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
@Shunrata
“My son who was born outside the US but is a citizen and has a passport and SS# has asked me about dealing with the IRS. He’s never filed a US tax return, and would never owe tax as he lives in (a country with low income and high taxes).”
Same situation for my adult children. They were born dual nationals as one parent is a non-U.S. person.
If born dual national then a person will NOT be a covered expatriate IF they:
“comply by filing 5 years back taxes”. Additionally 6 years Fbars reports, although some here at IBS mean that the renunciation compliance does not specifically request Fbars. My children did the 5 yrs. back filing and 6 years Fbars and then it’s bye-bye to their status as US persons (renunciation as a “complying” dual national from birth and thus “uncovered” ) They don’t have enough money/assets to be covered, but their attitude was it was best to get it done with sooner than later. Your son should be able to do the same route, whether he is a dual national from birth or not – the requirement is 5 yrs tax+ 6yrs Fbars (our interpretation was that the Fbars need to be filed). If for some reason he wishes to wait with renouncing, the streamlined programme is a possibility.
NB: Some folks will say he can just forget all about it.
@Shunrata
“My son who was born outside the US but is a citizen and has a passport and SS# has asked me about dealing with the IRS. He’s never filed a US tax return, and would never owe tax as he lives in (a country with low income and high taxes).”
Same situation for my adult children. They were born outdside the US as dual nationals as one parent is a non-U.S. person.
If born dual national then a person will NOT be a covered expatriate IF they:
“comply by filing 5 years back taxes”. Additionally 6 years Fbars reports, although some here at IBS mean that the renunciation compliance does not specifically request Fbars. My children did the 5 yrs. back filing and 6 years Fbars and are renouncing as “complying” dual nationals from birth and thus “uncovered” They don’t have enough money/assets to be covered, but their attitude was it was best to get it done with sooner than later. Your son should be able to do the same route, whether he is a dual national from birth or not – the requirement is 5 yrs tax+ 6yrs Fbars (our interpretation was that the Fbars need to be filed even if one is under the limit, get it done). If for some reason he wishes to wait with renouncing, the streamlined programme is a possibility. If he has a simple economic situation it is not that difficult to be a self-filer. It does take considerable time and energy to get through it, and it is a true eye-opener that can only encourage one to get out asap…
NB: Some will say he can just forget all about it. In our family we decided that was not an option since we did not want to have to speculate about how to manage our finances in regard to the US in the future, we just want to have the same financial freedom to earn and invest as other citizens of our country of residence.
@allou
Pretty sad state of US affairs when good parenting includes protecting our children from the effects of US citizenship 🙁
@good parenting
Yes, unfortunately true. Good parenting includes making changes according to the family’s best interests and keeping informed. I also informed another US person about all these things, but they decided to be an ostrich – everyone has to weigh their options and decide for themselves.
@Shunrata, if your son wants to live or work in the US, then it would probably make the most sense for him to file FBARS and tax returns. He’ll probably not get punished by the US for doing so and the costs for such are minimal for now. Online filing can be simple and free when one earns little.
However, if things remain the way they currently are and if your son does not move to the US, then filing will slowly become more complicated and costly. Eventually, it may even become too costly for your son to renounce US citizenship.
Thus, I’d say that your son should either move to the US, renounce now or become US-tax compliant with an exit plan if things don’t get better.
@shunrata, SwissPinoy
Good advice from SwissPinoy – it covers all the options. The only thing not to do, IMHO, is to do nothing.
@Benedict
Yes! I’d sure like to hear the latest news about Diane.
I’m not sure if you’ve read the thread about my case?
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/09/06/what-am-i-born-in-the-us-but-the-us-consulate-told-me-in-1970s-that-i-am-not-an-american/
@WhatAmI
I read your thread…a lot of conjecture proffered…some good, some reasonable and some bad…
I think I am your closest example…and since I am already in the CLN process..time will tell…
BUT ABOVE ALL…I AM 100% CONVINCED I Am CANADIAN and have no doubts…
As I indicated…Consular reps are not necessarily correct as per the email I received claiming a minor could not trigger an expatriating act…had I relied on this expert, I would have failed to INSIST I WAS CORRECT..and she would have not submitted my CLN…BUT SHE DID…
Preponderance of evidence…
@Shunrata
I too live in Australia and initially needed to use my US passport as ID to open a bank account. I recently decided to play it safe so closed it and switched to another bank. This time my Aust. drivers license was sufficient ID. You may want to consider doing the same.
