Renunciation and Relinquishment of United States Citizenship: Discussion thread (Ask your questions) Part Two
Ask your questions about Renunciation and Relinquishment of United States Citizenship and Certificates of Loss of Nationality.
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NB: This discussion is a continuation of an older discussion that became too large for our software to handle well. See Renunciation and Relinquishment of United States Citizenship: Discussion thread (Ask your questions) Part One
Hi guys, I am going for a relinquishment case but I am not sure if I am adequately prepared.
I was born in the states but was brought back to europe before 1-year-old. Dual nationality from birth. I grew up there and never returned to the states ever since. No SSN and no connections/activity with US whatsoever. I start working in a government institute when I was 25, and required to sign an affidavit that I have no other nationality at that time. No vote, no tax, no property in US, and my US passport (as a infant) was never renewed and expired like…twenty more years ago. I am thinking of back-dated relinquishment by 349(a)4
now I have prepared:
1. the blank affidavit required at that time
2. legal opinion letter by a local lawyer stating the institute is government owned to support that ai was employed by the government.
3. Official proof of the employed time and length of my employment,
Is there anything I can do to strengthen?(what are my odds?) I would be very appreciated for any advise! thanks again! (this matter is so stressful…)
Can you get a copy of the affidavit?
From what I’ve read, that sounds like reasonable documentation of relinquishment, and a reasonable explanation for not having a CLN. Someone who knows will probably comment shortly.
@bear33
Welcome to Brock.
It looks like you have a good case for relinquishment. Some consulates in the past have made it difficult for duals at birth to claim a past relinquishment, it depends on the consulate and their experience. In these cases some have insisted that their files are sent to the State Dept regardless and more often than not the State depts have agreed to the relinquishment.
You can read past reports here
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/how-to-renouncerelinquish/
@heidi
Just a note that the good advice to contacting the SSA through the designated American Embassy does not apply in Canada. The SSA does not provide help through the Embassy and Consulates in Canada and directs you to an SSA office within the USA. Heidi also indicated she had tried writing to the SSA in Philadelphia over a period of 3 years and got nothing but computer generated letters that were totally incorrect. Just a thought, but the SSA’s Office of International Operations (OIO) in Baltimore MD might possibly have been a better place to write to. That’s water under the bridge now, but it’s worth keeping the OIO in mind if there are future difficulties with the assistance you get via the SSA Federal Benefits Unit (FBU) at a US Embassy or Consulate. In my case after the folks in a local SSA office across the border in the US incorrectly denied my application for an adjustment, I contacted the OIO in Baltimore who had the expertise to reprocess my application correctly. However it is possible that the FBU staff at the Embassies who are assisting only overseas folks are better informed than those in US SSA offices dealing mostly with homelanders.
Bear33 –
Can you get a copy of the affidavit you signed at age 25?
Are you hoping to be able to rely on your relinquishment documentation as proof of non-US-citizenship, or do you intend to get a CLN?
@fno
Yes, I wrote to the international office in Baltimore as well I had had computer generated letters from both places. The German employee at the SSA office in the Embassy in Frankfurt was excellent and got 3yrs of misclassificstion sorted out in 24 hrs.
Bear33. i think your chances of having relinquishment approved right away are 50/50
In Canada, employment in Gov’t agencies ( e.g. Atomic Energy Canada). was not necessarily enough. Several questions arise. Why bother now? Are you prepared to renounce if renunciation is denied?
Whatever happens, I would strongly advise avoiding any’amnesty’programme and would suggest there is no need to file any tax returns. Good luck.
@Bear33
I would take the approach of doing this in a series of steps.
1. Use the documents you have to persuade your bank that you relinquished US citizenship at 25, and therefore you should suffer no restrictions on banking services, or be reported to the US under FATCA. If the bank agrees, stop here, you are finished.
2. If the bank does not agree, you may need a CLN. Take the forms to a US consulate and see what they say. Note that you won’t save any money over simply renouncing because they now charge the same ridiculous $2350 fee to provide the CLN. But it’s still advantageous to document relinquishment because it means you lost the citizenship further in the past.
Under no circumstances would I file any US tax returns or FBARs, or contemplate their shitty amnesty programs. You have no US financial ties. You have citizenship from birth in your country of residence. The US cannot touch you, in the highly unlikely event that it decided you owed it money.
@Bear33,
It sounds like you’re quite well prepared.
