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Late & unreliable Federal Register expatriates list causes political dispute in Haiti

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The Federal Register published expatriates list for the first quarter of 2015 is finally out for public inspection and due to be printed tomorrow, more than a week late. The IRS approved the list for publication internally on 28 April and sent it to the Federal Register folks, but it was not actually published on time, a clear violation of 26 USC § 6039G(d). However, this is barely even news: the list has been late for nine out of the past ten quarters too. And anyway one week is far short of the record of 599 days set by the Q2 1998 list (which didn’t appear until March 2000), or more recently the Q2 2010 list, which was 103 days late. Such habitual tardiness clearly indicates that this is a willful violation of the Internal Revenue Code by IRS employees, which should be punished but certainly won’t be.

This list contains 1,336 names of certain people who renounced or relinquished U.S. citizenship and whose information the IRS received in the first three months of this year. This is a smaller number than the 1,406 records — solely of renunciants, not of relinquishers — which were added to the FBI’s NICS gun control database over the same period, bringing it from 27,240 renunciant records up to 28,646. NICS also added another 767 renunciant records in April. (Given that the Federal Register list is too small even to cover all renunciants, it is not mathematically possible that it includes ex-green card holders, and no name of an ex-green card holder has ever been confirmed present in the list.)

This late, incomplete list isn’t merely a source of mild annoyance for us here at the Isaac Brock Society — instead, for the second time in recent years, it’s causing political controversy in the Caribbean. Haitian First Lady Sophia Martelly states that she renounced U.S. citizenship in March 2014 in preparation for her own entry into electoral politics this year. Local newspapers have complained that her name hasn’t shown up in the Federal Register list. But this isn’t unusual at all: nearly every single other public figure I know of whose 2014 renunciation/relinquishment was reported in the media hasn’t shown up either.

Table of known recent renunciations/relinquishments

Here’s a table of people who were mentioned in media reports as having, within the past 18 months, given up U.S. citizenship, and the edition of the Federal Register (if any) in which their name was published. (If you know of any more, please leave a link in the comments.)

Name Occupation Other
citizenship		 Giving up US citizenship Appeared in
Federal
Register?		 Source
Reason Date
Lu Shu-hao Military Taiwan Service in Republic of China Army January 2014 or earlier No Taipei Times
Sandy Opravil Housewife Switzerland Save her mortgage February 2014 Q3 2014 Newsweek
Roger Ver Bitcoin investor St. Kitts & Nevis Libertarian political opinions February 2014 No Bloomberg
Sophia Martelly Politician Haiti Run for Senate of Haiti March 2014 No Haiti Press Network
Ya’aqov Ben-Yehudah Writer Israel Complicated; see source March 2014 Q2 2014 Times of Israel
Mona Quartey Politician Ghana Become Deputy Finance Minister of Ghana July 2014 No Graphic News (Ghana)
Kim Sungkyum Military South Korea Be commissioned an officer in the Republic of Korea Army December 2014 Q1 2015 Kookbang Ilbo
Lin Jou-min Architect Taiwan Take position in Taipei city government December 2014 No Central News Agency (Taiwan)
Rachel Azaria Politician Israel Members of Knesset cannot hold foreign citizenship January 2015 No Times of Israel
Jonathan Tepper Macroeconomic analyst United Kingdom FATCA & other U.S. tax reporting requirements January 2015 No The New York Times
David Alward Politician Canada To become Canadian consul-general in Boston April 2015 or earlier No Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

It’s possible that some of these people did not actually give up U.S. citizenship. They might have found another way to satisfy a local-law requirement that appears to demand giving up foreign citizenships. The journalist (or I) might have misunderstood their situations. They might have lost their courage at the gates of the consulate. Or they might simply have lied. However, it’s unlikely that all of these reports are erroneous. In any case, non-publication in the Federal Register is quite normal, and has been for the past decade.

