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Wonder what really happens at the consulates? Find out in the Isaac Brock Society’s Consulate Report Directory, currently 274 pages of first-hand accounts of renunciation/relinquishment appointments, arranged by consulate location, along with links to further information and the required Dept of State forms.
Reports are updated as consulate visit stories are posted on the website.
You can post here or elsewhere on the site (we’ll keep an eye out for them). Some comments may be excerpted or condensed slightly in the consulate reports. The original posts and comments remain on their threads are not edited.
Thanks to everyone for sharing your experiences…and keep ’em coming! It’s a new experience for everyone and your information is really helpful.
To change or delete your report in the Directory, you can post the change as a comment on this thread or e-mail Pacifica@isaacbrocksociety.ca
Click here for the Consulate Report Directory
2013.02.12. As of today, this discussion now continues at Part 2. Please click here to go to Consulate Report Directory (Brockers describe their Consulate Meetings) Part 2.
@Schubert
Thanks for your comments. One thing I know about next Friday is that, although, I might be walking into that building on Pender Street by myself, I am really surrounded by many people that I have had the pleasure of ‘meeting’ here at Brock. And they are all cheering me on!
@tiger, I recently went through the renunciation process in Vancouver and I found ALL the staff there to be warm, kind, friendly, helpful and lovely. You will find the same, I’m certain of it. Wear something that makes you feel confident and strong and cheerful. 🙂 You’ll do just fine.
John Smith and others have done a wonderful job of reporting the experience so I won’t repeat everything they covered. I also prefer to stay as anonymous as possible so I’m not going to mention specific dates.
Here’s my summary: I went online in July to schedule an appt via “Notarial and other services” and had to wait about 6 weeks to get my first appt in August. At the end of my first appt they booked the second appt for two weeks later.
They said it may take up to a year to get the CLN. One of the staff implied the State Dept was overwhelmed/inundated with renunciation/relinquishing applications. “They’re coming in from all over the world,” she said. Another staff told me that since the renunciation isn’t truly official until the CLN is received, the IRS may want me to wait until I have that in hand before doing the paperwork. She said to “ask the IRS what they want you to do.”
Tips/suggestions:
When you approach the Consulate outside, there will be someone there to greet you. Let them know you’re ACS (American Citizen Services) and they’ll move you to the right line (the short line!). You’ll get in quickly. Show your US passport, if you have one, and show your written confirmation of your appointment.
Please do not bring anything more than you absolutely have to (in terms of personal stuff) because the security is really tight and it will take that much longer to go through security if you have extra stuff.
In addition to the required documents (which I carried in a plastic bag), I brought sunglasses, eyeglasses, wallet, and my house keys and a small paperback book, all contained in a small travel bag. They went through every pocket in the bag and opened eyeglass cases and examined sunglasses and eyeglasses, took out my keys and looked at them (they were not electronic/key fob type keys – do not bring them if that’s what you have – no electronics of any type).
They do this outside before you enter the building and then again once you’re upstairs. You empty your pockets (they even ask you to take kleenex out of your pockets) and put your belongings in the tray: watch, belt, bracelets, jacket, eyeglasses, etc. Then you walk through the metal detector, collect your stuff, and then you’re ready to go up in the elevator.
The security people are very thorough, but very polite and respectful.
Use the washroom in that area if you have to because there isn’t anything upstairs. It’s a unisex bathroom, two stalls, so don’t be surprised if you see someone in there of the opposite gender.
The security person takes only a few people up at a time. You’ve let them know you’re “ACS” so when you get off the elevator the security person tells that to the security person on the floor and then they direct you to go down the hall to your right, make a right turn again (it’s a long, narrow L-shaped hallway) and then you check in at a window far down. The windows are numbered and they’ll tell you which number you’re to go to.
Wear comfortable shoes. They were very prompt for my appts and called me in on time, but there is quite a bit of standing while you work through everything. Also, I found a book helpful to read while they photocopied documents because that takes a bit of time (done on first appt). I took a light-hearted novel with a bit of comedy to help lighten up my frame of mind.
If you’re not sure how to respond to questions on the documents, they will help you. I found some of the questions on the one form quite awkward to answer (because of my situation) and the staff clarified things and helped me figure out how to answer it.
