Does anyone know of cases where “US persons” at risk from the IRS have run into trouble entering the US? Have any of you had a bad experience?
The last time I entered the US was nearly three years ago and I was seriously hassled at the border crossing (we were driving) because I did not have a US passport. I have not dared try to enter the US since then. I do know a few people who seem to have come and gone without any questions asked.
Thank you.
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Travel report: Went through US pre-clearance with Canadian passport for short work trip. Zero problems.
Despite all the fancy new electronic gadgets in the customs zone, they didn’t notice the RFID chip on the US passport in my bag.
Going to USA in late summer. Should I take my CLN with me? Will have ESTA visa and Swedish passport.
It’s probably a good idea to take a copy of your CLN with you, just in case they ask you for it. Don’t take the original, because it would probably be very hard to get a replacement for it if you lose it.
An original CLN is a valuable document best kept in your home safe or a safety deposit box, However, there’s no harm in carrying a certified copy while traveling to the US.
You paid a lot of money to get a CLN and one day it might turn out to be exactly what’s needed to get an overzealous official to back off.
I always travel with a COPY of my CLN, even if I’m only flying through US airspace. I’ve heard of at least two flights in the last couple of years that had to make emergency medical stops in the US while flying from Canada to Mexico. They emptied the planes and processed all the passengers.
The consul at Toronto (who seemed very knowledgeable in general about expatriation matters) told me to bring a COPY of the CLN with me when travelling to the US. They have a record of it in the DHS database, but you should have a copy with you anyway.
BTW, they usually don’t ask to see it, so probably best just have the copy with you and take it out only if you’re asked for it.
I have it scanned and is on my internet back-up but I will definitely take a copy.
Over on Twitter VL Jeker says:
https://twitter.com/VLJeker/status/977756186316550144
Has anyone actually experienced this?
This is the tax adviser who says there’s a silver lining to the transition tax because once you’ve paid the transition tax you’ll be poor enough to renounce without paying the exit tax.
https://www.angloinfo.com/blogs/global/us-tax/silver-lining-repatriation-tax-and-expatriation-nows-your-chance/
That is until the IRS discovers this exit tax avoidance loophole and plugs it.
#NotPayingThis
Only a tax advisor could try to sell retrospective confiscation as an opportunity to avoid prospective confiscation.
#WhyPayEither
Says nothing of the fact that payment does not offset tax in the country where the corporation exists!
#NotPayingAnyofThis!
@ plaxy and BB
# # # –THAT’S the spirit! 🙂
@Karen
One good thing I learned from Trump….a single Tweet doesn’t represent reality! I’ve never heard of any such thing.
I”m surprised at V. L. Jeker’s take on the Transition Tax because in the past she’s been fairly critical of US extraterritorial taxation and the issues it causes.
That’s like saying that getting robbed is not totally bad because the robbers won’t get anything when they come back a week later to rob you a second time. She’s also taking the typical condor position that the transition tax also applies to expat shareholders when there is no indication that is what Congress intended. Good grief!
“That’s like saying that getting robbed is not totally bad because the robbers won’t get anything when they come back a week later to rob you a second time.”
I wish.
I have a tiny apartment in Japan, and never expected to be here so long, so I used to take various things I purchased and put them in a storage locker near my parents’ home in the US, planning to take them across the border when returning to Canada.
Someone picked the lock on the storage locker and stole the most valuable contents.
Someone came back later and picked the lock again and stole the moderate value contents.
There was a reason I didn’t notice what happened the first time, but now I could reconstruct what happened.
Now, I thought Victoria Jeker’s posting would be ironic, but maybe it isn’t after all. Maybe the lock on my storage locker had more iron in it than her posting.
But iron isn’t enough. If you rent a storage locker, then no matter what you put in it, and no matter what kind of security people go through to get into the building, you’d better put a good lock on it, something not pickable. There are some articles on the internet about the best kinds of locks to put on a storage locker. Some are expensive, but compare them to your belongings or the cost of a year’s rent and they don’t seem too expensive any more.
If my brother-in-law had known I was renting a storage locker, he could have timely told me what he told me later. He used to rent a storage locker. One time someone changed the lock on his locker. Another time he saw someone walking down the corridor trying master keys in every lock.
The IRS is no longer the biggest thief in my life.
@Norman
It sounds as though you may have too much stuff. When you think about it, that’s pretty much what the IRS is telling expats with this new transition tax.
In the 1970’s I read that a Polish professor took a train from Quebec bound for New Brunswick. He thought he was taking a Canadian train in Canada. It must have been this train:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_(train)
I read that US immigration officials boarded the train at midnight,observed that he didn’t have a visa for the US, and deported him. But did they deport him by train, compelling him to cross the border into Canada where the train was going? No, they drove him to the nearest border checkpoint by car and left him stranded.
I can’t find any information about this now so the story might be apocryphal.
I renounced a number of years ago and since then, I’ve never been asked at any US pre clearance in Canada for my CLN, until recently, both in the last 3 months and both times in Calgary. Is this a new thing they are doing all over Canada or just a Calgary thing? Both time the officers said I should keep the CLN in my Canadian passport, but the CLN is not exactly passport size… Did they recently change the CLN to be passport size? Has anyone else had this problem in Canada or in Calgary? Maybe a change in policy since Trump or because Calgary has so many US expats.
@Soupy, do you figure it was your US place of birth on your Canadian passport that caused them to know to ask you for your CLN?
I’d expect US pre-clearance in Calgary to have access to computers showing the CLN, but maybe the computers were down.
The US doesn’t have pre-clearance in Japan. They do ordinary clearance in US airports, where I’m supposed to tell a machine that my visit to court is “for pleasure” (B-2 status). The last time we went to the US, the machines were down. Even when the machines seemed to come back up, with signal towers changing from red to green, they still weren’t working. Immigration officials must have been pretty angry because they took revenge by processing the queue even more slowly than they used to do in the old days.
@WhatAml says… I do have a US place of birth which started the questioning no doubt. It’s just that I’ve had a Canadian passport since I was born (Canadian parents) and it seems like this is the first couple of times anyone bothered to look and say something. The first time, they went as far to ask to see the CLN and ask how much I paid to renounce and how long it took. I did it a long time ago so it was relatively quick and inexpensive, and he said I was lucky. They must just be getting a lot of these Canadian passport holders with a US birthplace and they like to insist on the US passport. Power trip? Haha. Glad I had my CLN to shut that conversation down.
I haven’t been questioned yet, but I’ve been carrying my CLB ever since I got it. I’ve only been to the US once since then (by land) but I take it with me even on flights over their are space such as to Cuba or Mexico. I expect to get questioned eventually.
I’m renouncing next week, and plan to travel to the USA in October on my UK passport. Can anyone with recent experience of travelling to the USA after renunciation, on a non US passport, let me know what it was like? Any hassles? Where did you enter the USA?
BirdPerson – when I renounced, the consular person made it clear that if I traveled to the US during the waiting period the US would expect me to enter on a US passport.
Mine was expired, which made him anxious. If you have a US birthplace and a current US passport, why not just use it?
Current US passport expires before my trip to the USA.
I do have US birthplace.