Renunciation and Relinquishment of United States Citizenship: Discussion thread (Ask your questions) Part Two
Ask your questions about Renunciation and Relinquishment of United States Citizenship and Certificates of Loss of Nationality.
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NB: This discussion is a continuation of an older discussion that became too large for our software to handle well. See Renunciation and Relinquishment of United States Citizenship: Discussion thread (Ask your questions) Part One
@ Nikki
First of all, we’re happy to have you in Canada, even if the USA is reluctant to let you go. My suggestion would be:
STEP ONE
Spend a considerable amount of time at this site to get familiar with the terminology and the strategies involved with relinquishing.
STEP TWO
Get your Canadian citizenship. This could take as long as 2 years.
STEP THREE
Make sure you file at least 5 years of US taxes and all related forms before relinquishing, including FBAR/FinCEN114. Meanwhile, keep your financial situation as simple as possible. Do not get involved with anything that the USA would consider to be a PFIC (Passive Foreign Investment Company). Do not sell your home if there is any chance of exceeding the US capital gains threshold. Do not allow your net worth to exceed 2 million dollars. (Those are “do nots” but of course if you must, you must. Just be sure to give yourself a heads-up on the US tax consequences if you do.)
STEP FOUR
At your Canadian citizenship ceremony get a witnessed statement that you are taking your oath to Canada with the intent of giving up your US citizenship.
STEP FIVE
Make a relinquishing (not renunciation) appointment with your nearest US consulate to obtain your CLN (Certificate of Loss of Nationality). The CLN could take as long as 1 year to arrive.
STEP SIX
File your final US tax forms, including form 8854. That’s a few years away so you will have plenty of time to learn how to do this.
STEP SEVEN
Do a happy dance. You are free.
First things first – – get your Canadian citizenship fully settled. You do NOT want to be stateless and at your visit to the US Embassy or Consulate they will want to see your Canadian passport before they process any renunciation/relinquishment (unless you have another passport from somewhere else….)
Hi, @Em. Re: “Make sure you file at least 5 years of US taxes and all related forms before relinquishing…” – Why do you say we must file before informing the consulate of relinquishment? My understanding is we have until the following 1040/1040NR deadline to do so (or even longer if we apply for an extension). I was not planning on doing a thing until after my visit to the consulate, or at least until my citizenship is finalized.
I am looking forward to that happy dance! 🙂
@LM, Don’t have to have a Canadian Passport just the Canadian Citizenship Certificate.
Yes. The consulate needs proof of the “foreign” citizenship, but the citizenship exists whether one has a passport or not, and in the case of a relinquishment based on obtaining that citizenship, the date one acquired the “foreign” citizenship, as shown on the citizenship certificate, carries significant importance.
You’ll definitely need some photo id, though, just to get in the building (as far as I know), and to prove you are who you say you are, in order to sign your CLN application documents. A vice consul at Toronto, in telling me what to documents to bring with me, mentioned my driver’s licence as one of the acceptable photo ids. I did opt to use my passport, however, because I figure the US gets to scan that anyway if I travel there.
@LM, re: “the US Embassy or Consulate [..] will want to see your Canadian passport before they process any renunciation/relinquishment… ” This keeps coming up, but I have yet to see any official rule that denies a person relinquishment if they don’t have a passport from another country. Under Renunciation of U.S. Nationality at travel.state.gov it even states that “persons intending to renounce U.S. citizenship should be aware that, unless they already possess a foreign nationality, they may be rendered stateless and, thus, lack the protection of any government.” In other words, bad idea but we’re not going to stop you. Also, at the Calgary session last Saturday the lawyer John Richardson said it can be done.
So where does this come from? Do we know that people are in fact being turned away by consular officials because they lack a passport? I certainly don’t intend on being stateless but who knows what could happen between now and what could potentially be a very long wait for my citizenship. I do believe that if U.S. lawmakers can find a way to make things worse for us, they will, and if it happens I need to know if statelessness is an option.
@ Wren,
I agree with you (and John) that one can expatriate without having a foreign citizenship. I was thinking in terms of the relinquishment based on naturalising in a foreign country scenario.
As for going stateless, I suspect that it may be a bit more tedious to renounce without having foreign citizenship – just my impression that that’s a scenario where they’d put some effort into trying to talk the person out of it. But in the end, they can’t prevent it.
I don’t think very many people opt to go stateless but some do. One of them, Stateless Man, posts here from time to time and can provide first-hand insight into it.
