Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Posted on by Posted in Issues regarding US persons abroad 109 Comments

The mainstream media along with Isaac Brock poster “Mike” informs us:

“Breaking news!: With the upcoming marriage of Prince Harry with an American, the British Royal Family will now have to pay American taxes.. Maybe somebody in the government will wake up at that point. Meghan Markle is too rich to renounce without getting an unaffordable exit tax.”

And I bet they both have no idea.

Without Ms. Markle renouncing U.S. citizenship, it would seem that Ms. Markle will give the IRS a port of entry into the finances of the Royal Family. Think of it:

“Tax Colonization through marriage!!”

Clearly both Prince Harry and Ms. Markle need advice. In your comments could you please give them your best wishes and a bit of advice.

What should Prince Harry do?

What should Meghan Markle do?

What should the Royal Family do?

109 thoughts on “The Prince (Harry) and the “U.S. Person” (Meghan Markle) engagement – “I bet they have no idea””

  1. @ BB,

    Could the source possibly mean she never had British citizenship, and was only granted permanent residency because of her marriage to a Brit?

    I suspect Madonna didn’t have British citizenship.

    That comment you quoted struck me as odd too, having worked in the immigration field (albeit not in the UK), and it got me curious, so I just did some quick googling and I:

    (1) Didn’t see that Madonna had become a UK citizen;

    (2) Didn’t see that the UK revokes citizenship status of those who began their immigration path through spousal sponsorship.

    I found that in the UK a naturalised citizen may be deprived of UK citizenship if they have done “anything seriously prejudicial to the vital interest of the UK or a British overseas territory” or if their naturalisation “was obtained by means of fraud, false representation, or concealment of material fact.”(Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act, 2002, s. 4).

    It looks like there is also a Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act of 2006, which made some amendments to the 2002 Act but it didn’t include anything about deprivation of citizenship due to marriage breakdown, something about if “deprivation is conductive to the public good” (Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act, 2006, s. 56)

    The only UK govt website I found, in my quick search, regarding spousal sponsorship and marital breakdown deals with “You must tell the Home Office when you divorce or separate from your partner if your visa is based on your relationship,” which wouldn’t apply if the person were a citizen.

    I don’t know the rules for permanent residents in the UK, and didn’t search very much (I’m goofing off at work right now 🙂 ) but here in Canada a person whose marriage broke down would not lose their PR status because of that (except if the marriage had been fraudulent, entered into for immigration purposes, which can also happen if the couple stayed in a “non-genuine” marriage anyway). It might be different in the UK, but I also don’t know if Madonna was a PR in the UK.

  2. Picture a beautiful British castle with Prince Harry standing atop the steps at the main entrance. He sports an ermine trimmed robe and jewel-studded, golden crown. A giant wooden Trojan horse named Tax has pulled up to the castle, its hatch is open and a ladder extends to the ground. Meghan, wearing a USA #1 T-shirt, star spangled leggings and a plastic Statue of Liberty crown is paused at the foot of the ladder. Over her shoulder is slung a large, obviously very heavy sack labelled FATCA/FBAR/IRS/FinCEN. A speech balloon hovering over Meghan says, “Hi honey. I’m home!” Now what might be the expression on Prince Harry’s face as he watches the arrival of his beloved fiancée and whatever might his speech balloon say? My guess is that a very bewildered looking Harry says, “Good lord! Nobody told me you would be coming with so much baggage.”

  3. “A giant wooden Trojan horse named Tax has pulled up to the castle”

    Very very close. The point of this discussion is that the giant wooden Trojan horse is named Love, but the baggage is exactly as you say.

  4. I am pretty certain Madonna took British Citizenship. I believe she is a dual.

    It’s in the daily mail today, Meghan Markle set to take British Citizenship (before she marries Harry) and be baptised ahead of ceremony. so she can wed in Church of England.
    This is all about protocol nothing to do with tax. we can pretty much put this discussion to bed, she will be British and she will relinquish. article does not say she will relinquish but i would not expect anything else to happen given Harry’s status in the royal family
    so if you want to shed US citizenship, marry a prince.

