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
Wow– that WAS fast! I’m jealous…but congratulations!!!
I’ll ask again, though- has anyone here figured an “average” time to receive your CLN?
I’m moving towards eight months soon…
🙁
I don’t think there is a meaningful average. I’m going on 10 months waiting for mine and I know of no complicating factors that could be delaying it. I’ve read here of others who renounced at the same consulate the same or folowing momth who received their’s in the fall. At the appointment, I was told the official advice was it would take 4-6 months but off the record that they had been coming back sooner. LOL
@RLee
…and mine said 3-4 months…ha ha, jokes on us?
The woman did add, “all the best in your new life”, which sort of made me feel better about it. Up to that point, I wasn’t happy with the whole thing– especially the deliberate confusion between relinquish/renounce & that they didn’t seem to know what I was talking about? It was a weird day. I just want my CLN so I can put it behind me & not have to deal with it any more.
Thank you so much @Duke of Devon. Dianne and I have spoken privately.
I’m a little confused by something. The State Dept. FAM says there are a number of circumstances under which someone is considered to have renounced their citizenship. I don’t recall them all, but I believe it included:
1. swearing oath of renunciation at a consulate
2. serving in a foreign military
3. swearing allegiance to another nation
There’s a list of things like that in the FAM.
So, if those acts cause one to lose their citizenship, why is paying the $2,350 fee required? Is it just to get the CLN?
Basically yes. If you don’t document your action at the consulate/embassy then whatever you did means nothing as far as the US is concerned. Renunciation by swearing an oath in front of the consul requires a visit to the embassy/consulate and paperwork from the staff. Relinquishment by serving in a foreign military or serving in a foreign government (don’t think the swearing alliegence counts on its own, it’s taken into consideration with other things) again requires a visit/interview to the consulate/embassy and paperwork from the staff. This all costs the US government, so they say, $2,350 to check it all out and make sure you’re not trying it on in some way. The fact that many embassies/consulates insist on using DS-4079 for renunciations regardless of the fact that it has absolutely NO bearing on this just makes the whole fee thing nothing more than a con and an attempt to stop people from giving up their US citizenship. If numbers hadn’t gone up so much in recent years I doubt the fee would have changed at all.
And I see looking as said DS-4079 on the State Department’s website that the current form expires on 31st January 2017 and the time burden (for consular staff I assume) to deal with it is 15 minutes. So I make that $156.66 per minute of staff time.
americano. That’s their excuse. It apparently costs them 5 times more to process a CLN than to process a citizenship application. Our banks are supposed to accept a reasonable explanation in lieu of a CLN. Until recently, it was not considered necessary to inform State if one had relinquished.
Americano, I disagree slightly with @Media ” If you don’t document your action at the consulate/embassy then whatever you did means nothing as far as the US is concerned. ”
By US Law if you perform one of those acts voluntarily and with intent then you have LOST your USC.
The question becomes if you wish to “document” that loss with an official US document?
IMO, the only way State can charge anything for a relinquishment CLN without running foul of the Expatriation Act 1868 which State clearly acknowledges in its pubs is if a CLN is not a requirement to lose ones citizenship by performing an expatriating act.
This partly ties into Dukes comment on providing a “reasonable explanation in lieu of a CLN” in the IGA. They have to be very careful on relinquishment CLNs because they are right on the borderline of running foul of the Expatriation Act.
Some Brockers that have performed an act have chosen to document their relinquishment in other ways.
I have a theory that if you performed a relinquishment act and crossed your t’s and dotted your i’s and applied for a US Passport overseas stating that you were solely applying for one because a border guard said you needed to BUT stated in the application that you performed a relinquishing act, that State would not issue you a US Passport.
I believe this to be true because IF a CLN was required to lose US Citizenship THEN a passport application would not list the relinquishing acts rather it would ask if you have a CLN.
Further, there are reports from the US Congress that state a CLN is not required.
@George, while I agree with you in general, the question is whether – having performed the relinquishing act – you intend to also complete the tax filing requirements or not. If you do then getting a CLN is obligatory. From the 8854 form instructions:
“Date of relinquishment of U.S. citizenship.
You are considered to have relinquished your U.S. citizenship on the earliest of the following dates.
1. The date you renounced your U.S. citizenship before a diplomatic or consular officer of the United States (provided that the voluntary renouncement was later confirmed by the issuance of a certificate of loss of nationality).
2. The date you furnished to the State Department a signed statement of your voluntary relinquishment of U.S. nationality confirming the performance of an expatriating act (provided that the voluntary relinquishment was later confirmed by the issuance of a certificate of loss of nationality).
3. The date the State Department issued a certificate of loss of nationality.
4. The date a U.S. court canceled your certificate of naturalization.”
If the IRS don’t have a copy of your CLN on record then as far as I can see you’d still be considered a US citizen for tax purposes despite any other documentation you may have done. Of course, not a lot they can do about it from the US, but still it could be a worry if you travel to the States in future.
And of course the main reason for getting a CLN is for banking purposes. Although the IGA’s say other documentation is acceptable it really depends on the individual bank whether they’d accept it or not. I seriously doubt any Swiss bank would have accepted anything other than a CLN a few years ago; whether they would nowadays I don’t know, but now that FATCA is up and running and they’re not as scared I guess some might.
Can you all advise me?
I went to the consulate to relinquish based on becoming an AU citizen & was never returning. This was seven + months ago…still waiting.
What do I do come US tax time?
Re: What do I do at tax time? You don’t have to do anything. Ignore them.
