If you arrive here through an old link, please click here for the Current Thread.
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.
@ all. Hey what about me? I’m one of the ones stuck in the traffic jam! (Just joking). Congratulations to all of you who have gotten that prized CLN! You’ve been at it a lot longer than me and richly deserve your hard fought freedom. What a fine Christmas present. I am following the trail that you have proudly blazed. I know that my turn will come eventually. Just gotta be patient.
I was lucky to have the opportunity to relinquish and so can already claim to not be a US citizen. Just need to get the paperwork that proves it.
@Em & Calg411 – Yes, I think a change in moniker is in order. 🙂 Especially after reading the recent Jim Jatras thread. Perhaps FATCA will implode after all.
Thanks, everyone!
Just beginning the process in the US consulate in Jerusalem.
Would appreciate any comments about that consulate.
Thanks for all the help!
@Joseph, thanks for stopping by (and sharing the press release of Stanley Fischer). So far, you may be the first to indicate that you will go to the consulate in Jerusalem. Are you planning to relinquish or renounce?
*One of my many motives for renouncing was the thought of having to pay a translator to translate all the many financial documents for an audit. Now, I don’t know what “high income” means, but I’m sure glad that I’m no longer a citizen, given what was written today:
The IRS will be doing more audits to get more money from expats, and it won’t be paying the translation fees.
@Swisspinoy, I would take that with a grain of salt…
Look what Mr Parent write in another post:
“The IRS has made it abundantly clear that it will treat those with unreported foreign accounts much more harshly than those who have come clean under the 2012 Offshore Voluntary Disclosure initiative. Those who feel the 27.5% penalty on unreported accounts is too high will be faced with uncomfortable news when they find out the IRS will assess an FBAR penalty of $100,000 per year for 6 years.”
“WILL ASSESS”.
REALLY????
He’s been pretty good at funelling EVERYONE with foreign accounts into OVDI, including minnows.
@Christophe — so Jon McBride is totally dead broke. Actually worse than deadbroke. He lost everything in a Ponzi scheme and in 2006, owes the IRS well over a million dollars. And yet despite him never ever being able to pay any assessed FBAR penalty, they go after him full-bore.
http://www.irsmedic.com/2012/12/11/fbar-defendant-jon-mcbride-speaks/#
I did finish reading “Anatomy of the State.” And all I can say, is that it has me even more paranoid about the IRS. The IRS is hungry for minnows because they actually have the most to lose. And they represent the bigges threat to the state (could you imagine what wide-scale non-compliance by regular people would do?)
Anyway, terrific work on this directory. I’ll be reading it very closely and hope to find something to talk about on my blog.
And here is it. The IRS just squeezed a New Jersey Indian-American to agree to a 1000% (of unpaid taxes) FBAR penalty. Sickening.
http://www.irsmedic.com/2013/01/07/hsbc-irsinvestigation-claims-guilty-plea/
@Anthony, I would hardly define McBride as a minnow. His case involved high $ accounts (4 accounts whose total value was over 1 million ($310,002, $736,902, $140,250 and $150,132) and even if he thought the scheme was legal at first, he probably knew he was playing with fire. He reportdedly lied to the IRS during the audit. One of the documents even says “After McBride was given an explanation of Merryl Scott’s program, he responded “This is Tax Evasion”.
Even Jack writes on his blog that “The facts found by the court are so damning, that I find it hard to believe
that the Court would have reached a different conclusion if it had applied the
“clear and convincing” standard”.
I apologize for my previous aggressive comment, but I must respectfully disagree with your advice to anyone who hasn’t come clean: OVDI is a no-brainer. This is just wrong. That implies that all who have an offshore account, are somehow willful tax evaders, and must come ‘clean’. It is hardly a ‘no-brainer’ decision for many benign actors such as immigrants and Americans leaving abroad. For a lot of people affected. lawyers and accountant fees might excede the FBAR penalties in a lot of cases, described in the FBAR mitigation guidelines of the IRS manual, that the IRS is supposed to follow on audit.
Jack Townsend describes in his blog an analytic decision making decision tree for deciding whether a person should enter the program (sorry, I can’t find the link). That’s what people expect of an honest attorney – not a answer telling them that the only way to become compliant is to spend $30K-$50K in lawyer’s fees and potentially forgo 27.5% of their money abroad for a small amount of taxes due for not filing a form they did not know they had to file, or else face even more bankrupting fines. This might be true for some people, but please, set up your target audience by adding some information about account amounts and taxes due. Your assertion without mentioning account amounts and taxes due that the IRS “will impose a FBAR penalty of 100,000 per year is just false. Help the readers of your blog determine if what you write applies to them. Thank you.
