Ask your questions about Renunciation and Relinquishment of United States Citizenship and Certificates of Loss of Nationality.
Please note that the guidelines for this discussion are published here.
Ask your questions about Renunciation and Relinquishment of United States Citizenship and Certificates of Loss of Nationality.
Please note that the guidelines for this discussion are published here.
Regarding those posters who recall signing a renunciation of their previous nationality upon becoming a Canadian (Canada stopped requiring this in April 1973, so you would have become Canadian before then) —
go to the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website and submit an Access to Information request (there’s a link) to get a copy of everything in your citizenship file. It will cost you $5. It will take a while; my wife filed a request at the end of September, and we only got the copies in the mail earlier this week, after three and a half months. The copies aren’t wonderful, because all their documents prior to 1984 are on microfiche and are photographed or photocopied from a projection of the fiche, which predictably makes the small print on the original forms hard to read. (I confirmed this fiche issue in a telephone conversation with an ATI supervisor at the department.)
My wife became Canadian after 1973 so she didn’t sign a renunciation oath, but her file does contain her original citizenship oath and her signature to it, legible enough on the copy we got.
Your files should have the renunciation oath (or wording in your citizenship oath if the renunciation was included in that oath) with your signature under it, assuming that in 1973 and earlier they asked you to sign the oath as well as swear or affirm verbally, as was true in my wife’s case.
With a copy of that piece of paper, you can prove to anyone who asks that you are NOT an American. It’s not a State Department form, but that’s a problem between State and the Government of Canada and not your problem. You renounced your US citizenship during your Canadian citizenship ceremony, and for $5 and a several-month wait you should be able to get a piece a paper to prove it, from Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t see how a bank in Canada could ignore that paper and report you or your accounts as American to the IRS. What happens at the US border may be another story; I wouldn’t put it past the United States of Arrogance to say the only renunciation form that matters is theirs and not what you swore and signed in Canada. Whether a US court would buy that argument, or a Canadian court for that matter, is something we probably won’t know unless it’s tested.
Certainly a copy of that oath, coupled with the facts that you’ve done nothing to assert US citizenship since becoming Canadian, should qualify you open-and-shut for a CLN from State dated the day you became Canadian, should you choose to apply for that.
Do yourself a huge favour and invest the $5 for the ATI package.
Just a follow-up comment or two on Access to Information requests for your Canadian Citizenship file:
You have the option of viewing your file in person at their offices, if you live in or near Ottawa or want to travel to view your file. We live in Ottawa but opted instead for the “hard copy” approach. I don’t know whether a personal viewing would have cut the wait time we experienced. I would hope that if you see something on the microfiche reader that you want copied, you can get a copy right then, but who knows?
There still will be a delay. The law and regulations require the ATI staff to review each file carefully, to ensure there is nothing in it that shouldn’t under law be shown to the applicant (the law does exclude release of any information about a third party, plus all sorts of commercial, patent, intergovernmental correspondence, etc exclusions which shouldn’t be an issue in a citizenship file one would think). Like most federal government offices these days and going back many years, contrary to popular misconceptions, ATI offices are understaffed and overworked. The supervisor who finally returned my wife’s call, a week late, at 5pm on a workday mentioned that he had another 40 calls to return before he could go home. He was friendly and informative, and explained to me the microfiche problem I mentioned above. He said it’s worse with ship manifests from further back, he said they’re all handwritten, weathered, and make you want to weep when you try to read them. He also warned that the further back you go in any archive anywhere, the greater the risk of water, fire or mice damage, though hopefully that won’t affect the citizenship files of people visiting this website …
Be patient with them, they are doing their jobs under all sorts of resource and procedural constraints, but they will eventually get back to you.