Jane. In a comment today on the men are not prisoners of fate thread Fred makes a clear case for doing nothing
@Jane
Lots of factors here. Are there any complicating factors to your relinquishment (i. e. Did you relinquish right away once you became an Australian citizen)? Are you currently compliant with the IRS? Do you expect to be a covered expatriate? No need to answer those questions here, but they will affect your decision.
If there are no complicating issues with the relinquishment and you’re currently compliant, I would be inclined to act on the assumption that the CLN will eventually be issued. You can extend the deadline for actually filing the 1040 until October.
I’m currently in limbo waiting for a CLN in Australia as well. I don’t want to go into the details here, but it has been longer than 7 months.
I promised myself I would follow up on my CLN when I reach the 10 month mark in just a couple of days now. Some time past when I was still optimistic it wouldn’t take this long, someone posted a contact in the State department in Washington that might be helpful. Could I/we have that information again please.
I found that post with the Dept of State contacts by Pacifica on December 8. Thanks
@Karen
I relinquished when I took my oath to AU, in front of the mayor no less, in 2012. When I filled the relinquishment forms I explained to the embassy people that I had read the fives years tax compliance as being “after” the relinquishing act. It seemed about right to me, as AU has a waiting period between permanent residence & ability to take the citizenship oath…I saw it as a US “cooling off period” to give you time to reverse your decision. I’m over 50, & was coming to AU to live out my life with my AU partner & children. I wasn’t returning & have no ties to the US. I wrote that on the forms & the woman there said just to be sure, to write it out completely & handed me some extra paper. When I left, she wished me well in my new life…They kept my US passport, too…As far as I know, I’m tax compliant. My taxes are done by a tax person listed on the US embassy site. It would be quite the scam if they promote tax people to deliberately do a “bad job”?
@Duke of Devon
I am head of household for two children. I cannot be without banking & a way to save in my country for retirement. I am 100% honest that I meant to never return to the USA & that I would remain here until I die. Full-stop. I prefer a CLN so I know I am legally separated from the USA. I feel it will only get more convoluted as time passes & I don’t have much (life) time left to dedicate to this idiocy.
If I were a single person w/o dependents, maybe I could risk it. But I’m not.
RE: RLee
Could you please link that here?
@ Jane,
Here it is. http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/renunciation/comment-page-197/#comment-6934156
Good luck to you both. Hope you get your CLNs soon.
That link is acting wacky — going back a comment page three months prior — so I’ll post the comment itself here.
Your Division is EAP (East Asia and Pacific), Division Chief is Tonya Gendin, 202-485-6261.
Geoffrey Martineau is not found via F3 search?
Does anyone have a more recent contact to check on CLN?
@ Jane,
I was puzzled but I figured it out. The search didn’t work because the directory has two spaces between Geoffrey and Martineau. Weird.
However, he’s for Western Hemisphere. You’re in the East Asia and Pacific Division (last line in my above post). So, it’s Tonya Gendin.
Anyway, all the Division Chiefs for the “CLN Office” (Office of American Citizens Services (CA/OCS/ACS) are on page OD-17 of the current directory. The directory seems to be updated every day and the link automatically goes to the current one.
Jane; Fair enough. I get it and I sympathize. You relinquished in 2015. That is your D day. On or before April 1 2016 ( there may be an extension) file a 1040 for the part of 2015 that you were still (in your mind) liable. Also file the 8854. It is somewhat difficult but not impossible to do yourself. That’s it. You do not have to file for the rest of 2015 unless you have substantial US income. It’s not your fault that they can’t be bothered to send a CLN in a timely manner. They won’t be bothered to trouble you any more. They have much bigger problems to deal with.
Good luck.
Well, the apparent correct way to deal with the final year is that you should file a 1040NR, which covers the full year, along with a 1040 (which covers up to the point of renunciation) as an attachment. The 1040’s numbers serve as inputs to the 1040NR. It’s non-intuitive (at least to me), but that’s how it’s supposed to be.
Having said that, I’m not sure how bad it could theoretically be if you just do a 1040 up to the point of renunciation. You’ve presumably already filed your magic 5 full years. You’re presumably including a 8854. So you should be fine as far as the important thing is concerned – not being a covered expat, no? It’s not obvious that there could be any kind of serious (if any) penalty for doing the final year wrong by filing a 1040 and not a 1040NR+1040.
See:
http://hodgen.com/chapter-3-paperwork-for-expatriates-and-covered-expatriates/
https://www.irs.gov/irb/2009-45_IRB/ar10.html#d0e1020
@tdott – If I understand it correctly, the 1040NR is required because you can’t file for part of a year, and the 1040 can’t cover the NRA part of the year, so you need both forms to cover the full year.
But the real reason (I figure) is probably that they want to be able to cross-reference income numbers from both forms with the numbers given on the 8854, to see if they match up. If the 1040NR is missing they might make one up – “filing a substitute form” as I believe they call it.
So it might be wise to file both, to escape with as little aggro as possible. That’s my theory, anyway.
@Jane wrote: “If I were a single person w/o dependents, maybe I could risk it. But I’m not.”
Presumably you are not a covered expatriate and your dependents are American citizens. We have clients who are Accidental Americans and are (or are not, as the case may be) “covered expatriates” should they go that route, but the spouse (if any) and the children are not American citizens.
Financial planning is complex in such cases. If it’s a single Mum http://www.afsa.org/citizenship-and-unwed-border-moms-misfortune-geography how do we handle a trust FBO the child, state benefits, and all the rest? And what if the mother will freak out if we complicate her life or talk about #PFIC? (#FBAR everybody can understand, not PFIC. And hopefully one can avoid 3520.)
Generally (not always) these are people who have scarcely ever set foot in the USA, whose life from birth has been abroad.