As Heidi mentioned, some consulate officials have claimed that a dual-at-birth cannot relinquish and when this has occurred, the persons have told the consulate to send the file to DC anyway and more often than not DoS has agreed with the person. Good advice.
When people began running into this problem, I contacted a lawyer in the Legal Affairs branch of DoS/USCitizenshipServices in Washington (the office that handles CLN applications), who confirmed that these consulate officials are in error (and spontaneously offered to call the consulate I was referring to and explain it to them).
Currently, the reports we’ve received from Brockers who relinquished due to government employment (some of whom received negative recommendations from consulates, but they followed Heidi’s advice to have it sent anyway) are: 8 approved, 1 denied.
The 1 denial was based on a technicality regarding the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s status as a Crown Corporation (subsidiary of the government) as DoS considered CBC it be a “hybrid” entity. That’s definitely disputable, but the person chose to renounce rather than launch an appeal, just to get the whole thing over more quickly, which is understandable.
DoS did approve a relinquishment based on employment at another Crown corporation, Atomic Energy Canada. (DoD, you’re usually dead-on, but you got these two cases reversed – they were quite a while ago). All cases reported to Brock based on employment directly in the federal, provincial or municipal governments (as opposed to Crown corporations) have been approved, although as mentioned some were sent in with negative recommendations from the consul.
If you have a copy of the affidavit you actually signed when taking the job, that would be great. But for the most part, people have had to rely on only proof of employment and it’s starting date (as no affidavit was involved) and the applications were accepted.
One question to aware of, which several people have reported being asked, is “how did you know you would be relinquishing your citizenship by taking this job?” With your affidavit, that should be clear. Literally it’s “accepting, serving in, or performing the duties of any office, post, or employment . . .” that is the actual relinquishing act. As you worded your comment, that you were “required to sign an affidavit that I have no other nationality at that time,” I take it that by swearing/affirming to that statement, it shows you believed that by doing this you understood that accepting the position you no longer had US nationality. Which, to me anyway, bolsters that you took the job and lost your citizenship with eyes wide open.
In many cases, there is no affidavit. Eg,in Canada many years ago, upon offering the employment, the govt warned US citizens that the employment would cause the loss of their US citizenship; in other cases, a person may have enquired at the US consulate or learned of this by word-of mouth. These are generally not “provable” facts, and DoS can’t know what was in the person’s mind at the time of relinquishment, so they infer intent by the person’s behaviour (lack of US-citizen-type behaviour), which in your case sounds quite clear cut. (This is important even in cases which have clear contemporaneous proof of intent, such as you appear to have, because such behaviour tends to override the concept that the person relinquished their citizenship).
Main thing I’d say, you sound quite well prepared and I echo Heidi if the consulate tries to talk you out of it, stand your ground and ask them to forward it to Washington anyway.
You may have been to our post on “Relinquishment of US Citizenship by Persons-Born-Dual or who Naturalised in a Foreign Country as a Minor” already, but if not it’s at http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2014/03/20/relinquishment-of-us-citizenship-by-persons-born-dual-or-who-naturalised-in-a-foreign-country-as-a-minor/
@Bear33, all the above is good advice. I will only add that the cases pacifica777 mentioned all took place before the $2,350 fee was applied to relinquishments as well iirc. So do bear in mind that if your relinquishment is denied for some reason, if you want to then renounce you will have to pay that $2,350 fee again.
Yep, now that relinquishment costs the same as renunciation, there isn’t much incentive to pursue the former unless you have some sort of tax-compliance reason to want the earlier date. If you just need a CLN and don’t have tax compliance issues (either because your situation is straightforward or you won’t bother with it) then you’re stuck paying $2350 either way so might as well keep it simple and just renounce.
I guess I was luckier with the SSA OIO than you were. In fact I was so impressed with the help I got that afterwards i wrote a thank you letter and sent a Starbucks gift card to recognise my appreciation. I addressed it to the individual concerned, but it never reached them because it was returned to me (minus the gift card) with a note saying it could not be dealt with as there was no Social Security number attached. A bureaucratic knee jerk reaction to an incoming letter indicating that no-one had read the contents. Not important, but a good example of the difficulty that can be encountered trying to communicate with the SSA.
