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
@WhatAmI,
Yes, that’s what I resent about this whole mess — the time and stress involved in responding to US extra-territorial tax policies. I relinquished my citizenship long ago (1979) by becoming a Canadian citizen. Yet I still had to go through a long process of acquiring a CLN last year, and I’m still not sure if the IRS will leave me alone. The whole thing has left me bitter toward the US government and very reluctant to visit the US any more. I remain involved through this web site, trying to add to the pressure on the US to change its tax policies and practices, so other people won’t have to go through all this. But there’s no end in sight. It just goes on and on and on.
@AnonAnon,
If you relinquished and got a back-dated CLN (prior to Feb 1974), why are you concerned about the IRS still coming after you? I thought cases such as yours are the most straight-forward out from all this?
@WhatAmI, AnonAnon
Sorry if this is a repeat post. My comments seem to be disappearing.
Like AnonAnon, I obtained a backdated CLN (late 1960’s) and I still never open the mailbox without a fear in the back of my mind that there will be an envelope from the IRS. Yes I know that Michael Miller and several other lawyers have said that people who relinquished from that era should be safe, and reason certainly says that should be the case, but I doubt that the fear will never disappear entirely however irrational it may be. What a waste of time and energy this has been and continues to be for so many people.
@hijacked,
Yes I received email notice of your post but then it wasn’t here on the site. This re-post was available as soon as I received another email notice. (Thanks for fixing that it was AnonAnon who got a back-dated CLN, not me. My appointment, if I keep it, is in early Feb).
@hijacked,
I just checked and found your post at 2.43 went into Spam. Looks like the only difference from your 3.00 post is the word “labourously,” “I labourously obtained a backdated CLN …” I pulled your earlier post out and saved it. Would you like me to add the missing word to your post on the thread here? Or post your earlier post instead? Whatever you like.
Sorry the spam filter caught it. We check the spam for things like that throughout the day, but unfortunately can’t always get to it “fast enough.”
Pacifica
Thanks. Good to know it wasn’t me, as it often is. The last post is fine as it is. Everyone knows it has been labourious!
@WhatAmI, when I obtained Canadian citizenship in 1979, the oath did not (I’m told — I don’t remember) specifically include a renunciation of other citizenships. So, until I obtained my CLN, the US did not officially know that I had relinquished my US citizenship. Because the US tax code apparently defines “tax citizenship” differently from other citizenship, I, like hijacked, cannot be sure that the IRS will never claim that I owe them something, if only more paperwork or penalties for not submitting paperwork to them.
If the IRS would clarify in public that people like me who relinquished so long ago don’t owe them anything, I would feel better about visiting the US. But since they haven’t, and probably never will, make such a clarification, the US will lose whatever tourist dollars I would otherwise be spending there. I’m sure mine are not the only tourist dollars they are losing.
@AnonAnon,
According to the information here, I think/thought it is clear. Look at the two links near the bottom of the links to the right, the ones that mention 1995 and 2004.
Prior to 1995 (or 1994?) you did not have to notify the DoS of your expatriating act. Since 1995, you do. The reason being, I believe, is to close the loophole of Americans who took out foreign citizenship, didn’t notify DoS, kept using their passports and other USC benefits, and then decades later registered their long-ago relinquishments and got out of paying taxes. Clearly an abuse. The IRS caused the rule change. Of course, the result is that we all pay for it even though we didn’t abuse the US as described. Just like we all pay for FATCA because of dishonist Americans. It’s sickening to be punished because of the dishonest citizens of a foreign country.
I meant to close the previous post with:
But of course, there are many examples of the US, IRS, etc ignoring their own laws. If I get a back-dated CLN I’m sure it will be years before I sleep well again at night.
@AnonAnon
I have the oath from August 1979. I saved it from when I became a Canadian citizen along with a commemorative certificate, and a round blue sticker with the Canadian flag in the middle which the Citizenship Officer gave each of us.
“I swear (or affirm) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors, according to law and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada and fulfill my duties as a Canadian citizen.”
For those who may be interested, you can obtain specific year/oath by submitting an on-line request to the Canadian Archives.
I am not one to usually promote attorneys, however, this one might be of value to some who are still trying to navigate the easiest and least expensive route to leaving the U.S. Tax Form and Penalty Club in your rear view mirror
Phil Hodgen’s just sent this email out. Yes, as he would say, it is shameless promotion, but at a price that I think some here can afford. $300 bucks. Here it is, and take it for what it is worth…
Here isPhil’s blog that many Brockers read regularly, and Phil is on the advisory council for American Citizens Abroad, so that might provide some comfort that he understands the issues of American Expats
Phil writes…
I’m doing a webinar on November 12, 2013 for people who are considering expatriation before the end of the year. If you want to sign up, please do so quickly.
The webinar is limited to 10 people in order to get all of your (totally anonymous) questions answered. There are three open slots and I received inquiries from an interested person about 30 minutes ago; she hasn’t signed up yet.
