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
@joe
You can travel to the US on your Swedish passport. You were born there. You do not have a US birthplace on it!
Is Joe for real or is he just playing games with us.
@joe
A SSN can take longer than a cln.Ask the embassy how long it takes.
You can ask for a copy of your signed renunciation from the embassy , you also will have a receipt for renunciation fee to show the banks.
@Joe, you may be able to apply via an embassy/consulate, but as far as I know all the paperwork will have to be sent on to the Social Security Department in the US. Here’s the instructions/form:
https://www.socialsecurity.gov/forms/ss-5fs.pdf
There’s also this info from the Americans Abroad organisation:
“For individuals over 12 years of age applying for an initial SSN:
1. It is essential to appear in person. You will need an appointment, which you can make by email or phone call.
2. You must have two pieces of identification – for example, US passport and your birth certificate.
3. If you were born in the US, you must also prove why you do not already have a SSN. Documentation is required to prove the allegation of absence from the US as the reason for non-assignment of an SSN. The documentation must be comprehensive and dated from the time the person departed the US to the present to provide sufficient evidence. The documentation can include:
•confirmation of residency from foreign registration offices
•school records such as report cards or a letter from the school confirming dates of attendance
•travel documents such as current or canceled passports (US or other)
•employment records
•medical records
•proof of registration with a doctor or clinic
4. If you are a US citizen born abroad, only certain documents can be accepted as proof of US citizenship. These include a US passport, Certificate of Naturalization (N-550/N-570) or Certificate of Citizenship (N-560/N-561), Certificate of Report of Birth (DS-1350), Consular Report of Birth Abroad (FS-240, CRBA).
You must also submit documentation to show that you have never been assigned a SSN:
•If you lived outside the United States for an extended period, a current or previous passport, school and/or employment records, and any other record that would show long-term residence outside the United States could be used to show you do not have a SSN.
•If you have lived in the United States and you are applying for an original Social Security number, you may be asked for information about the schools you attended or to provide copies of tax records that would show you were never assigned a SSN.”
https://americansabroad.org/issues/social-security/obtainingreclaiming-your-social-security-number-ssn/
Do you really want to try and do this, only to turn around and renounce? What a waste of your time and money.
Applying for an SSN will only delay things for you – don’t do it. Renounce as scheduled and then file the necessary paperwork using the ITIN application. You are a minnow, the IRS will not come after you because you don’t owe them millions of dollars in unpaid tax.
The embassy says that it take around three months to get a SSN for a non-US born person.
Are you required to file June 15? Or October 15 with the extension? Is it even possible to get an extension without the SSN or ITIN? Or are these deadline only for people who file yearly?
@Joe, it doesn’t matter HOW long it takes for you to receive your CLN. You become a non-US citizen the MOMENT you swear/affirm the Oath of Renunciation in front of the consul at the embassy/consulate. That is the key point in time – all the State Department is doing for a renunciation is giving you a piece of paper that confirms it. Unless it’s obvious you’re were under duress/coersion at the time you did the act NOTHING can change that fact.
Extensions are automatic, but really would only concern you for the current year’s filing, i.e. 2015.
Renounce, file the returns with an ITIN and sleep easy. Your CLN will be on its way and you’ll be out of the US tax system soon.
If that is your decision, I’d want to get it in writing, Joe. Is there a second-opinion person there that can confirm and give you absolute written assurance that you will have a SSN in three months?
@Duke….I wondered that. I bail out.
The three month waiting info is on the Norwegian website.
Sorry about my lack of decisiveness. One day certain, the next not.
Joe’s right about Norway. The site states:
I, personally, don’t trust US time estimates and think getting an SSN is like attaching a “Kick Me” sign to your own back. The ITIN route sounds better but Joe will eventually have to make up his own mind. BTW, doing anything squeaky clean, first time round, with the US bureaucracy is never a sure thing. One of our Brockers, for instance, ended up making 3 attempts to provide the consulate with an acceptable birth certificate.
@joe
If you renounce this month you will be free, you will have a receipt for your cln even if you have to wait some months for it to arrive.
If you apply for a SSN you could be waiting months if not longer, before you can even apply to renounce. Who knows how long the wait will be then..
SSN’s are for those who want to stay in the system
The link Medea gave you from the IRS states those who are not eligible for a SSN who have federal tax forms to file can apply for an ITIN .
You will not be eligible for a ssn once you have renounced. Many have reported doing just this with no problem.
AT LAST! Just short of 11 months after I renounced at the Toronto Consulate and two weeks after I sent an email requesting they advise how I would follow up on the “long-delayed” document, I received my CLN today. I posted the full chronology on the Relinquishment and Renunciation Data (as reported … thread but thought I’d post this update here as I’ve been whining here periodically about the delay for the last 5 months.
@RLee Congratulations!
@RLee, Congratulations on getting your long awaited CLN at last. Go out and celebrate.
@RLee Congrats!
But, what a ridiculous thing to congratulate…no one should have to be forced to this extreme…
I guess that means my 8+ month wait is still in it’s infancy 🙁
@RLee – congratulations! And thanks for the account. Very interesting that raising an enquiry with the Consulate appears eventually to have prodded them into action. But 11 months is a ridiculous length of time to have to wait.
@Jane – I suspect those of us renouncing probably feel differently about it, depending on our circumstances. For me, it was a hell of a kick! 🙂 (Not the CLN, which I haven’t yet got, but the actual renunciation.) Wish I’d done it fifty years ago!
@iota
Don’t get me wrong- I’m thrilled to hopefully be seeing the backside of the gov’t of my youth.
The point I was making is that it’s ludicrous it’s come to this.
Cheers
Does anyone have any idea how long the current wait for a relinquishment appointment is in Vancouver? Anybody?
@Duke
Make a fake email & ask them:
VancouverCLN@state.gov (I love their email address!)
Cheers
Duke and Jane,
I sent an email to the Vancouver US Consulate today, VancouverACS@state.gov — the auto reply I got back was that I would get (should get?) an answer to my query within 48 hours.
The VancouverCLN@stsate.gov address got an automatic information on forms, procedure for renunciation or relinquishment.
We shall see what comes.
Thanks. I should have said. I did e- mail with my real address. No response.
@RLee, congrats!
I found myself that after inquiring after the CLN’s estimated arrival time and being told that basically it would come whenever it came, the consulate contacted me shortly afterwards to say that they were in the process of mailing it to me.
@Joe
I am going through the ‘renounce and then get a TIN’ thing now.
I submitted my paper work yesterday, this included five years of returns, form 14653 (streamlined offshore) and a W7 (TIN application). I also included all documentation for an 8854 and asked that they process that too, but I expect them to give that the rubbish bin treatment.
Found out very late that the US accepts only copies of passports that they certify themselves as proof of your having another nationality. You’ll want to check if your local embassy can provide this copy service.
So now I have the waiting game to see if anything comes flying back at me. Hopefully it will just be a copy of my TIN for sending the final 8854 and returns. I am not 100% certain that they will file all the five years that I sent them with streamlined either, but we shall see. I didn’t hire a tax lawyer as I have already spent enough on this farce.
My understanding is that I now may get my TIN and can then submit my 8854 which will need to include a 1040 for the first part of 2015 in which I was considered American and a 1040NR for the remainder of 2015. Has anyone else been through this part yet? The above is what Hodgen law seems to suggest, but the 8854 instructions seems to conflict by telling you to file immediately after renunciation in one place or to file as per the normal tax year in another. Any thoughts?
BBC has picked up the story too… http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/35383435
@Chris
Hope everything works out fine.