Some of the more recent entries in the above table may show up in later Federal Register lists. Nonetheless, it looks like 2014 will have a much higher Federal Register ex-citizen non-publication rate than earlier years. For example, here’s a similar table for 2013 renunciants & relinquishers, collected by those of us who edit Wikipedia’s list of ex-Americans, as well as others without Wikipedia articles whom I’ve been tracking myself. As you can see, eight out of thirteen people in the table below had appeared in the Federal Register by this time last year, one of them even within the same quarter (and one more showed up in late 2014), in contrast to just two of the seven 2014 entries in the table above:

Name Occupation Other
citizenship		 Giving up US citizenship Appeared in
Federal
Register?		 Source
Reason Date
Naftali Bennett Politician Israel Members of Knesset cannot hold foreign citizenships January 2013 Q2 2013 Jerusalem Post
Dov Lipman Politician Israel Members of Knesset cannot hold foreign citizenships January 2013 Q2 2013 Jerusalem Post
Orlan Calayag Bureaucrat Philippines Become head of National Food Authority January 2013 Q2 2013 Philippine Star
Mahmud Karzai Politician Afghanistan Launch political career in Afghanistan January 2013 Q1 2013 Radio Free Europe
Bernard Chan Pak-li Scientist, bureaucrat Hong Kong Join Commerce & Economic Development Bureau February 2013 Q2 2013 HK Economic Times
Fauzia Kasuri Politician Pakistan Pakistan does not allow politicians to hold dual citizenship March 2013 No Dawn
Marshall Nicholson Investment banker Hong Kong Unclear — probably career-related (he worked in a Chinese-owned fund) April 2013 Q4 2013 Reuters
René González Intelligence Cuba Part of deal with DOJ to end parole & return to Cuba May 2013 No Washington Post
Quincy Davis Basketball player Taiwan Naturalise & join national basketball team June 2013 Q4 2013 China Post
Glen L. Roberts Writer None To become stateless June 2013 Q4 2014 Int’l Business Times
Camillo Gonsalves Diplomat, politician St. Vincent & Grenadines Join Senate of SVG September 2013 No I-Witness News
Michael Putnam ? Canada “[F]ully assimilate into the civic and cultural life of my new country” September 2013 No BBC
Tina Turner Singer Switzerland Unclear October 2013 Q1 2014 Forbes

A missing name from Haiti

Political controversy has arisen over one particular non-publication: that of Sophia Martelly, First Lady of Haiti, who has declared her candidacy for the Senate of her country. The Haiti Press Network posted a copy of a scanned document which appears to be Martelly’s CLN. Despite that, other observers, such as the Haiti Sentinel, noted the fact that Martelly’s name has not yet been published in the Federal Register, and from that have jumped to the conclusion that her renunciation is not yet legally effective or even that it never occurred in the first place.

Complainants that filed the objections to Sophia Martelly’s candidacy had based their arguments on whether Mrs. Martelly held other nationalities at the time of her registration or not. Multiple nationality is not recognized in the Haitian Constitution and disqualifies for elected office.

Gregory Mayard Paul, lawyer for the Martelly Presidency, presented a Certificate of Loss of Citizenship of the United States of America that show one year prior, on April 2014, showing that Sophia Martelly had requested to expatriate her American citizenship.

The Electoral Tribunal of Wally Désence (Chair), Merlan Bélabre and Mario Delcy (Membre) declared Sophia Martelly eligible for elections and the complainants’ arguments unfounded because she had requested to renounce her American citizenship before she registered for senatorial elections on April 23, 2015. But the expatriation of Sophia Martelly has, to date, not been finalized in the U.S. Federal Register.

Incidentally, Martelly’s CLN was approved within four days of her renunciation, according to the posted scan. Apparently some consulates work faster than others: the CLN of Ya’aqov Ben-Yehudah — also a renunciant rather than a relinquisher — took just under a week (he posted a scan of it). This is even faster than the timeline which Consul Marc A. Snider claimed the U.S. would follow when Pakistani politician Fauzia Kasuri renounced her U.S. citizenship two years ago. Kasuri’s name also has not appeared in the Federal Register to date.

Delays are common: another Caribbean example

A similar controversy arose earlier over the ascension of Florida-born Akierra Missick to the post of Deputy Premier of the Turks & Caicos Islands. Missick renounced her U.S. citizenship in October 2012, just before the Turks & Caicos general election, but immigration lawyer Adam Rothwell apparently claimed to TCI News Now or caused them to conclude through his comments that “Missick’s name is conspicuous by its absence” in the Federal Register list that was published for the same quarter in which she renounced. The Curaçao Chronicle also picked up the story, while TCI News Now ran a follow-up story a few days later defending its original article.