Summary
I will be presenting a webinar for people who are thinking of renouncing their U.S. citizenship in 2013. Attendance is limited to 10 people–I want to leave plenty of time for each person to ask questions. The webinar will run for 90 minutes, and will be held on November 12, 2013. You can sign up here.
Objective
The objective of the webinar will be to give you the information you need to make a confident decision: expatriate in 2013 or not.
Professional Level Presentation
You will be getting the same information that I give to CPAs and lawyers when I talk about expatriation. If you are a professional, you are welcome to sign up for the webinar. But I expect that most of the participants will not be CPAs or lawyers.
Don’t worry. You will understand everything. Read any of my blog posts. That’s who I am and that is the level of explanation you will get.
Who Should Attend: Net Worth Under $2,000,000
This presentation will be useful for people who are confident that their total net worth is under $2,000,000. This means you are (probably) not going to be a covered expatriate. For you, the expatriation process is pretty much a highly complicated exercise in tax return preparation (with a few hidden “Gotcha!” landmines to watch out for).
Maybe you are highly confident that your net worth is below $2,000,000. If you are not sure, this is going to be an important thing to figure out. When you fill out the balance sheet on Form 8854 to report your net worth, you need to know how to do this, and how to figure out that your net worth is below $2,000,000. If you get this wrong, it will catapult you from “no tax” to “pay tax.” You become a covered expatriate. The stakes are high. If you can possibly push your net worth below the $2,000,000 threshold, you should.
Who Should Attend: Net Worth Under $7,000,000
If your net worth is above $2,000,000 but below $7,000,000, your objective is to renounce your citizenship without being a covered expatriate. As long as you can give things away, you can achieve this. We will talk about how.
Who Should Attend: Problems With Tax Compliance
When you sign Form 8854, you are certifying that the five years before expatriating have clean and shiny tax returns on file, and all of your taxes are paid. Some of you out there, I know, may not be all shiny and clean with your tax returns. We will talk about what to do. What are the strategies to consider in order to clean things up?
Paperwork: The Embassy Procedures
We will talk about what to expect when you go to the Embassy or Consulate for your exit interview. Frankly, this is not a big deal. Some of the Embassy staffers are a bit odd in their behavior (one Embassy official told a client of mine “Look at the flag! Look at the flag when you’re swearing the renunciation oath!”).
For the most part, however, the process is businesslike, professional, and quick. You really can’t go wrong with the paperwork. But we will talk about it anyway.
Paperwork: The Exit Year Tax Return
The exit year tax return is much more complicated than a regular tax return. We will talk about how this tax return is prepared, when it is filed, and special things to look out for.
Plenty of Time For Your Questions
There will be plenty of time for questions. You know, the kind that go like this: “I have this friend, and my friend’s brother read this article that said . . . .” 🙂 You will be able to ask questions anonymously. You can ask questions directly in real time by typing your questions on your computer so only I can see them. But trust me. No one online is going to know your name, even if you ask a specific question in front of the whole group. You can talk.
Three More People
I’m only taking on ten people in the webinar. Seven have already signed up. I hope that with ten people there will be enough time to cover all of the information you need to know, and answer all of the questions that you want to ask.
Handouts
You will get the PowerPoint slides that I use for the webinar, plus handouts I have written. There will be plenty of stuff for you to read. Everything will be delivered to you as a PDF.
Experiment
This is an experiment. Regular folks come to my professional speeches. (One of them, who heard me a few months ago at an accountants-only luncheon, just expatriated last month in London.) I have given presentations to accountants, lawyers, and bankers for years. Now I want to share with people who need this information for themselves. Either you will feel comfortable doing the paperwork yourself, or you will be an intelligent consumer–able to be smart in selecting the professional who will help you.
I also want to do this because the calls are starting to come daily from people around the world. We do not have enough time to help everyone. We are extremely busy. And frankly the other reason to make this accessible is price. We are highly specialized and expensive. I want this seminar to be at a price that is affordable for regular people facing a hard decision.
November 12, 2013 – Afternoon/Evening in Europe and the Middle East
The webinar will be done at 8:00 am Pacific Standard Time on November 12, 2013. That is 3:00 pm British Standard Time, 4:00 pm Central European Time, 6:00 pm in Beirut, Riyadh and the Arab Standard Time zone, and 7:00 pm in the Gulf.
Yes, I know. That’s a tough time slot for those of you in the Asia/Pacific region–it is 11:00 p.m. in Singapore. Sorry.
Price
The cost of the webinar is $300. This is less than 30 minutes of my time at my regular hourly rate. You get 90 minutes.
Sign Up
If you are interested, please go to the signup page to reserve your space.
http://www.eventbrite.com/event/9072850139
Questions About the Webinar?
If you have any questions about the webinar, please call the office at +1 626 689 0060, or email us by going to the Contact page on our website.