It will help expedite things if you have all your documents. Bring everything related to citizenship in both countries; anything to document name changes (marriage; divorce); know the dates you lived in the States; know your last address in the States; bring your Social Security number if you have one; bring a Nexus card if you have one; bring original documents.
Everyone I encountered was kind and helpful and really lovely to deal with. They were efficient and prompt. I received excellent service and was really pleased with how they handled everything.
Final thoughts (not to be included in the directory): I really agonized over this decision. I’ve been obsessed with this subject matter for over a year. I’ve spent decades in Canada and filed US tax returns each and every year (prepared by professionals). I voted in federal elections (like I was told to do so by the US Consulate after I moved here) and always entered the States on a US passport. It was important to me to be a good US citizen even though I lived abroad.
And then I found out about certain information reporting forms – forms my tax professionals had never heard of. I spent thousands of dollars filing 8 years of forms last year only to prove I owed nothing in taxes to the US.
I never, ever could have imagined I would give up my US citizenship, but after this last year it was the only rational thing to do. I cannot afford to spend tens of thousands in tax preparation fees for the next 30 years. I do not have a company pension and have worked hard to have investments/RRSPs to fund my retirement. I need to have a normal financial life so I can make sure I have sufficient funds in my old age.
But it’s not just finances I’m concerned about. I need my peace of mind back. I simply cannot tolerate any longer the unending, excruciating tension caused by the uncertainty about future legislation the US Congress might pass and the worry of if/when the IRS might nail me for some honest mistake or misunderstanding on one of the many forms required.
I personally know people getting harassing letters from the IRS – good, honest, ordinary people. As one of them said, “This is what we get for obeying the law.” I also personally know people who’ve had to pay tens of thousands in taxes and penalties and interest because they entered OVDI. It makes me weep to see the IRS wreaking havoc on the lives of innocent Americans abroad. And I don’t want to be next. Just because you do everything you think you’re supposed to do doesn’t mean you don’t have anything to worry about. I feel like I’m walking in a mine field. I might be able to walk through the field without setting off an explosion, but put one foot wrong and that’s it!
Renouncing my US citizenship was the only rational decision. Emotionally it was very difficult for me, but in the end I needed to do the rational thing.
What a cruel and excruciating position we are in! And it’s so disheartening to know the US Congress and the IRS know what their actions are doing to Americans abroad, yet are doing nothing to mitigate the damaging unintended consequences of their laws, rules, and policies. They may point to the new Sept 2012 VDI, but that program is filled with caveats and tripwires.
I thought I would feel relieved once I was through the renunciation process, but I don’t. I feel sorrow, but I do not regret my decision. I guess I won’t truly feel relieved until I have that CLN in hand and I’ve sent in all the IRS paperwork. So that means basically another year of purgatory. I am determined, however, not to let the IRS ruin another year of my life so I’m REALLY going to try to move forward, put this behind me, at least until next spring when I’ll need to begin the paperwork and/or ask my tax professionals what we should do if I still don’t have the CLN.
I’m very thankful for the Consulate Directory Report and all the wonderful info you’ve all provided here. I’m not sure how I could have managed without it and all of you here. Thank you so much for sharing your stories!
*Tiger, you will do just fine on your own! Hopefully the appointment relieves some of the life-altering stress associated with this mess. I have read in other posts that the consulate requires your last home address in the US, do you have that? That is something that has concerned me in that I have no actual address other than an ancient rural route number and P.O. box number taken from a 1950’s envelope. Both parents are deceased.
@CDN
Re: the last home address in the U.S. – I am amazed that I actually do have that address. It has been more than 50 years since I lived there and the last of my family moved out 38 years ago. However, it is the ‘short term memory’ that I seem to have trouble with, not the long term. I am not sure if you are a ‘relinquisher’ or a ‘renunciant’, but I believe that last U.S. address is needed if you are renouncing but perhaps not needed if you are reporting an expatriating act, in order to prove you relinquished.
@SadCdn
Thank you for the information on your experience at the Vancouver consulate. I am eager to get this experience behind me and hopeful that I will be able to book the 2nd appointment for soon after the first appointment.
It is a sad time when someone like yourself, who all these years obeyed the laws, filed your U.S. tax returns etc, as dual citzens were required to do, is put in the position of having to renounce your U.S.citizenship. I hope over time your sadness will leave you and you will come to realize that the country gave up on you not the other way around.
