Do you believe that Treasury is accurately reporting the number of people renouncing U.S. citizenship? Given the long wait times in Canada, can the absurdly small number of renunciations reported by Treasury be accurate?
From @HelenBurggraf: Questions continue to be asked, as U.S. list of Q4 renunciants contains fewer than 300 names. Given wait times of up to one year to renounce in Canada this number cannot be believed and that's a #FATCA! https://t.co/8iVP3WOs9E
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) February 29, 2020
Closing renunciation centres in Halifax and Quebec City will increase wait times and make it more difficult for dual citizens to renounce
Friday Feb 28, 2020 the State Department announced that Halifax and Quebec City no longer processing renunciations of U.S. citizenship. Dual citizens in Canada must attend: Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver or Calgary. Increased wait + more expense for those in Atlantic Canada
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) February 29, 2020
Hardest on renunciants/relinquishers in Halifax. Have any idea how many that has been in last few years?
Well, last I looked there was nearly a year wait in Toronto alone.
There are nearly 300 embassies all over the world.
If anybody believes 300 is accurate than I have a bridge to sell them.
Sins of omission from the US;
Ex. tax law blogger https://intltax.typepad.com/intltax_blog/2020/02/2019-published-expatriates.html – fails to mention that deliberate US government/IRS/State department actions – years of making it increasingly more expensive and onerous to renounce – along with IRS or other government agency reporting incompetence (or ?) would effect the numbers.
If those in Canada (said to be home of 2nd largest number of those deemedUStaxablecitizenserfs outside the US) are being deprived of 2 locations for renunciation (Halifax and Quebec City), then obviously that would make the overall wait list for appointments even longer, and getting to other alternate locations even more onerous and expensive for would-be renunciants from those areas.
The US instituting the greatly inflated fee for both renouncing AND later also relinquishing was supposed to cover the actual cost of administering the ‘service’. So why now removing 2 possible locations for that ‘service’?
Doesn’t take a genius to see that as having a depressing effect on overall numbers able to arrange renunciations/relinquishments in Canada. And we don’t know if other global locations will also follow suit.
Services to those outside the US continue to be decreased or denied – yet US extraterritorial CBT is still imposed on those outside the US.
Sounds to me like the US government has finally acknowledged that they have a problem and is now implementing a plan to do something about the high number of renunciations. Next, they’ll raise the fee to a nice round $10.000. That $2350 is an odd number that makes the math too hard, anyway.
The floggings will continue until moral improves.
The numbers of renunciants for the last two quarters have been much lower than usual. Apart from the usual time delays, this is obviously part of an overall attempt to further limit renunciation numbers.
At $2350 a CLN is extremely undervalued. The fee will definitely increase. As goes the increase in the fees, so will go the increase in the number of renunciatios. I was recently speaking to a grandmother who said to me:
I hope I live long enough to see my granddaughter renounce her U.S. citizenship.
Thanks for this USCitizenAbroad.
It seems the price of renouncing will continue to go up along with the difficulty of renouncing with the State Department limiting places where one can renounce. The USA sure wants to keep it’s tax citizens!
I met several people from the US recently who would love to come and live in Canada. They were totally shocked when I told them about citizenship based taxation in US and Eritrea vs resident based taxation in the rest of the world. However, they were grateful for the information.
I am grateful to have renounced when I did 6 years ago.
‘Get out before it gets worse.’ That’s what I tell people.
Another example of the U.S. government putting roadblocks in the way of its citizens exercising their right to expatriate. If expatriation can only be performed at a U.S. Consulate or Embassy then wherever such a consulate or embassy exists expatriation services should – indeed MUST – be made available. There’s no excuse for this.
The USA is increasing sanctions (they come in many forms, this one is a denial of service) on its own citizens in order to obstruct their right to renounce and thereby maintaining the low number of renunciations fraud. Is the empire dying and all this lashing out is part of its death throes?
They could keep their citizens in their fold by granting them the warmth and good cheer of the sun (RBT) but instead they are blasting them with a cold, bitter wind (FATCA, high fees, service barricades) — a modern twist on one of Aesop’s fables. The increasing sanctions will make some resist even harder (like how Russia actually became stronger and more self-reliant due to US sanctioning) but others will not have the means to resist (like how Bolivia eventually fell to a US engineered coup d’etat). In Aesop’s sun and wind fable, the sun won the challenge. However, I don’t see signs that the USA will eventually offer its citizens abroad some sunshine so renunciation (no matter how difficult) is the only present path to freedom.