@ozteddies
Don’t despair. I’m pretty sure gay marriage will be legal here in Australia in the not-to-distant future. The majority of Australians aren’t against it and most of the younger generation are supportive. It’s just a matter time before our politicians catch up.
WhatAmI and Benedict,
No report of expatriation that I can find for Diane or Dianne. It would be great if she were reading this and could give an update.
@Shunrata
Yes, I sent certified copies of our CLNs to the ATO as well, along with brief cover letters explaining that we requested those to be kept on our file. We wanted to make certain that we were totally on record as no longer being US citizens. Shows how timid we are; better safe than sorry is our rule.
The Department of Immigration and Citizenship reacted in a fashion which left the impression that they expected us to send them our CLN copies as a matter of course; their purpose is to keep track of citizenship-related affairs after all.
I probably did show my passport for the very first bank account that I opened here. At the time I was living in Tassie and chose a credit union for my banking. But that account got closed a great number of years ago. Later after we had permanent residency we opened other accounts in Victoria, but those too got closed a very long while back when we used up every last dollar of our funds to purchase a home. All of what we’ve got now was opened after we had become citizens here; we’d held Aussie citizenship for a fair number of years before we decided to get serious about renouncing. For years on end I remained in denial, hoping things might change for the better before realising how dismal the situation was becoming and accepting the ugly reality that we had to get CLNs if we wished to survive. From that point it still took me three more years to convince my partner of the necessity of doing so; it was tough to get him on board with that initially. Web sites like this one certainly helped. Yet we haven’t set foot in the US for a visit for several decades, so it’s not as if we have any real ties with that country. Nor are we likely ever to afford any future travels across the Pacific, not with a mortgage to pay on a slender income certainly.
I’m so horribly sorry to hear you’ve got a son who’s caught up in the net of dual citizenship issues, Shunrata. Being ignorant about tax and legal matters, there wouldn’t be any advice I could offer obviously. Yet you’re certainly in the right place to get excellent advice from other knowledgeable people here. Best of luck with that. Cheers.
Petros had posted that he talked to Dianne on the phone so hopefully he can still get in touch with her.
Petros?
@ WhoAmI
I am still here. I have been flying under the radar. I have worked on getting all of my ducks in a row so that I can relinquish. I hope to do so on the grounds that I worked for a crown corporation and signed an oath of Fidelity and Secrecy. I need to travel to Toronto to relinquish so it has been easy to put it off. I am still worried that I will be told that I need to renounce instead of relinquish. That would cost way too much in accounting fees and I do not want to get an SSN. I have considered going to Toronto this fall but am not sure if I am brave enough. If I ever do get my CLN I will be shouting it from the rooftops and will certainly let you know!
@Dianne, you relinquished when you made your oath of fidelity to the crown corporation. You go to the consulate to inform them of your relinquishment in order to obtain a CLN. Make sure you use the correct verb tense and terminology. Your claim to relinquishment, if true, means that you are not a US citizen and have not since the time you swore your oath with the intention of losing US citizenship.
@ Petros
In your opinion do you think that I have a good shot at successfully relinquishing? I do not want to mess up on this.
@Petros – I’m curious – didn’t you think the declaration of allegiance on a passport application wasn’t sufficient?
Does anybody have the passport application form with the words of the oath from the mid 70’s?
@Dianne – There’s no down side (apart from a wasted trip to Toronto) in making an unsuccessful attempt to relinquish. (Throw in a visit to the AGO and a nice dinner, and cut the wasted time down to an hour or so.)
@Dianne @WhatAmI
I hope my CLN submission is of use to you as well then…
I think it is important for people to understand that if Canadian Banks fall into line with this FATCA, it may impact self-directed RRSP’s in an unexpected way…I was fortunate that my originating bank whom I worked for never asked nor isn’t yet asking for US Citizenship indicia as a means to freeze accounts…The TD Waterhouse did freeze my accounts and in theory this would have jeopardized my RRSP had I not been able to transfer it back…
I just this moment received a reply to my query of timeline from Calgary:
We do not receive any information on a loss of nationality case until it has been approved. Then we would forward the approved certificate of loss of nationality to you via registered mail.