*SadCdn, I appreciated your heartfelt story. Hear, Hear! People in the US, including family and friends of ours, don’t seem to realize what an appalling burden the IRS has made reporting for expats.
*Tiger, I’m quite sure that the State Dept. wants the last US address for relinquishers, in order to check whether we have voted in any US elections since the expatriating act. (I haven’t.) My last US address is from over 40 years ago — so old that there isn’t even a building with that address any more! I hope they don’t think I made it up. I do have a written record of it.
@AnonAnon
That does make sense they would want to determine if an individual has voted since the expatriating act. I do have the address and they can do all the checking they might want to do. I have never voted in a U.S. election – I wasn’t old enough to vote when I left the country on a student visa. I do have that address stored in that part of the brain where long term memory is located and I have looked up the ZIP code (they didn’t have them way back then!) so I should be okay.
If Renouncing: there is a space to fill in the person’s former US address on the Oath of Renunciation (4080). If it was 50 years ago, I don’t think they’d be too concerned if a person doesn’t know the road or lot number (they’ll probably be impressed you know any part of the address at all after so long). It doesn’t seem they’re trying to trick or trap people.
If Relinquishing. Not required on the DOS forms used for relinquishment. So I guess some consulates are asking and some aren’t. The only place I was aware of asking relinquishers this, prior to reading AnonAnon’s report, was Vancouver, who were sending the same info sheet to both renounce and relinquish people. Anyway, you can only tell them what you remember and, as mentioned above, they don’t seem to be trying to give people a hard time.
I am confused re the comments that State Department forms for renouncing ask for the last address
where you lived in the US – which in many cases might be when one was a baby or tiny child (who knows where that was?), or not at all. Re the possible use of the address to see if you have voted from abroad – in many states (24?), the address you use if you
are registering to vote from abroad is that of your parent, not
necessarily a place that you actually lived – if you have never lived in the US. See; http://www.fvap.gov/reference/nvr-res.html “Never Resided in the U.S.? In some states U.S. citizens, 18 years or older, who were born abroad
but have never resided in the United States are eligible to vote
absentee.”
@SadCdn, thank you for sharing your story with us. I feel the same way about the threat looming over myself and my non-US family, and that the only way to be safe from future punitive whims of US politicians is to renounce/relinquish. And be able to save, or sell our house, or give my child an RESP without having to pay someone exorbitant amounts for the US paperwork, and continue to prove for decades to come, that I owe nothing to the IRS.
And at some point, will the strictures on renouncing become even more difficult? I think so. The numbers are sure to continue to rise. And the US will continue to react by continuing the ‘whippings until morale improves’ and making it harder to shed the unwanted status. I think that other countries like Canada cannot afford to have up to 1 million citizens and residents held in thrall against their will, and unable to shed the unwanted US burden.
@SadCdn,
Thanks for your response to tiger. I’m sure that will help her immensely next week.
I think your “final thoughts” in that comment especially important. You have found a way to put into easy-to-understand words what so many of us feel. Your words helped me (an old-timer on this site) and will help newcomers if they are lucky enough to come across them. I think any battle is easier if one knows they are not the only one going through it.
Only with your approval, could we include your information in the Renounce and Relinquish database(http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/03/14/draft-pdf-compilation-of-relinquishment-and-renunciation-data-as-reported-on-isaac-brock/), as a number for Vancouver and as just month and year for: 1) Request, 2) First Appt, 3) Second Appt (if any), 4) CLN Rec’d, 5) CLN Date? If you don’t feel comfortable with that, I understand.
Thanks again for your words. I wish you complete closure with all this sooner rather than later. May we all get back to better times in our lives.
@Sad Cdn,
Thank you very much for the Tips and Suggestions … the details are great!
I put the Tips and Suggestions part of your post in the Directory, but not the part before that, and not the Final Thoughts section. Thanks for sharing those thoughts here on the thread, though … you have put your situation (our situations) into words so clearly and expressively. It was very moving.
I’m glad to hear that you have found the Directory and the site useful … thanks for your input too!
@All – thank you for your words of support and encouragement. @AnonAnon – yes, friends and family in the US and even some Canadians I’ve encountered do not seem to understand the ramifications of this whole mess and how it wreaks havoc with planning for and having a normal life outside the US. IBS and Maple Sandbox really provide a valuable service to expats so we don’t end up thinking we’re 1) Losing our minds; 2) Being whiners and complainers; 3) Overreacting.