Re:
Or just personal reasons. My incentive was that it had been my understanding for 33 years that I had not been a US citizen since 1978. (I only learned of the existence of CLNs, though, in 2011, or I would have got one back in ’78). So, when I did learn of this document, I wanted one which accurately reflected the reality of my life. Intangible factor, but of the utmost importance to me. For that reason, had I only learned of this now in 2017 (when relinquishment CLNs cost the same as renunciation ones), I would still go the relinquishment route.
@Pacifica
Fair enough. But I’d suggest that if it’s a challenge to prove relinquishment, and you can renounce for the same cost, how hard is one going to fight to relinquish? (Assuming of course no compliance rationale.)
Is Bear33 saying he relinquished at 25?
Does that mean he’s up for USA taxation/filing USA taxes for any years prior in which he was employed?
???
Jane. No, that would defeat the whole purpose.
Ah, I just re-read it. At 25 he swore he had never been a dual-citizen.
Could it come down to whether or not he knew he had been born in the US, even if he didn’t know that would make him a dual?
I’m jaded, I think….
Thanks for all the comments, it is not only helpful but very warm.
I have read the suggested threads before but the most relevant ones stopped renewing since 2014 so I reached out for help.
@pacifica777: I am totally with you about the reason for relinquish and not renounce.
@plaxy: About a copy of the original affidavit, I am not sure if I can get it. I maybe will have to emphasize that I know the consequence in a statement, adding the lack of US-citizen-type behavior to support (Do I have to proof I didn’t have those behaviors?)
@Nonymous,
i wasn’t disagreeing with you. Just pointing out another reason why one might choose to prove relinquishment, based on my personal experience. I recognise that it is more an intangible motivation than a practical one.
Re:
I was ready to fight the last ditch when the embassy tried to block me (despite having a textbook case 4079, no connection at all to the US), citing non-existent law about a relinquishment had to be claimed within one year. Fortunately they caved early, when they got my written complaint, which I very much preferred to a long drawn-out battle, but, having met with opposition, I did have a long-term multi-step battle plan drawn up. My motivation had nothing to do with money, though, because I never got past the issue of reality. What happened 33 years ago, happened, and I wasn’t into the US or anyone rewriting my history. And all that embassy’s intransigence and general bullying did was make me more determined to make the US admit that I was right all along — that my citizenship ended in 1978.
At this point I don’t think it matters renunciation or relinquishment. Any way you can get out of the system is good. Cost is the same. Good luck Bear 33. Be careful about filing / not filing any US tax forms. Look at all possibilities taking your personal situation and risk tolerance into account.
I’ll repeat, the cheap and easy option might be to simply wave the affidavit etc. at the bank; if they accept that and you are not FATCA-reported, continue merrily on your non-compliant way.
You can make the same argument if you travel to the US and they raise the issue of your birthplace. Tell them you relinquished but you can’t afford $2350 for the piece of paper that confirms it.
Nononymous, that won’t cut it with US Border Control. Unless he has a CLN he’d have to have a US passport to be able to enter America.
Or even to transit through the US, or so it seems.
Bear33 –
“About a copy of the original affidavit, I am not sure if I can get it. I maybe will have to emphasize that I know the consequence in a statement, adding the lack of US-citizen-type behavior to support (Do I have to proof I didn’t have those behaviors?)”
It depends on the context. If you apply for US documentation of your relinquishment (a CLN), you can just fill in the required forms, which quiz you about your state of mind at the time you performed the relinquishing act (i.e., whether you intended to lose, or retain, your US citizenship when you accepted the EU Member State government employment 25 years ago). All you need to do is state that you were aware that you would be losing your US citizenship, and explain that you were required by your employer to sign an affidavit saying so. Perfect – but expensive.
Alternatively, you could opt to create a new affidavit, swearing that you lost your US citizenship 25 years ago when you took that job, and stating that you had to sign an affidavit confirming that you were not a dual citizen, and citing 349(a)4. If questioned by a bank about US citizenship, present a copy of the new affidavit, together with your EU Member State passport, and a self-certification confirming that you relinquished your US citizenship 25 years ago, and explaining that you don’t have a CLN because at the time you relinquished your US citizenship, US law did not require you to obtain a CLN. Avoid signing any IRS forms.
This approach (certifying that you are not a US citizen) would cost much less. If a bank refuses to accept it, and tries to insist on a CLN, then you might want to register a formal complaint, following your bank’s complaint procedure — perhaps also writing to your electoral representative and M.E.P., if need be. Or if you prefer not to complain, you would still have the option of going to the US consulate and paying the $2350 for a CLN.
medea. Not so.