However, we would anticipate being notified on your case within the next six weeks.
Stay Tuned…
@Dianne,
It seems the more evidence you can collect the better. Hopefully there is no harm in making claims that “don’t count”. My gut feeling is that working for a Crown Corporation is pretty weak. “I took a job as an HR specialist with PetroCan with the intent of relinquishing my US citizenship”? It seems to me that CC’s are just commercial enterprises wholly-owned by the government. I’m guessing the oath you signed is the same as I signed working for a private technical company. IE not to steal technology or information or give it to competitors, etc. The oath was likely to the company itself, not the Government of Canada? The “secrets” were perhaps business and technical competitive secrets, not government secrets?
My case is very similar to “Benedict Arnold be me”, but your case and mine are even closer. Whereas he obtained Canadian citizenship at age 10, you and I have certificates of Canadian Born Abroad. Ironically, he may have a better (easier) case because he has the action of naturalizing, whereas we didn’t actually perform any action.
He and I are both hopeful for pointing out INA 349 and INA 350, which are what you referred to when you said you thought your US citizenship would be lost after some age (18? 21? 22? 25?; we’re not sure) if you did not take a US oath and/or move back to the US to live. These rules were repealed in 1978 and/or 1980 and/or 1986. This leads to misinformation from consulate agents, as they don’t necessarily understand what the rules were 40 years ago. The nature of these law changes were that the Supreme Court made several rulings that it was unconstitutional for the government to take away your US citizenship without your consent. Some or all of these changes were NOT retroactive, although some big-name cross-border accounting firms will tell you they were.
I think we’ll learn a lot more from @Benedict. I think he’ll share more details of his case once he gets his ruling.
You posted that your understanding was that you’d lose your USC at age 18 if you didn’t take action to keep it. Where did that belief come from? My mother was told that when we crossed the border moving back to Canada in 1966. She was never sure of the exact age though.
@Dianne –
FWIW I think you’re better off with a passport application:
A Canadian passport application asks you to sign off on the statement:
The (US) Immigration and Naturalization Act says:
@WhatAmI @Dianne @A broken man on a Halifax pier
It’s the word “Voluntary” introduced in 1986 that causes all the confusion…prior to that, it was the act itself…
Dianne…don’t forget you said:
My mother did find a letter from the Canadian consulate General in New York stating that “once registered she will be recorded as a Canadian citizen by birth under Section 5(1)(B)”. I , also, have a Certificate of registration of birth abroad.
As I suggested to @WhatAmI – the 1952 INA act refers to actions taken by a parent on behalf of a minor…
@Benedict, You have said that you obtained Canadian citizenship at age 10. I assumed you were naturalized. You just stated that you have a Certificate of registration of birth abroad. Is that what happened at age 10? If so, then our cases are indeed closer than I had thought.
I thought I read once that the Certificate of registration of birth abroad had to be registered within a year or two of birth, but I can find no such limitation now. My own certificate was applied for by my mother when we crossed the border to move back home when I was 12 in 1966. The date of the certificate is a few months later.
Everyone, can I not argue that my mother moved the family back to Canada and registered our births abroad with the intention of having our US citizenship “lapse” at age 18? That was certainly her understanding, and I grew up beliving that (as did Dianne).
@A broken man on a Halifax pier
I am not downplaying your contribution at all…just clarifying the 1986 Voluntary change…
I did in fact renew my Canadian Passport in 1983 which was prior to 1986 and I was 25 at the time…But this was not the line of reasoning I submitted. However I will keep it in mind should I have to go to arbitration..I think it is a valid confirmation …thank you
@WhatAmI
You said
“You just stated that you have a Certificate of registration of birth abroad. Is that what happened at age 10? ”
NO…I was quoting Dianne from her may 2012 thread…
I did not get a Certificate of registration of birth abroad… I have my Certificate of Canadian Citizenship issued Dec 22, 1967 at the age of 10