Don’t know what IRS would say about delays in getting information constituting “reasonable cause” for delays in filing if you ever decide to file, but I would think a court or tax tribunal would have some sympathy. (Nothing can be collected in Canada under the tax treaty except through Canada Revenue Agency and subject to appeal to an in-Canada tribunal. What happens if you step across the US border is another story.) The recent Taxpayer Advocacy Service report blasting the IRS for the volume and complexity of overseas reporting requirements and the difficulty overseas Americans have in getting advice, affordable or otherwise, on these matters, is another argument to use for delays.
No one should be rushed into doing anything with the IRS or State without getting legal advice or at least doing some thorough research on their own; State actually says on their forms somewhere that anyone renouncing/relinquishing is encouraged to seek legal advice first. In complex cases, such as those where we became Canadians or committed other expatriating acts decades ago, that takes time. The IRS doesn’t make anything easy. It took a lot of digging and thought, and will still take some legal advice, to find for example IRS Notice 97-19 that I refer to in another post on this thread. It takes time to do your research. It takes time to get documents in order. State’s claim that the response burden for their form DS-4079 is 15 minutes (sic!) would be hilarious if it weren’t so outrageous and surreal.
Wow, Schubert, that is amazing information. Thanks. I will contact them soon to try to obtain a copy of the Oath. I became Canadian citizen on April 27, 1973, so I must have just squeaked in under that April date.
Do you know the exact date in April it changed? I definitely remember signing the form, but I was certain it was with the U.S. Consulate Officer, but maybe I’m wrong about that. I was certainly hoping it with with U.S. Consulate Officer–although I never understood why they would show up at my Canadian citizenship ceremony. I will definitely try to get a copy.
Tiger, I’m going to stay off the radar on this. I have told TD Canada Trust that I will not give them consent to release any information and if they plan on complying, I will most of my money to Libro Credit Union and the rest to my employee credit union. They know I am serious because I already have about 30% of my assets with Libro. I think Libro only operates in Ontario, but they are planning on opening more branches in the province over the next few years. I have found their customer service to be outstanding and they consider me an “owner,” not a customer. I even get profit sharing with them. It’s not a huge amount, but it’s a nice touch.
Petros, do you know how confirming our relinquishment will affect how long how many days we can be in US per year? I’ve read somewhere we’re restricted to 30 days per year. Normally, I have been well under that, but my elderly mother has been in and out of hospital the last couple of years and that has meant more trips. I have also gone twice in the past two years for three to four weeks at a time to give Mom supports which she needed–and to take some pressure off my sister and her partner.
Schubert1975 thank you for your information regarding Citizenship and Immigration and “Access to Information”. I will definitely follow through on this.
Blaze, The Declaration of Renunciation that was taken at the same time as oath of Allegiance was only taken between January 1, 1947 to April 2, 1973. It read as follows: “I hereby renounce all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign sovereign or state of whom or which I may at this time be a subject or citizen.” I so clearly remember my late husband (who was a Canadian) wanting me to be sure that this was what I really wanted – to “give-up” my American citizenship to become a Canadian. I was sure then and am even more sure now.
Since you became a citizen just after that date (April 2,1973), I wonder if it is possible that the U.S. Consulates were routinely sending officers to citizenship ceremonies at that time.
Tiger, that makes sense. As I’ve said, I was certain it was US Consulate Official who was there. I also remember the words being more similar to what Nobledreamer posted elsewhere today: “I absolutely and entirely renounce my United States nationality…..I make this renunciation intentionally, voluntarily, and of my own free will…..” than to the words you’ve posted. I also remember the Official who gave me the document to sign and witnessed my oath was respectful and polite, but he didn’t crack a smile. Canadian Citizenship judge, was just beaming as I took my oath. (So was I!)
Like you, I never questioned giving up US citizenship. I wanted to be Canadian and only Canadian. In four decades, I have never once thought otherwise. About 20 years ago, when US began recognizing US citizenship, a friend asked if I could get my U.S. citizenship back. I remember telling him. “Maybe. But, I don’t want to.”
I will start with my CIC citizenship file and see what I come up with (Thanks again, Schubert!) and go from there.