@Calg411 Yes, you may include my info in the directory.
Request – July 2012; First appt: August 2012; Second appt: September 2012; CLN – was told it might take 6 months to a year.
Anyone who is interested in relinquishing or renouncing through Vancouver should schedule an appointment now. They are booked up for the rest of the calendar year (unless they open more spots) and are now booking in January 2013 via their online calendar. It is easy to schedule an appointment and you can always cancel when it gets closer to the time and you decide to change your mind.
Thanks very much, SadCdn. I’ve updated the Renounce & Relinquish database with your info — which, you can be sure, will help others behind you in Vancouver. Hope you get your CLN in way less than a year and even way less than 6 months.
We appreciate the additional information you provide about booking appointments there. Regards.
I promised I would get back with info on the details of a friend who renounced in Stockholm.
Date of renunciation: Early-mid Dec 2011
Date of receipt of CLN: February 2012
Lisa, thanks for this additional information. I’ll include that info in the Renounce and Relinquish database.
OK I am done.
I had my second appointment in Vancouver this week and I am no longer an American citizen (subject to CLN approval of course) The process has been well described by others far better than I could do it so I wont go into details, but I do have some specific comments that I would like to make.
First the time line, my first appointment was in June and I was told I could have the second appointment in a few days, it actually took 14 weeks.
I was sent 3 identical emails in the time leading up to the appointment and they all stated that there was no storage for personal items that could not be brought through the checkpoint. In fact there was what looked like an apartment style letter boxes where you could leave small items.
The metal detector is no longer at the bottom of the stairs but is now in the hallway on the second floor. I was asked to give security my glasses for inspection, apparently they are looking for cameras.
When I went to wicket 11 to check in I noticed that they had an appointment sheet for the day that was categorized in 3 or 4 colors. My appointment which was the first of the day and the last appointment of the day were both magenta colored. Most of the rest of the appointments were blue with only a few other colors. I am assuming that magenta means second renunciation appointment and therefore Vancouver is doing 2 renunciations a day.
When I got to the wicket I realized that I had forgotten by birth certificate at home. Even though there was already had a copy in front of them they insisted that they needed another copy of the same document because the one they had was not certified.
2 hours later when I got back I think I pissed off the 30 or so people in the visa lineup and the 4 in the ACA lineup because I was directed to the very front of the line.
Back to the wicket my BC was accepted and I was told to wait for the consul.
When I saw the consul he explained to me again the consequences of renouncing and was I sure I wanted to do it. I told him that I have not considered myself to be an American for almost 30 years and it was now time to make it legal.
I apologize at this point because I don’t remember the order of what happened.
We looked over all the paperwork verified that it was correct, and I signed it all.
I knew that the oath needed to be administered in front of a flag and I was disappointed when the flag turned out to be a cheesy 6″ high desktop US/Canada flag set. I was expecting something a little more dramatic. I performed the oath.
When it was time to pay I inquired about getting a second copy of the CLN but I was told that they didn’t know how to do that and I would have to make a request to the state department after I got it, this is different than what is described for some of the other consulates.
I was told that it would take somewhere between 2 months to a year to get the CLN but the State Department was getting faster and it shouldn’t take that long. I was told that I did not need to carry the original when traveling because the border officials would have access to that information once they scan my passport, just bring the payment receipt if I need to travel before I get the CLN.
One thing that surprised me about the process is after all the anxiety and stress over the last year, when I was finally done I felt nothing. No joy, no relief, no sadness, no emotion at all. It just felt like a wasted day spent in a government office filling out paperwork.
Ultimately I guess that exactly what it was. A wasted day spent in a government office filling out paperwork.
*@ Just a Canadian, Congratulations!!
*Congratulations. I expect your lack of feeling over the whole thing is partly because you have been stressed and anxious for so long that your mind hasn’t completely processed the situation and also partly because, although you’re technically no longer American, you don’t have the final piece of the process – the CLN. The final proof that it’s all done with and your application wasn’t for some strange reason rejected.
Take heart, the final step has been taken, now it’s just a matter of waiting for the State Department to do their bit. Perhaps when you get the CLN, plan a little celebration (if only a little toast with something tasty) to mark the end of a bad and sad period so you can move on.