@ Wren
Of course you don’t HAVE to do that filing but when you have years to go before your CLN arrives it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea to keep up with filing, rather than do it all at once. I don’t know if Nikki has been filing or not so I just assumed yes and took it from there. Newer arrivals to Canada seem more likely to know about filing than those who have been in Canada, living Canadian lives, for perhaps even decades. The new arrivals have the advantage of news articles and the internet to alert them to this US peculiarity, whereas before — who knew? I’m looking forward to your happy dance too! 🙂
Pacific and others are right, you do not need to get a Canadian passport in order to relinquish. My husband is just getting his now, post relinquishment. He had a US passport and a driver’s license for ID and of course they took his US passport from him at the appointment.
Thanks, @pacifica777. Funny, I was just reading a thread by @statelessman here.
It isn’t a stretch to imagine that consulates would make it a tedious process. With that in mind, I can’t help but wonder if those alleged many who were refused just didn’t insist hard enough.
I don’t see statelessness as a temporary measure as a big deal. More like a minor inconvenience. As long as I’m a Permanent Resident in Canada and I stay within these borders I have most of the same protections as Canadians.
@Em, thank you for clarifying. You make a good point that newer arrivals are more likely to be familiar with the requirements, so it’s a sensible assumption. As for me, I want my visit to the consulate to inform them that I have relinquished to be the first time I approach any U.S. government agency about anything having to do with my Americanness. And since I don’t already have a tax identification number that means waiting until after to file.
I fondly reminisce about the day I mailed my application for Canadian citizenship. Back then, there was no fear, no CBT, no FATCA. Just giddy excitement and an immense love for the country I grew up in. My spouse took a picture of me handing the envelope to the clerk at Canada Post. I had a big grin on my face.
That was only one year ago!
I hope you are planning something extra special for that day when your husband’s passport arrives. 🙂
@ Wren
I don’t think my husband will have much of a wait for the passport but I do wish your invitation to the Canadian citizenship ceremony would come soon. That ceremony was so very special for both my husband and myself. It meant we were finally a matched Canadian set. Soon, he the former American (or will be when his CLN arrives) will have a Canadian passport and me the always Canadian will not (I don’t plan to travel outside Canada so there’s no point getting one).
@EM,
Oh, I plan on having a big celebration for every milestone including the arrival of my passport. But, yes, the ceremony will be the most special. 🙂
@Wren (and others) – mea culpa – – you are right, don’t need a passport to go and renounce/relinquish but citizenship papers to demonstrate that you won’t be stateless would be important. Somehow, I just can’t imagine putting oneself into a “stateless” situation by choice, but that’s just me.
Can we return for a minute to the final tax filing? I see I need to send a copy of the 8854 to Philly, as well as to Austin, and to e-file the last FBAR, but I thought I needed to send a copy of the CLN to someplace. Now I can’t find that reference. Does it go with my 8854, or someplace else, or not at all? Where is that printed? Everything else is in place, thank goodness. So far, so good. But yesterday when I started getting the file ready, my blood pressure shot up. The anxiety is incredible, even when everything seems ok. What a system! Get out while you can!
@Rev Susi
You’re probably recalling this discussion:
isaacbrocksociety.ca/renunciation/comment-page-88/#comment-1177593
monalisa1776 had a bit of extra confusion over married/maiden name, and she thought it prudent to add a copy of the CLN to clear that up preemptively. There is however no requirement that I know of to send copies of a CLN (or I-407 for ex-greencarders) with any tax filing.
@Rev Sussi, Psalms 23:4. and Exodus 14.
Questions for people who have received their CLN.
How did they notify you that it was ready? (email, phone?)
I gave a prepaid Canada post envelope to them. Do they just send it? What is the procedure?
Thanks
@ghost66
It depends on the consulate and the staff representative doing the administration. I had some e-mail correspondence with mine and she was kind enough to let me know that it had arrived and would be sent on its way. Apart from that, do you have a tracking link for your prepaid envelope you can check?
@notamused
I do but it always says nothing has been registered on the Canada post website. I have read that they might want to contact you before sending it.
Hello,
I am new to all this and was sorry that I missed the information session with John Richardson last week. I have been reading as much as I can on the site in order to help my wife (Dual citizen) understand the issue. I am confused as to what to do though. Here are the facts for her situation:
1. She was born in Canada to American parents who were and are still living in Canada.
2. When she was born her parent’s registered her at the consulate and as I understand it, applied for a SSN number for her.
3. In 1995 she received a US passport which expired in 2005
4. She travelled on that passport once to the US in 1996
5. All of this was done in her maiden name
6. All travelling since then has been done on her Canadian passport which is in her married name.
7. She has been a stay at home mom with part time jobs over the last 12 years and has made little income – she has never had to pay any Cdn taxes
My questions are:
– should we go ahead and submit the 5 years of tax returns and then renounce her citizenship as I have been reading about?