I remember in the early 1990’s, sometime not long before my husband died, he read an article, probably in the Globe and Mail, stating that “prior” U.S. citizens, who had relinquished U.S. citizenship by becoming Canadians could apply to get their U.S. citizenship back. Apparently you had to show that you had only relinquished because the “oath” required you to do that.
Yet in 1985, the U.S. Ninth Court of Appeal in a case called “Richards vs Secretary of State” denied Richards the opportunity to gain back his U.S. citizenship. Richards was a former American who immigrated to Canada in the 1960’s, became a Canadian in 1971 and tried to claim back his U.S.citizenship stating he had taken Canadian citizenship only for economic reasons. The court denied his request.
Two examples of the U.S. changing the rules. What is the motivation. Suspect in my mind!
I’m pulling together all the information I can. I madly went through my personnel file at work to find copies of the Oath of Allegiance to the Queen when I first joined the provincial government in 1975 and then again when I rejoined in 1985 after five years working elsewhere. I now have copies tucked them away in my safety deposit box.
Fortunately, they were exactly where I knew they would be in my file. As a Human Resources professional, I know some of our American-born employees have refused to sign because they thought it would compromise their US citizenship. I myself had no problem signing because I already believed that I “gave up” my U.S. citizenship in 1973.
My colleagues just looked at me and said “You’re trying to prove you’re NOT an American citizen?!?” My simple answer was “Yep!”
Blaze wrote:
I would have thought that unless you are covered expatriate you have the same rights as any other Canadian. But I’ve seen people claim otherwise. Such rules are of doubtful validity, and I have not heard of any of them being enforced (such as the outright 10-year ban if you expatriate for tax purposes).
Hi everybody,
I posted this to the forum yesterday:
Just got home from Halifax and our visit to the U.S. Consulate. Not sure what I expected but it was fairly painless with a couple of unexpected twists.
First of all the consulate is a tiny suite of offices in an office tower. You get buzzed in by the receptionist/telephone operator/security guard. That gets you into a very small space where you have to put all metal objects (including your belt) into an equally small tray and then step through the metal detector. Then you step into a room the size of a large bedroom with about twenty plastic chairs screwed to the floor and you sit. This waiting room is also the interview room – there are wickets around one side (nobody at them at all – staff or clients.)
My appointment was for 9:30 and I arrived at 9:00 and they took me at 9:05. I spoke to a clerk who asked the purpose of my appointment and I said I wanted to inform them that I had expatriated in 1973. She was having none of that. She said she didn’t mean to imply that I was lying but they had a lot of people recently claiming this(!) so I had to have all the forms filled out as though I were relinquishing today. I thought this might be the case so I had already filled out these forms. She then asked if the other person coming in this morning was my wife. I said it was and she told me to go get her and they’d process both of us at the same time. Her appointment was for 11:00 so this was good news for us.
I got my wife and returned. The same clerk asked us for documentation. She seemed to think I should have a form signed at my citizenship ceremony renouncing US citizenship. Not sure if I did that or not but her suggestion to apply for copies under Access of Information and make another appointment was not what I wanted and I looked quite distressed and told her I wasn’t coming back. Back to filling out forms as though relinquishing today.
She asked us for birth certificates, marriage certificate, driver’s licenses, citizenship certificates, landed immigrant cards, passports *and* any old passports we had to show how often we’d traveled into the U.S.!! I explained that we had only used passports in the past couple of years to enter the U.S. and that no border official in the U.S. had ever stamped our passports. I further explained that I didn’t get old copies of passports when I renewed. She was astounded at that news.
She also strongly recommended that we write up a page of “Why we relinquished” as mentioned at the bottom of 4081.
Reading this it makes her sound a lot worse than she was. Actually she was very polite and co-operative. I think she was just a bit stressed by the numbers relinquishing recently in Halifax.
In any case she took all the paperwork and said that normally there is a second appointment necessary but she would type everything up and we could get it all done today. Then she told us to go away for an hour and she would get it done up.