Obligatory Disclaimer
This is an educational seminar. You are not getting specific, directed legal or tax advice. Attending the seminar won’t make me your lawyer or tax advisor. But it will help you get smart!
Can anyone who has experience with the renunciation process in the 70s comment on what it was like in comparison to what it is like today? It appears they did not issue a CLN but was anything else done? Also it is my understanding that at the time you could relinquish without notifying the US government. Is this correct?
They issued CLNs for renunciations and relinquishments back then.
If you relinquished and knew of and wanted a CLN, you had to notify them, as you do now, but unlike today, the application form was 2 pages and you could send it in by mail.
@Anon,
…and you weren’t necessarily (at least I don’t remember) told about the CLN. I was WARNED that I would be relinquishing my US citizenship by becoming a Canadian citizen in 1975.
@ Calgary,
I was told exactly that — WARNED this would terminate my US citizenship, I mean. I also remember the CIC officer telling me that CIC notifies the US — which apparently must have been true because a few people reported here that some months after becoming Cdn citizens in the 70s, they unexpectedly received a letter from the US DOS notifying them to reply if they wished to retain their US citizenship despite having naturalised.
I sure never got one of those letters, though, and I most definitely never heard of a CLN til two years ago. Had I been told you have to fill out a US form as part of this process (or even known of the existence of one), I most definitely would have.
I chose to become a Canadian citizen because this was the country where my husband and I were earning our livelihood and where we knew we wanted to raise a family — and we had other family here (my husband’s brother had married a Canadian), the reason we came in the first place. I had chosen to leave the US and make my life in Canada. If I had known about a CLN at at the time of taking Canadian citizenship or getting a letter afterwards, I can only surmise that I would have gone through with that process. I did not at any time get a notification of from the US Department of State, asking me to reply if I wished to retain US citizenship. I lived my life in Canada as a Canadian — not a dual citizen. I’ve not wanted ever to return to the US to live — just to visit remaining family there or as a tourist. (Also, my dad was originally from Ontario and moved to the US with his parents when he was four years old. In my mind, I was “coming back to the country he was from.”)
I believe that if I’d taken Canadian citizenship with the intention of renouncing US, I probably would not have found the value of obtaining a CLN. What for? You certainly don’t have to prove to Canada that you’ve formally severed ties with the US. Only with the realization of tax filing obligations have we found the CLN to be the only ticket to freedom, the proof that we no longer have a tax filing and reporting obligation to the US – and now more recently our clearance pass at the bank.
@ Bubblebustin,
That my country of origin would have a record that a person was no longer a citizen just struck me as probably how things routinely got wrapped up (I was in my early 20s then, so I didn’t know much about any of this stuff, just what I vaguely thought). I figured they probably notated this somewhere, but I didn’t know how they did it, and the CIC officer’s explanation made sense.
I never thought of taxes (didn’t learn until 1986 that USCs abroad have to file tax forms), but I thought that citizenship touches on many aspects of one’s life, so it seemed logical that countries kept a record of who was and who no longer was (remember I was pretty young then and there was no internet, so I didn’t know what countries actually did).
I don’t like ambiguous situations in my life, so that’s why I would have sent in a CLN application, had I known of it. Just as a statement of who I am. But I never would have thought of it as a defensive tool until this current FATCA/FBAR stuff started.
I guess it’s like a death certificate – you need one to prove that someone’s dead, but not having one doesn’t make them any less dead.
Yes, but now a CLN gives you a new lease on life!
LOL, isn’t that the truth! 🙂
I have been trying to push those I know who are US citizens (only) in Canada but are also long time Canadian residents who wish to remain always in Canada, to apply immediately for Canadian citizenship.
One has just begun the process and was informed that it will take him/her about 24 months to become a Canadian citizen.
One US citizen could not be bothered to apply.
@IRSCompliantForever, you can only let them know what’s likely to happen if they stay US citizens. You can’t make their decisions for them, they have to do that themselves. All you can do is provide info and support for when/if FATCA finally hits them.
@Medea
On the conundrum: (From a former English prof) I suspect the IRS meant to say ‘establish for tax purposes that you have expatriated’. They just put ‘for tax purposes’ in the wrong place. I guess.
Leaving this from Lea Turkington on a couple threads
@Kyla4u
Anyone feel like participating in Project Xpat? I’ve just given them a piece of my mind. It would be good for them to hear from as many people as possible.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/theprotojournalist/2013/11/22/246639969/project-xpat-exploring-the-expatriate-life?utm_content=socialflow&utm_campaign=nprfacebook&utm_source=npr&utm_medium=facebook
My answers were:
My name, email address, etc.
Where I live now – United Kingdom
What place do I consider home in America – I don’t.
Why did you move abroad – I married my British husband 18 years ago. We have lived in both the UK and the US since them.
What does it mean to be an expat (10 words or less): US homelanders hate expats – FATCA and citizenship-based taxation prove it.
So, please, everyone feel free to join in!