In reality, anyone even casually familiar with the list knows that people almost never show up in the same quarter they give up citizenship — our own Petros’ name didn’t show up for more than a year and a half, although things seem to have been getting somewhat faster recently. (In general, you shouldn’t trust most U.S. immigration lawyers on the subject of emigration — though rare exceptions do exist.) Similarly, Missick’s name finally showed up in the Q3 2013 list, which was not published until more than a year after her renunciation, and 43 days after the end of the quarter.

Rothwell also claimed that the requirement to file a tax return — something which can fall on immigrants, non-immigrant resident aliens, and even people with no connection to the U.S. besides their investments — constituted a “duty of obedience or adherence to the United States”. A year later, TCI News Now also claimed, on the basis of an anonymous, unsourced edit to Wikipedia, that Missick had voted for Barack Obama in the 2012 U.S. presidential election after renouncing her citizenship.

Some possible ex-citizens not in above table

I omitted one entry from the above table — a woman who naturalised in the Federated States of Micronesia in December 2013 — because I’m not sure how strictly the FSM applies their prohibition against dual citizenship. The U.S. and other countries whose legal systems it has influenced — including the Philippines — often claim that a “renunciation of foreign citizenships” is required in certain situations, but in reality all they demand is a domestic-law oath which has no effect under the laws of the foreign country whose citizenship is retained.

I also excluded from the above table two people — both of whom took up Ukrainian citizenship in 2014 — because it is not clear what action they took with regard to their U.S. citizenship. The relevant Ukrainian regulations apparently require only that they provide proof of renunciation of foreign citizenships within two years.

In the case of Mark Paslawsky, that deadline no longer matters. Paslawsky, a New Jersey native who moved to Ukraine in the 1990s to work in investment banking, took up Ukrainian citizenship in April 2014 so that he could volunteer with the Ukrainian National Guard in Donbas. He died in combat near Donetsk a few months later. A guest post at the Financial Times Beyond Brics blog stated that he “gave up his US citizenship for a Ukrainian passport”, but this is not confirmed in any other sources.

Natalie Jaresko — another U.S.-born financier — who grew up in Chicago and moved to Ukraine soon after its independence, was granted Ukrainian citizenship by order of President Petro Poroshenko so that she could take up the post of finance minister in his government, reported Bloomberg last December. For the politically-connected, there appears to be some flexibility with the two-year deadline: Ukrainska Pravda reported that former first lady Kateryna Yushchenko, also of Chicago, did not renounce her U.S. citizenship until August 2007 despite having been granted Ukrainian citizenship in March 2005.

(Yushchenko’s name also never appeared in the Federal Register, although Landon Taylor of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv wrote a letter confirming her renunciation and the fact that renunciation of nationality is legally effective from the date of the Oath of Renunciation, not the date of approval of the CLN let alone the date of publication in the Federal Register.)

45 thoughts on “Late & unreliable Federal Register expatriates list causes political dispute in Haiti”

  2. This is just my opinion, but I believe that those willing or eager to explore the world outside their country are likely more well read than those that don’t leave the country ever. Reading is an adventure. Adventures lead to further adventures. I believe this also applies to a willingness to interact with people that may be different (from another culture, for example). This can lead to marriage, exploring the spouse’s home country, and staying.

    My father (the reason I’m in this mess), was an avid reader. He joined the US military, despite being Canadian. I am an avid reader, and I strongly encouraged my daughter to travel to Europe when she was 16, with a school group. She, being an avid reader, jumped on the opportunity (and paid her own way, as she starting working at 12 years old).

    Back to spelling and grammar, that is greatly improved by reading beyond what one is only required to read. The earlier, the better of course.

    Now I hope no one jumps on my spelling…I post from an iPad, without my reading glasses. 😀

  4. @Eric: Appreciate your locating Arthur Budovsky on FR IRS list. Budovsky gave up his US citizenship in 2011, according to NY Times story on May 28, 2013. Assuming Budovsky expatriated in 4Q 2011, although it could have been earlier in 2011, it took at least a full three years for his name to appear on the IRS list.

    The ever reliable and objective SputnikNews joined the pile-on with this story: “Number of People Renouncing US Citizenship in 2015 Hits All-Time High”:
    http://sputniknews.com/us/20150508/1021859529.html
    – What’s the purpose of the little green martian attached to the US passport in the picture?

    Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the brother of the former president of Sri Lanka, is a possible Sri Lankan presidential candidate but could only serve if he gives up his US citizenship under Amendment 19 of the Sri Lankan constitution:
    http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=124278#

    As a US citizen, it might also be possible to have him indicted under the US War Crimes Act for his role in the Sri Lankan civil war:
    http://justsecurity.org/10537/sri-lanka-gotabaya-us-citizen-war-crimes-accountability/

  5. What’s the purpose of the little green martian attached to the US passport in the picture?

    It’s a frog: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mccun934/5370303821/in/photostream/

    Note that bullfrogs will mate with anything they come into contact with. Hence, the meaning of this photo can be interpreted as “f— this document”. At least, that’s how I prefer to see it.

    But what’s the symbolism of it resting on top of a programming manual?

  6. @The Mom Ditto on posting from an iPad/iPhone. iOS makes some doozy word changes– often “there” becomes “their” or “they’re”, “it’s” becomes “its.” Can be hard to see in the little white typing box but clear once posted but by then unable to edit. I find lots of my typos and grammar mistakes are caused and made by iOS.

  8. @Eric

    Thanks for your continued research and attention to detail on this important topic.

    Thanks in particular for including the chart of “some” recent renunciants. I note that “David Alward”, (the former premier of New Brunswick), is on that list. I note also that the reason given was his acceptance of his new role as Canadian Consul General in Boston.

    This may be a bit of a “homecoming” for Mr. Alward. A Wikepedia entry says that was born in Beverly, Massachusetts and moved to Canada at a young age (a familiar narrative).

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Alward

    Alward was born in Beverly, Massachusetts. The son of a minister, Alward moved to Atlantic Canada in his youth where he graduated from high school in Nackawic, New Brunswick.[4] Alward received his post-secondary education in psychology in the United States at Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee.[5]

    Mr. Alward’s renunciation of U.S. citizenship is of possible interest for another reason. It was reported in 2011, (and apparently confirmed by Mr Alward) that he was having the usual “U.S. tax compliance problems”. See the following blog post (which appears to have been based on news articles in 2011):

    https://expatsinca.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/new-brunswick-premier-david-alward-caught-in-fatca-nightmare/

    At least we’re not alone; New Brunswick Premier David Alward is caught in the same broad net that is causing so much stress and lack of sleep for American expats the world over.

    Alward, who was born in Massachusetts and spent a few years of his childhood in the US before his family settled in New Brunswick, has issued a statement that he understands the frustration we feel as we sort through years of records to bring ourselves into compliance with the US Treasure Department’s draconian regulations.

    “I’ve had to scramble like thousands of other people,” Alward said, adding that he is complying with the U.S. demand for tax returns going back years and detailed disclosures.

    “This is a difficult situation for a lot of people. I can tell them I am going through the very same thing they are going through.”

    FATCA – which was enacted in an attempt to catch and punish tax evaders, drug lords, and money launderers – casts too broad a net, and is instead causing a great deal of fear among honest, law-abiding Canadian residents who do not owe money to the US. Many, like Alward, have only distant ties to the US.

    “I don’t know where it will lead or what our success will be – they have the right to tax American citizens. But the fact is a lot of these people that are in Canada, and I think it’s over a million, most have never lived in the United States and it’s just happenstance they were born there,” added Keith Ashfield, Canada’s former revenue minister and the senior cabinet minister for New Brunswick.

    We are not criminals, and we are not tax evaders. We’ve merely committed errors of omission and we do not deserve to lumped in alongside wilful tax evaders.

    Such is part of the story of the former premier of the Canadian province of New Brunswick. I wish him luck in his new job.

    Mr. Alward is one example of the many Canadians with some kind of U.S. connection in their past. A connection that they clearly regret.

    Moving on to current premiers:

    As you know, Rachel Notley has just become the NDP premier of Alberta. The following Wikipedia entry includes:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Notley

    Notley was born on April 17, 1964[4][5][6] in Edmonton, Alberta, and was raised in the town of Fairview, Alberta, the daughter of Sandra Mary “Sandy” (Wilkinson) and Alberta NDP Leader and MLA Grant Notley.[7][8] She is the sister of Paul Notley and Stephen Notley (author and illustrator of Bob the Angry Flower).[9] Her mother was born in Plunkett, Massachusetts.[10]

    It appears that Rachel Notley “may” (further details wold be required) have been born to a “U.S. citizen” mother. This of course leads to the tantalizing question for Ms. Notley of:

    “Are you, or have you ever been a U.S. citizen?”