Appreciate your thoughts.
@silverview. Think of this as a bad dream, a very bad dream. No good, no good will come from entering the belly of the beast.
Your wife is invisible like Harry Potter with the invisibility cloak.
Destroy the expire passport.
It may seem easy for her but something could go very wrong.
First of all, thank you to everyone who contributes to this site. I’ve spent a lot of time reading up on things here in the last couple of months, and what an education it’s been!
My 19 year old son and I are both UK/US dual nationals (he was born dual and has never lived in the US, I naturalised recently). We have both decided to renounce our US citizenship. We are both up to date with taxes and FBAR. Neither of us will be a covered expatriot. For us it is just a question of when we renounce, and I’d really appreciate views on the best timing for us.
We are due to travel to the US later this year (tickets booked months ago). We will be travelling with my younger son, who is also a dual and a minor. My current US passport will expire before the trip to the US.
So, do I renew my US passport (which would commit me to renouncing rather than relinquishing) and we wait to set the wheels in motion for renunciation as soon as our US trip is over? Although this is more expensive and means putting off renunciation for awhile, it feels safer.
Or do we start the renunciation process now (which is what we would have chosen had the trip not been booked), hand over our US passports when we renounce and travel on our UK passports (almost certainly without having received our CLNs prior to travelling). My younger son would still be a US citizen and would be required to enter and exit the US on his US passport. This is the less expensive option, but it feels scary since it would definitely flag us up when we entered the US. I’m worried about being refused entry if my older son and I are still technically US citizens because we don’t have our CLNs but also can’t travel on our US passports since we would have to hand them over to the embassy when we renounce.
I’m leaning towards the first option because it seems much less stressful, although I’d really like to renounce immediately. But I’d really appreciate others’ views, particularly if I’m missing something obvious.
@ Verity,
Once a person renounces or makes a relinquishment-based CLN application, they enter the US on their “foreign” passport, even if awaiting their CLN.
If you don’t have your CLN yet, bring your renunciation receipt with you. Also, London has been issuing letters to renunciants and presumably does the same for relinquishers (we haven’t had any London relinquishers report here), stating that the person has renounced, so bring that too. I don’t know if the letter is issued automatically there or if you have to ask for one. The fact that a person has renounced/applied for a relinquishment-based CLN is in a database which DHS has access to, so they see that when you enter the US.
I take it you’ll be using the London Embassy. For complete certainty, you can ask London Embassy, American Citizens Services Department about this – that’s the department that handles expatriations. London ACS seems to be a embassy/consulate that is quite on the ball about renunciation (not true of all of them) and people report they’re quite efficient and good to deal with.
This is the text of a letter that Lord Jim posted on Brock (page 117, Consulate Report Directory)
@ Verity
Ask the consulate ahead of time if they will prepare an interim letter for you so you can travel to the USA without a US passport while you wait for your CLN. My husband got one quite easily from the Calgary consulate. He hasn’t used the letter yet but I don’t expect him to have any problem if/when he does. They sent him an official letter-headed version in the mail a week or so after his appointment. If you like, I can post a fill-in-the-blank version here. I think I did this before but I’m not sure where.
@Verity, when I flew into Philadelphia in Feb with my UK passport, I was questioned as to why I wasn’t using a US passport as I have an obvious US birthplace. Upon producing a copy of my CLN, I was detained in a back room for almost 45 minutes as they verified my details (probably checked that my name is on the federal list of renunciants).
I honestly don’t know if you will have problems or not. I believe the US embassy in London is producing interim letters explaining that one has expatriated. The issue is that the US has no legal obligation to admit a non-US citizen in. However, I’d have thought you should be OK.
@Rev Susi, and @Watcher, it seemed prudent to send a copy of my CLN to both Austin and Philadelphia since my married name on the CLN differs to my maiden name. I also listed both my maiden and married names on the 8854. I still worry that my account details will be relayed by my building society to HMRC and then, in turn, to the IRS even though I have expatriated. I have US indica on my account and thus want to do all I can to avoid potential future confusion with the IRS when the inevitably continue to receive information on former US persons.
It’s all the more reason why I feel it’s essential to demonstrate five years tax compliance and to properly file 8854 to make a clean break.
Just thought I’d also mention that the IRS rejected my use of the FEIE via form 2555 on my final dual status return; they thus taxed a portion of my anticipated refund which was disappointing. But as it was only a couple hundred dollars, I will probably just let it rest because I want closure. Ping pong will just wind up costing me more in extra accounting fees than I will have lost in the refused 2555.
The accounting firm could have probably saved me the couple hundred in taxes had they just relied on foreign tax credits (1116) but it would have also been more complicated and expensive so I suppose my total costs would be the same….