*Just A Canadian, the multiple emails, demand for the second birth certificate, misinformation over personal items, cheesy flag, etc., all just underline what a sad farce this whole process is: thousands of people wasting time and worry, put through a bureaucratic process worthy of Kafka for no good life purpose. I too am still waiting for the silly CLN to be delivered. It will be a relief but an anticlimax when it finally arrives.
Anyway, congratulations on your progress through the maze.
@ Just a Canadian – I am so happy for you and empathize with you in forgetting your birth certificate. I too forgot a document – my marriage certificate. They needed it to confirm my legal name changed from the time I became Canadian to the time I relinquished. Fortunately, I was able to courier the document to the consulate for authentication. Once the CLN arrived, it is hard to describe the relief I felt just to hold it in my hands. I now sign my emails 100% Canadian eh? But for the Isaac Brock Society, I can now sign it Sara Loates.
JustCanadian wrote:
I think it is a little strange that we congratulate people for losing their US citizenship. Emotionally, this is what I feel, an emptiness, like I had to kill a part of myself in order to survive. I guess we congratulate people who successfully undergo cancer surgery, because they survive the process, not because they had to have a part of their body cut away because their immune system had lost control of that part. US citizenship is cancer. It has to be cut away because of it is an uncontrolled growth in our financial lives that we have to destroy in order to keep it from killing us. Nothing to feel except loss and sense of having done what had to be done in order to be able to survive.
@Petros;
I think there is a book, or at the very least, some journal articles in all of this. Look at the many themes represented here – in this thread alone. The meaning of citizenship (symbolic, theoretical, philosophical, real world, etc.), relationship of individual to modern powerful state (with strong feudal overtones), citizenship as identity, economic relationships of individual to state, competing worldviews, ownership of self and individual labour, US as an overlord, nature of the (nonexistent) social contract the US has with citizens who are non-residents and/or dual citizens, taxation systems and government, etc.
And the use of social media and the internet to share information, help ourselves, organize and use the only tools we have to fend off the unbridled and arrogant overreach of the US run amok. We couldn’t have found these resources anywhere else by ourselves, it doesn’t exist. This is a case study waiting to be written.
@Badger Add to that the importance of cooperation and collective action; without the voluntary sharing of information and mutual support by hundreds of us on this and other websites, none of this thread could exist, and most of us would be stumbling in the dark. Ayn Rand and followers are horribly wrong — we don’t exist and survive as a society, never mind as a species, by being isolated and “rugged” individuals, but by helping one another.
Yes it is a great case study. Let’s hope a good writer finds it and does it justice.
@Just a Canadian — I identify with what you’re saying. When I relinquished 36 years ago, got paperwork in the mail from the embassy to fill out, and then got a CLN in the mail (I’d never heard of a CLN until I got one), that was my reaction. I gave up my US identity in 1969 when I crossed the border into Canada; the paper process was a formality and a nuisance. I actually laughed when I got the CLN, thinking “OMG they give certificates for this; who’d have guessed?”
My wife and I both have felt quite a range of emotion about all this during the past year or so, but two emotions we’ve NOT felt are sadness or regret about our “loss” of US nationality. Not once, not a twinge. Nor at the time when we naturalized to Canada decades ago, for that matter. Happiness, relief, and pride, yes. Regret, no.
Thanks for information on your second Vancouver appointment, Just a Canadian. What a long day for you and you likely did piss some off, going to the head of the line — oh, well. We also appreciate your reporting that your (our) CLN will not have to be carried — that the information will be there for the border guards when they scan your CANADIAN passport and reiterating the importance of the $450 renunciation receipt in the meantime. One step at a time — you’re ready to look for that light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel so you can get on with better things in your life. And, I will say, congratulations. It takes a lot to get to where you are now at.
@Schubert1975, very good point re cooperation and collectivity; we are ‘social’ animals. Those who think that their survival (and success) is due only to their own innate resources are sadly deluded. Luck and random chance play a significant part in where we all find ourselves – starting at our circumstances even before the actual birth day. Witness how mere parentage and birthplace is playing out here: place a Canadian-born single citizenship individual next to their Canadian dual counterpart (via US parentage or accidental birth) side by side, in similar economic circumstances – inside Canada, and it is very clear that the one with the US DNA is born into an immediate restrictive and punitive double tax and reporting burden – shackled due to merely involuntarily inheriting US status. Running the marathon of life – but the dual participant is dragging a lead weight fastened to an ankle.