@Antony, I wonder how you can do a good job advising your customers objectively when you make claims like these: “all I can say, is that it has me even more paranoid about the IRS. The IRS is hungry for minnows because they actually have the most to lose.“
@Christophe – you are right on! I am currently under examination in OVDI and will therefore not say much. On the basis of what I am experiencing with my examiner, the fear mongering being done by most tax professionals (my ex-lawyer especially) is just not necessary. At the risk of sounding like an IRS fan, I can only say that my examiner has been very helpful. My experience is showing me the IRS knows a minnow when it sees one and may now be treating minnows appropriately inside OVDI. One of the first things that
was said to me by my examiner was, “There is no way anyone would ever consider you willful.”
I have had demands for documentation that I thought were reasonable. The examiner has also done what my lawyer never did. The examiner has gone through an opt out decision tree with me and provided the math that has given me solid input for an opt out decision. I have a good understanding of what non-willful penalties might apply. The OVDI program and its goals were also explained in detail. The presentation indicated to me that the IRS clearly understands that not everyone in the program is an intentional tax cheat. It made clear how strict the program is and that circumstances are different for someone who opts out. My examiner clearly explained what would be different.
I recognize that my examiner is not the Opt Out Committee so I am taking a cautious approach. I am reviewing my options and the next steps with respect to opt out.
While my experience so far with my examiner is that the IRS is treating me fairly, I think the OVDI program was totally unnecessary for minnows. It has been total overkill to get to the point where I am right now. I will reserve any more comments until I have completed my process, although according to my examiner, I need to reckon with another six months if I opt out. Sigh.
@Christophe and others – If the opt out and lawyer discussion is to be continued, could you please comment under other posts? I think there were good previous posts about ij’s opt out and about whether lawyers are really necessary for OVDI (by @renounce) under which this discussion could be continued. The Consulate Report Directory has been very informative and I do not think discussions of OVDI belong here. Thanks!
Another CLN has arrived!
Applied in Halifax on November 5 (relinquishment)
Approved by Halifax on same day.
Approved by Washington on January 2, 2013 (First CLN of 2013?)
Received in mail from Halifax on January 10
So a few days over 9 weeks including the Holidays.
Thanks to all.
Congratulations, Hazy!
Halifax sounds super! And it sounds like Washington is making good progress on the Canadian backlog
@ Hazy
Congratulations! Approved January 2nd! I’m sure you were delivered the New Year’s
babyCLN and in less than 9 months too. Your special prize is a basketful of freedom. 🙂*Congratulations, Hazy. Just in time. 2013 is an important year in which to get cleared.
Congratulations, Hazy
I continue to languish in Vancouver! So I envy you.
Yup, you can’t even get an appointment in Vancouver! I expect I’ll wind up going to Calgary but not in the dead of winter. I’ve had a series of email communications with Vancouver with absolutely no result. They’re stonewalling for sure. It’s unbelievable.
*Wow Hazy2, that is quick even for a relinquishment. Well done and what a way to start the New Year!
@maz57
‘I’ve had a series of email communications with Vancouver with absolutely no result.’
Were these emails sent requesting your first appointment? And am I correct in assuming that they have answered the emails? In the past, they often did not even respond to the emails.
@ all
I appreciate your congratulations.
I failed to mention that my relinquishment date on the CLN was September , 1976.
One other tidbit- the only immigration lawyer I spoke to, in the summer of 2011, stated that Consulates tended to be staffed by ex-military and that some hostility should be expected. I certainly did not experience any hostility in Halifax.
@Hazy, It seems from our reports that most consulates are pretty pleasant to deal with, certainly not hostile, except Ottawa, where it has been a recurring, apparently systemic, problem. However, Johnnb reported on Sandbox that a friend of his relinquished at Ottawa last week and the staff were quite pleasant, so maybe they’ve finally cleaned up their act, which would be great. I’m looking further into it.
1976, eh? Boy, I know what a relief it is to see that CLN when it represents so much of your lifetime!
Congratulations, Hazy! I’m ex-military and I renounced US citizenship. It seems that some Consulates are staffed with scared ex-military chicken weaklings who don’t have the courage or strength to argue their case at IBS. I challenge any American military personal or ex-military personal to argue their case against renouncing here. As of yet, none have had the courage or strength to do so, and I can understand why. Arguing that Americans should be denied banking services simply because they are US persons is uncool and totally anti-American. These scared ex-military chicken weaklings working for consulates who are giving Americans abroad hell are also destroying America because they don’t have the courage to stand up and fight for what is right. How in the world did they ever get accepted into the military to begin with? The military must have been desperate.
It is good that they are working in consulates these days, though, since they get to see, with all the renunciations, how they failed in defending their nation by not lifting a finger against the actual problem.
@ Tiger. Yes, all of my emails were attempting to book an appointment. To their credit, they did respond to each one.
My final email asked if I should simply give up and go to Calgary. Their response was “go ahead, but if you start there you must finish there”. Translation: “go away, we don’t want to deal with this”.
@maz57
‘if you start there you must finish there’. Interesting – sounds like they make up the rules (or at least they believe they make up the rules) as they go along. There is at least one person on this site, who started at one consulate, got nowhere and then proceeded to obtain her CLN through another consulate.