Let’s try this again:
Assume that you, a long-time citizen and resident of France, were born in the U.S. and left U.S. at age four hours after birth, never to return AND you never developed any ties (passport whatever) with U.S. AND never wanted, and do not want, and refuse to accept imposition of U.S. citizenship on your French citizen person — notwithstanding a birth citizenship law of a foreign country (the U.S.).
A lot of people in this post want to define you as an “Accidental American Citizen”, apparently because they feel that this is a useful, easy to digest and understand, term.
But you say: “No way people — I don’t accept U.S. imposition of non-meaningful citizenship that I don’t want and I TELL YOU THAT I AM NOT AN AMERICAN CITIZEN I AM ONLY A CITIZEN OF FRANCE”.
So given the scenario above and your position as a human person, is it accurate or not to say that you are an American citizen?
Does the majority vote that you must defer to a foreign citizenship law that trumps your right to say no way?
I agree wholeheartedly. It’s a pandora a box.
I 100% disagree and will continue to use the term. This is the term in use and it will NOT be changed midstream. It is the term now defined by the Association of Accidental Americans in France, with the EU, and other entities. It is a perfect term to explain those with the unfortunate (i.e. accidental) life event of being born in the US and having zero ties to the US including not being raised in the US (i.e. leaving in diapers/nappies), et al. – Keith REDMOND
I 100% disagree and will continue to use the term. As significant momentum is happening for this population, it will be foolhardy to change the term ‘mid-stream’. We need to keep it simple and not add any more complications to an already complex matter. This is the term in use and it will NOT be changed midstream. It is the term now defined by the Association of Accidental Americans in France, with the EU, and other entities. It is a perfect term to explain those with the unfortunate (i.e. accidental) life event of being born in the US and having zero ties to the US including not being raised in the US (i.e. leaving in diapers/nappies), et al.
The above comment from ‘T.N.’ is from me as I am having trouble commenting and posting on IiBS. – Keith
I totally agree that the term Accidental Americans should be retired once and for alll.
– First , the angles pursued by the French Association des Américains Accidentels, mean that should we win, binationals and probably US expats residing in France would be off the hook.
– Secondly, it is an American invention of the Green Book that is as per usual when dealing with US bureaucracy tortuous at best.
– Thirdly, Europe would never agree to it because it creates a discrimination between binationals and the so called Accidentals. I think France would react along the same lines because of sacrosanct equality.
– Fourth the term is misleading – some argue it makes for good journalism – and therefore i know it has discouraged some to join the Asssociation and therefore hampers fund raising.
Keith,
incidentally if you read the official statutes of the Association, its official purpose is to ” protect and defend all binationals residing outside the United States” (otherwise given my circumstances I would not have joined.
@ Keith Redmond,
Sorry that your comments weren’t posting. I found them in Spam — they’d gone automatically there, which of course should not happen. I have e-mailed our webmaster to see how we can fix this. Meanwhile, we’ll keep an eye on the spam in case any more comments from you go there.
Hello
While you guys are upset about FATCA, nowadays people of the world are going nuts about CRS issues particularly if you are living in different countries.
http://www.finews.com/news/english-news/28073-automatic-exchange-of-information-drazen-turujlija-bank-reyl-oecd-aeoi-loopholes-residency-offshore.
Yes US govt started one big nightmare and got OECD on board who was trying to pass a world wide law like this for years and could not have got it done without US govt on steroids with FATCA and then GATCA(CRS) followed.
Now there would be many accidental Canadians, Australians, EU nationals etc who would be asked for every thing for past ten years since now banks all over the world are looking for reporting by citizenship similar to US even when an expat is living in the country by working there. The whole world thanks the US govt.
Wow, I have to totally disagree with this post. It’s completely off the mark. Worse post I’ve read here in a long time.
A person born to Canadian parents outside of Canada is an Canadian citizen from birth, as is (I believe) any person who is born in Canada. I’d hazard to guess that many countries in the world have similar Jus sanguinis and Jus soli citizenship laws. I’m not aware of anybody complaining about such citizenship laws for any other country besides the US.
It’s not for one country to tell another that they have no right to define their own citizenship laws and/or entrench citizenship rights in their constitutions and other bills and charters.
The problem pure and simple is citizenship-based taxation and the ill-conceived FATCA that tries to help enforce it. If the US had had RBT all along, I bet few or none of the Brockers here would have ever renounced or claimed a past relinquishment. CBT was, I believe, barely enforced until 2010 when FATCA was announced, which started the flood of people shedding US citizenship. There was little need until then.
The problem is not the US imposing US citizenship on people born in the US without their consent. Most other countries do that. The problem is the US imposing taxation on US citizens abroad for income that the US has no claim to. No other country does that. And please let’s stop mentioning Eritrea. That’s not a full income tax. It’s a flat 2% “recovery and reconstruction (RRT) tax”, whatever that is. It doesn’t count in my mind. Not like what the US does.
