryJack Lew http://billmoyers.com/2013/03/08/jack-lew-citigroup-and-the-ugland-truth/ .
Brass-Age does not sound like someone with a rank of vice-consul which if I am not mistaken, is the lowest rank one must have to administer a renunciation. Maybe someone who works there but whoeeee.. I think I’ll join redditt. What a piece of work.
“Performs” renunciations? Very strange way to describe.
What the US Foreign Diplomat fails to mention if doing a Usexit (sex had to be in there somewhere) , the legal review is artificial costs by the US Government.
If this is truly aimed at the super rich, why don’t have a two tier fee structure? If your net worth is under say $5M than you’re charged $100, if it’s over $5M than you pay big money (and you can afford it as well).
If the USG charges itself $75 an hours, you’re telling me it takes 31 hours to process a simple Usexit application?
@Karen
Brassage may work for the State Department (doubtful) but clearly knows nothing about renunciations. There have been plenty of people who have renounced withing a few weeks of requesting a first appointment.
[–]nobledreamer16 2 points 16 hours ago
One can renounce even if it leaves them stateless. 7 FAM 1215 STATELESSNESS RESULTING FROM LOSS OF NATIONALITY e. In making all these points clear to potentially stateless renunciants, the Department of State will, nevertheless, afford them their right to expatriate. We will accept and approve renunciations of persons who do not already possess another nationality.
[–]BrassAgeconsular officer 1 point 12 hours ago
One can renounce even if it leaves them stateless. 7 FAM 1215 STATELESSNESS RESULTING FROM LOSS OF NATIONALITY
I read through this, and all associated links. It certainly does appear, as you’ve stated, that the U.S. is willing to grant stateless status to determined individuals. I’ll amend my comments above — thanks for bringing it to my attention.
I’ll copy the rest of that here, since it strongly cautions against voluntary becoming stateless.
“Performs” renunciations? Very strange way to describe.
Made me think of performing exorcisms…
I would think that one who “performs renunciations” is one who renounces U.S. citizenship. It’s difficult to imagine that the person is who he/she claims she is.
I have no proof whether or not BrassAge actually does work for the Department of State, but in general terms there are certainly DoS employees handling renunciations who have no relevant professional experience, little knowledge of the law, and likely don’t know anything about renunciation besides whatever their boss fed them during training (which might have been wildly biased and incomplete)
Example: this old job ad from the embassy in Managua for a “non-career” local hire
https://web.archive.org/web/20160408094642/http://nicaragua.usembassy.gov/eo_acs_assistant.html
When I was in primary school in the USA a local savings bank (defunct now, like most muutal savings institutions, having been lured into speculative trading and then privatized) sent employees over to our school once a week to receive savings deposits from the pupils. The minimum deposit was 10¢.
Children old enough to read and write can open their own accounts in many or most countries. Certainly even today in the USA: https://www.wellsfargo.com/savings-cds/kids/ UK: http://www.nationwide.co.uk/products/savings/smart-limited-access/features-and-benefits Switzerland: http://www.frc.ch/articles/ouvrir-son-compte-comme-un-grand/ France: https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F21035
As for renunciation of US nationality to become stateless: The late Garry Davis is well known as having done so in Paris in 1948. See his Wikipedia page and his obituary: https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F21035
But Garry was far from the only one to do that. Harmon Wilfred did that to avoid deportation from New Zealand: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10877269 (Karen Ruth Rosenblum-Cale didn’t, and she was in fact deported from NZ, so Harmon’s strategy made sense. http://uniset.ca/ps21/karenrosenblum_nz.txt I don’t think either of the two had enough assets or income for FATCA or FBARs or PFIC to be issues.
I looked up some of the submissions of @BrassAge on Reddit regarding the U.S. Foreign Service. I’m surprised that neither @BrassAge nor anyone else bothered to look up what the State Deparetment says on the subject: https://careers.state.gov/uploads/8f/f7/8ff7b0bab879946e78f30e62c859c0f1/DualCitizenship.pdf (Department of Defense policy apparently differs somewhat). I have known a number of dual nationals who were FSOs. The late Maggie Loomer served as Foreign Service Secretary in London (where she eventually retired to) without ever having given up British nationaity. http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/117709.pdf (obituary, p. 46)
And, he got up to it again a month ago, trying to tell people there’s no such thing as relinquishment. (Clearly 7 FAM 1224 doesn’t actually exist.)
https://archive.fo/Scp4H
BrassAge isn’t the only one who is out to lunch on the page you just linked, Eric. Somebody named disturbedrod states authoritively:
“You will go to the embassy and submit all the paperwork, this will include a tax form where you will pay taxes owed up to the last minute you’re a USC, even if you’re not living in the US.”
Might be kind of difficult considering there’s a good possibility that the relevant IRS forms don’t even exist yet depending on the exact timing of the renunciation. And as we all know the State Dept doesn’t do taxes at all except for maybe advising the person to contact the IRS if they happen to think of it during the appointment.
Ah the internet; gotta love it!