While we waited (eating breakfast) we wrote up the page she had urged as per 4081.
Returning an hour later we were told to wait for a consular official. This time it was a young man who started with: “This should be painless and very quick.” He went through the forms and we signed in front of him. He told us it was good to relinquish as opposed to renouncing because it was free and we agreed that was good. We asked about copies and as others have said were told it is policy not to give copies. We asked about wait time to get a CLN and he said that it used to be about a year but there had been so many recently that they were processing them more quickly(!) He said between 2 months and a year. I’m hoping for the 2 months but expecting closer to the year.
Left the office about 11:30 and drove back to N.B.
Overall, as I said, painless and cooperative. Now if they’ll just date it 1973.
Hi John:
Great to hear your story. Do you mind publishing this in a dedicated blog post. I’d do it for you but you an author at this blog? So it’s better to ask you to do it.
I am especially heartened to see that they acknowledge the difference between renunciation and relinquishment, as I have differentiated them in this post.
Does anyone know how one can renounce US Citizenship if they are an “Accidental American”. Born in the US, No SSN, No US Passport etc. Just the fact that a parent was born in the US. I left numerous messages with the embassys and even the State Department, with no replys but the general, “this is how you renounce” paperwork. I think its ridiculous to go through the process of obtaining paperwork to renounce! Perhaps that I dont have a US birthplace will allow me to not worry about this, I just have the fear that one nasty border guard will question my parents birthplace and BAMM…Im in trouble for not claiming a citizenship I dont want! Anyone know what I can do?
Sorry, it’s not clear if you were born in the US, a parent, or both.
This is just my own opinion, so take it for what it’s worth, but I think that pure accidental Americans born in Canada who have never made any attempt to assert US nationality (never voted, never had a passport, etc.) can just ignore this whole issue. There’s no master list of everybody in the world who under US law is a US citizen. Even if a parent shows a US birthplace, there would have to be further investigation to find out whether the parent lived in the US long enough to transmit nationality to you, what their marital status was at birth, whether they were your father or mother (it still matters, believe it or not) and so on.
If *you* were born in the US, but are functionally Canadian, you can 1) ignore the issue, which is a bit of a gamble given FATCA, but a judgement call (you’ll have lots of company); 2) file five years of basic returns and renounce; 3) go though your own past for things you have done which could be considered expatriating acts, like applying for a Canadian passport, and ask for a backdated CLN based on that. (1) and (3) are probably the simplest options.
Sorry, didn’t read carefully. I think you can just ignore the whole issue. Citizenship isn’t necessarily transmitted through a USC parent – it’s more complicated than that:
http://dublin.usembassy.gov/service/passports-and-citizen-services/eligibility-for-citizenship6.html
Someone trying to show you were a USC would have to prove that you met these criteria, and they would have to be motivated enough to put the necessary work in.
I really appreciate your opinion and I think whie alothough trying to do the right thing, they sure dont make it easy for us folks. I really cannot afford numerous trips to go in person to the US just to get paperwork and then renounce, seems a bit ridiculous!
Sorry, to confirm my post above, I was born in Canada, My mom was born in the US and lived there till she was 17. (That in which it makes me a US Citizen) I highly doubt, but you never know if when our passports are swipped that info shows up being we do write it down on our applications for passports where are parents are born.
It used to be that undocumented USCs abroad, born abroad, were in a nice position – they could have it both ways in a sense. They were not on the radar at all – until they wanted to be. If they had a job they wanted to take in the States – well, just bang out the paperwork, get your US passport* and take it. They might have to file some back returns by way of an introduction to the IRS, but those returns wouldn’t show taxes actually owed – it would just be an empty accounting exercise. Now with the FBAR penalties I fear those happy days are over.
* But O, you merry duals, a warning take from me: *don’t* get that damn passport until you *actually* need it, and not a moment before.