If a pregnant woman visiting the US delivers prematurely, than there is no question that the baby is a US citizen, albeit accidentally or unintentionally. It’s the law of their land, and ours, and many others. USCitizenAbroad is silly and dead wrong to claim they are not.
This fight is not about citizenship. It’s about taxation. People have turned to fighting citizenship and FATCA
and the Canadian IGA only in desperation and fear that the fight against CBT will not win, or at least take too long. USCitizenAbroad is grasping at straws. When Obama’s last Green Book budget mentioned giving relief to “Accidental Americans”, yes by this exact term, we all cheered because at least somebody in their government has an inkling that there is a problem with CBT. Yes of course it was poorly conceived and poorly worded and didn’t go anywhere near far enough, but the recognition was a start. The only problem is CBT and the only solution is RBT.
Whataml please watch the video in the post. Banks all over the world are now looking at country of your passport to report to as per OECD CRS
law. It’s not just US govt anymore. If you have lived in several jurisdictions for the past ten years you might have to report to every govt of the country you lived in and your country of passport to determine your tax liabilities if any. A lot of paperwork hassle
What I am trying to state here is that if you live and work in a country different from your country of citizenship then it would be reported to your country of passport too with the bank. The simple rental contracts, utility bills are not enough nowadays.
@ WhatAmI
“The only problem is CBT and the only solution is RBT.”
I don’t want to take sides on the “Accidental American” term but I absolutely agree with your closing sentence. US CBT attempts to capture, for purposes of perpetual US taxation and financial scrutiny, more than just those born on US soil.
Singling out Accidental Americans as the only people in need or deserving of relief from CBT would certainly be wrong and harmful to the cause. All US citizens not resident in the US are equally harmed and deserving of relief. CBT must go.
As always, if something is never right then there should be something that is right.
Nadamericans?
UnwillingTaxSlave?
EUcitizen?
Tax-captured Canadians?
RefUSniks?
Homeland Deniers?
Remember the joke from the 60’s? “The Russian Express Card. — Don’t leave home!”.
Well, guess what, it now applies to the American Express Card too.
I agree with everyone here that RBT is the correct way of taxation as proposed by DT also (although it is proposed for corporations right now by him not for individuals ) but why the country of citizenship similar to USA ? CBT is now being applied to every citizen in the world now with banks reporting to country of citizenship if a passport is shown of a different country even residing in a country where the bank is located at. Banks want to avoid penalties so they report passport holders and account info to their country’s govt which supplies their info to passport holders country.
Like most of you I am a US citizen also and can’t even open up brokerage accounts in almost 98 percent of the brokerages in my country of residence and 95 percent of the banks. I am told to go to Citibank only to open any account due to my passport. You are not allowed to open up brokerage or bank account in USA too if you are living overseas as of last 2 years as they are scared of US laws. I am glad I left my one account open when I left USA years ago.
Now almost everyone in my country of residence is effected due to CRS when everyone was happy that they are not US citizens or permanent residents after banks fired many of their US clients and brokerages closed the accounts of many US citizens and permanent residents living in the country.
Whatever you want to call it i agree about not bothering to renounce if the fatca and the cbt and the fbar and all the penalties and compliance costs didn’t exist
I am entitled to another citizenship through descent and I am not renouncing that one
I am a naturalised UK citizen but was born in the USA to parents that have a nationality that gives citizenship by descent
Only US citizenship i have dumped
I wouldn’t pay the exorbitant renunciation fee if I didn’t need to in order to live a normal life
Alexander von Pinoci at American Expatriates FB suggests the term “Misappropriated non-American”. Anyway “Accidental American” has become fairly common usage so it’s not likely to leave the lexicon.
@UK Rose get out before they pass more laws or penalize you. Borrow money to renounce if you have to. People like iota and others renounced at the right time. Due to my children I did not renounce years ago. Now finally I am getting my papers together to renounce asap. The advice given on this forum was always to renounce and get your life back. US citizenship is like a giant squid with tentacles reaching far.
Too late–I already used the term while writing to that Senate committee from yesterday’s post on your behalf. My bad. So…what should I be calling you instead? Don’t say “French” or “Canadian” or whatever. I need a convenient term I can use to write the next Senate subcommittee that puts out a request for us to let them know what’s troubling us, what’s on our mind.
Yes, there ought to be some sort of international treaty preventing governments from just imposing citizenship on whoever they want (or at least, from taxing anyone they think is a citizen, which kind of narrows it down). But there ain’t. And who would regulate this, anyway? The Hague? Some branch of the UN? Fat chance.
I’m a total non-accidental–born to two US Americans, who had me in the USA, and never even thought about living anywhere else. So I’m in a different boat than you guys, although many of our concerns overlap.I guess you can call me an “expat,” although I tend to reserve that term for a higher class of foreigner than me.
PS. “Misappropriated non-American.” Hmmm. Lacks a certain marketing oomph.
@Harrison
I already renounced the us citizenship
My point was I had another citizenship besides USA and UK. Another dormant citizenship.
So the only one I dumped was the USA because it was ipreventing me living a normal life otherwise I would not have bothered