    The Obama Legacy is such that one of the most interesting things to know about a person has become, the degree of their “USness”.

  9. Happy to report that I have made the list – almost 2 years after renouncing. Now I know that all those tax forms and the 8854 have been processed – I feel free 🙂

  10. Pingback: The Isaac Brock Society | Should proof of non-U.S. citizenship be an absolute condition for accepting public office in Canada?

  11. RLee, Do we know that? By this, seems neither, but yet other US government departments / agencies.

    https://www.federalregister.gov/blog/policy/about-us says:

    About Us

    The Office of the Federal Register (OFR) of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) jointly administer the FederalRegister.gov website.

  12. I found a dump of all consulate cases for 2011 at

    http://foia.state.gov/Search/results.aspx?searchText=renunciation&beginDate=&endDate=20150507&publishedBeginDate=&publishedEndDate=20150507&caseNumber=

    Got it from doing a search of the FOIA section of the DOS site
    http://foia.state.gov/Search/Search.aspx

    It is a pdf file in columns

    I have succeeded to copy the entire document to lines, but I have not succeeded to recreate the columns in an excel file for manipulation.

    Someone could take this pdf file in columns and count the lines of renunciations

  13. dead end. There are only 4 instances there. The list is somehow limited in search.

  14. Congrats Allou!

    My name was on an earlier list.

    May it do the US a world of good to have “named and shamed” us. Guess that taught us a valuable lesson eh? – we won’t be renouncing again soon! Hard to extraterritorially put us in the stocks or make us wear a red letter ‘R’ like in ye olde days. No doubt some wanted us drawn and quartered or stretched on the rack – but since we have to be outside of the US to renounce in person at a US embassy or consulate, we are just out of reach. Would love to read the congressional or other official record of how they came up with the name ‘n shame list as a punishment.
    : )

  15. It was what… 21 months before my name was published? Renounced June 21, 2013, it was published in February 2015 (for Q4 2014)…. but really what does it matter? I walked out of the US Embassy in June 2013, with a CLN and NOT a US Citizen.

    I could complain all day long about how they are not complying with the law, or being inaccurate (though sloppy might be closer to reality). But, I am not a US Citizen… it really doesn’t matter. I would much prefer to “get on with my life” than fret about the bully.

    Everyone who appears on the list show not consider themselves “named and shamed”, but rather proud that they exercised their rights and are no longer involved with an organization that would tell them that people died to protect their rights and then shame them for exercising their rights.

    If you want to renounce… do it… if you don’t… don’t.

  16. “People of modest means often think they have nothing to worry about if they are a “covered expatriate” at the time they cease being a USC or a long-term resident. This is where they may be deeply mistaken; if they have any future U.S. beneficiaries (e.g., children who were born in the U.S. or who might move to the U.S. many years out into the future). Moreover, these U.S. beneficiaries do not need to receive substantial assets, in order to be subject to sizable U.S. taxes in the future.”

    http://tax-expatriation.com/2015/05/14/when-does-covered-expatriate-status-not-matter/

  17. NICS now has 29,956 renunciant records
    https://web.archive.org/web/20150602174447/http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics/reports/active_records_in_the_nics-index.pdf

    Up by 543 since last month (29,413), and 2,716 since the end of last year (27,240).

    If we continue at the same monthly average renunciation rate (543/month) for the rest of this year, and the ratio of relinquishers-to-renunciants remains the same as in 1994/1995, then there will be at least eleven or twelve thousand people giving up U.S. citizenship this year.

  19. 856 renunciations are being reported for July 2015 according to FBI NICS bringing the YTD total to 3,733. At the run rate of 533.3 per month, there would be a calculated total of 6,400 renunciations in 2015.

    Using a ratio of one renunciation to one relinquishment suggests a total of 12,800 expatriations for 2015.

    Robert Stack may wish to remove the “Myths vs. Fatca” propaganda posting from the internet to save himself and his supervisor, Mark Mazur, further embarassment.

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