For newer readers, this might be of interest regarding previously posted firsthand evidence from 2014 that US consular services in Canada for would-be renunciants and relinquishers was considered of low priority;
“…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…..”….
https://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2014/11/04/my-november-4-2014-conversation-with-toronto-consul-general-of-us-new-renunciation-appointments-extended-to-september-2015/comment-page-1/
I believe some of the missing names in the Federal Register have to do with whether someone:
a) Relinquishes (Possibly less likely to appear in the Register?)
b) Renounces (These should definitely be listed, without any DoS or IRS excuses).
I renounced and was listed in the Register, about 6 months after the effective DoS Approval.
Other possible factors:
-Born in the USA or just Naturalized, then renounced?
-Permanent Resident Renunciations? (Is this a thing?)
-Never Filed Taxes
-Never had a Social Security Number
Not making any excuses for the DoS/IRS, just trying to understand wtf is going on with the low reporting…
@Anon
We here have researched this in the past from reports received from Brockers who have renounced, relinquished , born or Naturalized . There doesn’t see to be any rhyme or reason for the underreporting except perhaps the desire to keep numbers low or ineptitude.
I was a naturalized renouncer who took 9 months to appear then strangely showed up again on the list 4 years later! Relinquishers have also appeared.
There may also be an issue down to people being covered expats, or not.
Regardless, out of some 300 embassies around the world who believes that they had an average of one expatriation per embassy last quarter?
I don’t believe this for a second.
@Mike
I don’t think ‘covered’ enters the equation. I know both covered and non covered who have appeared on the list. The list is always late and must be low priority now that the numbers create bad publicity . I bet it is cobbled together in haste and really signifies very little.
If one is living in those areas were consulate services are requested and denied, then onw has no reasonable expectation to respond to any US consular requests.
Two can play asshole / ignore.
The various obligations to report when citizenship is lost (State Department, Treasury and Individuals) are found in Section 6039G of the Internal Revenue Code.
26 U.S. Code § 6039G.Information on individuals losing United States citizenship
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/6039G
The specific obligations on Treasury are at the end of the section and include:
Bottom line:
1. The obligation to report exists with respect to ALL Certificates of Loss of Nationality issued regardless of whether the individual is a covered expatriate and regardless of whether it was a renunciation or a relinquishment.
2. There is NO obligation to report those who hand back (surrendered/abandoned) the Green Card.
The State Department and the Immigration authorities are required to report all CLNs issued and those who have abandoned Green Cards.
___________________________________________________________________
Another possibility for the low reported numbers (but I doubt it) is that the State Department has not been sending accurate names and numbers to Treasury.
@ badger: Travel time and expense wouldn’t dissuade anyone in Québec who’s already spending the $2, 350 and is determined. Given how relatively close the two cities are, I’m surprised they ever offered it in two locations.
@ Duchesse;
It may be that those in Quebec who have arrived at the brink of renouncing/relinquishing won’t reverse course entirely based on the closure. Perhaps by itself not a definitive factor – but renouncing/relinquishing is a legal right in US law, and further – it is a recognized universal human right to change one’s citizenship. So any barrier erected – of whatever size is still a barrier to exercising that right and a denial of service. Even a drop raises the level of the ocean somewhat.
Are those consular locations closing completely? If not, there is no justifiable reason why this service should no longer be provided. Staff should be well conversant with the procedures by now, and as we know, raising and levying the criminally high fees were rationalized by State as full cost recovery.
They removed renunciation from Winnipeg in 2012, not long after demand for renunciation had really begun to ramp up (in Winnipeg and across the country). So, waiting lists in Calgary, which were already increasing, just increased more. They’ve removed renunciation from a few locations in Europe I know of as well over the years, such as Munich in 2015. As wait lists grow and they increase fees.
@EmBee: “Is the empire dying and all this lashing out is part of its death throes?”
Definitely. I fully expect them to raise the price dramatically as well. And cut locations.
Great comment, EmBee!! Your analogies and metaphors are always a warm, summer breeze in the midst of this eternal FATCA winter.
I’ll highlight the subject of this post in my next letter to the United Nations. The blood boils.
USC: Could you please post the link where you found the information about the removal of renunciation services? I’ve clicked on every link in the post but none of them discuss this. I’ll need it if I’m to include this issue in a communication with the U.N. Many thanks!
There is a human catastrophe in Syria and the wider Middle East. There is wholesale genocide in Myanmar and racial killing in India. Global warming threatens all of us. The U.N. hasn’t time for our piddling problem. Forget about bothering them.