  5. also pretty sure this is to safe guard any future children which i am 100% certain that they want to be 100% British citizens. i am pretty sure they would not want any custody arrangements involving any other countries should the marriage break down. My opinion but I simply can’t see it being any other way,

  7. The Washington Post won’t let me read the comments without signing in, but the article is superb. The word is finally getting out.

  9. @ Norman Diamond — You should be able to read the comments on the WP article. You only need to sign in to add a new comment.

  10. “You should be able to read the comments on the WP article. You only need to sign in to add a new comment.”

    I clicked on a link for something like “32 comments” and it showed me something like “Sign in to join the discussion.” It did not show me other people’s comments.

  11. Maybe the WP comments are slow to load? I just tried again: Clicked to see the 76 comments. The “Sign in to join the conversation” banner comes up at the top. Then all the comments loaded below that. I didn’t sign in. There are some very good, well-informed comments by familiar names.

  13. A lot of speculations and what ifs. I suspect that they will simply keep separate accounts and she will not be joint on any cash or fixed assets. Pretty straight forward. Many Americans married to citizens of other countries have been doing this since 2010. Most people I meet who have made Canada their home in say the last 10 years are aware of citizenship based taxes and are filing dual tax returns. Most don’t know about is the Fincen form 114. She would have been using an accountant that specializes in US tax returns, not trying to do them by herself.

  14. I could not care less about the royal family. However, the fact that she is a US person subject to Fatca, CBT, and Fbar, makes this a very interesting topic.

  15. Any news that helps bring publicity to the plight faced by those in the CBT trap is certainly welcome, and I’m glad that some mainstream news sources are picking up the CBT side of this story. I think it is unlikely that she “has no idea” given that she has lived in Toronto but has significant US income. Meghan seems to be in a position where she would be likely to have known about FATCA–of course how she responds to it is another matter–even if Prince Harry weren’t in the picture.

  17. Had a brief look. Laughing my ass off at the “Oh…let’s let them be…we’re supposed to be celebrating a wedding here…” comments from love-struck idiots.

    Well, I (a born n’ bred Canadian citizen) married my wife out of LOVE… I just didn’t expect Uncle Sam to come along for the ride…(think of him as a leech in a stars and stripes top-hat) and trust me, my view of the American people and their government isn’t much better.

  20. @badger, I can just see those leeches salivating at the chance to “stick it” to the British Crown. If Markle was wise, she’d get rid of her US citizenship entirely and renounce.

  22. Is there anyway for John’s blog on marrying an American person to be posted here separately by itself? I think it would be valuable for those who are just finding out about the problem. I found this page a few years back when I didn’t know what to do and I was just finding out what my signing on my employer’s account meant for me/him by my typing my problem into the Google search engine. Everybody else had know about these problems for awhile. I was just hearing about them. John’s advice is excellent.

  23. She needs to take tax advice as soon as possible, since once she becomes a tax resident, things are going to get really tricky really fast. I have been superbusy at work and have been sorting out my finances only to discover that my two strategies for shoring up my retirement have been scuppered by things that have come out in the last week. Now I can’t hold a mix of British company stock without getting whacked by the recent U.S. tax plans, but I am also getting whacked on the U.K. side as well. As of 1 January 2018, it will no longer be possible to buy Vanguard (US) ETFs in the U.K. because they are not going to put out a key information document as will be required by law, although I can still hold what I have. And my employer’s pension plan is in major trouble because frankly my elderly parents have done better than its fund managers have done. Sorry for the grumpiness, but who else would understand. Merry Christmas everyone. May you become as prosperous in the new year as U.S. residents already believe you are!

  24. @UK Rose
    In the event of the breakup of the marriage, the children would remain iwhere they are normally resident (in Britain) because of the Hague Convention.

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