@Inanightmare — you’re right, our Canadian passports are swiped and the process for applying for them does include we do have to state where our parents were born.
I was born in the US but my kids are “Accidental Americans” like you. One has taken advantage of my citizenship to get her US passport (it was a lengthy process for her) and lived in Seattle until she was in a bad car accident, maxed out on what her work health insurance allowed, was getting further US health services she needed on her VISA card, etc. She soon learned the value of her Canadian citizenship and is safely back in Canada, lesson learned. My son, also born and raised in Canada, was never registered with a US Consulate, never lived in the US, never received any benefit from the US, cannot renounce his supposed US citizenship as he cannot perceive the consequences of such an act because of his developmental disability — nor can I renounce on his behalf. What to do, what to do — he is identified on my FBAR as the Beneficiary of the Registered Disability Savings Plan I hold for him (and did not properly report on my US tax filings. I am in the process of getting proper legal advice to help me with the whole nightmare of the situation I have placed my family in (to be continued, but it will likely be a lengthy process so no one hold their breath on me telling them anything on this aspect, one of the many we all are facing.
Just how much of our Canadian passport application information is accessible to that US border person???
Calgary411, do you see parental birth information on a passport application? I don’t: http://www.ppt.gc.ca/form/pdfs/pptc153.pdf
Calgary 411. Your parents birth info is not required/relevant to your son’s passport and will not be available. As I said on the other forum, your son is Canadian and I sincerely hope you are not advised by any one else that he needs to identify himself as any thing else only to turn around and be told that he cannot voluntarily renounce because of his disability.
I should of clarified…Its on the childs passport application for sure….I was online frantically searching when learning of all this. I still think somewhere on the adult though i saw it as well, Ill have another peek. I know in my life I have had to provide it a few times. I guess what length would a border offical go to determine ones US status, guess it depends on what mood he/she is in! I guess one could just pleed ignorance when it comes to how long ones parent lived in US, if they were married at the time of your birth…OHHH…What a crazy mess. I think if you dont claim it, you shouldnt be in this nightmare, but I know thats what everyone wishes!
So….(I may be thinking too far into this) But, if you had a passport as a child, does that info get transfered over to your adult passport. Now there is the million dollar question!
Hi, Inanightmare –
I know this whole issue is stressful, but I really think that a) there probably isn’t anything in any database indicating that you’re a USC and b) you are on the *absolute extreme* of someone who in a tax matter could argue for non-wilfulness. Also c) the IRS is very, very underfunded for the size of their mandate.
But if you absolutely want to know, you could probably file a Privacy Act application for a copy of the Canadian information on you shared with US border control officers.
Hi -A broken man on a Halifax pier
I think your right! just nie to hear someone else think the same way I thought, but you know, just trying to legally do the right thing yet, it seems like a huge financial burdon to “do the right thing” and yet, just to renounce. I wouldnt owe any taxes so thats not my worry at all, I make small peanuts I’m afraid. So unless I win the lotto, they arent going to car aboutlittle ol’me anyway. Furthermore, if they dont answer us back in email for how we are supposed to go about this if we have never claimed but want to ensure by the IRS rules we are doing what we are legally supposed to, then they need to make the process a bit easier.
Go forth in peace.
@A broken man on a Halifax pier and @KalC — no, I certainly don’t see it. It must have been on that %#@ US passport that I applied for and received in 2009 — for myself. Thanks very much. This puts my mind in a better place re my son’s situation. But, I still need to amend filings since I hold the Registered Disability Savings Plan for him as the Beneficiary (he won’t draw on it until he is 60 / now 37 years old). This account is identified on my FBAR — I have not filed Form 3520 and 3520A that the US says is required of me for one of those pesky foreign trusts. It is definitely something to further take up with the lawyer I now have, but I will sleep a little bit better tonight thinking of him this way.
I really appreciate your hitting me over the head!!!
Although Inanightmare makes a valid point about children’s passport applications.