I didn’t mention wants; I mentioned needs.
If your intent to renounce US citizenship is to avoid your legal tax obligations, the government may not recognize the renouncement.
In addition, …
Interesting. While I understand (in context) it’s negative, through hearing it repeated in news stories etc., the term “anchor baby” had morphed (for me) into a simply a technical term for describing any baby born in the US to non-US residents, illegal or not, and that was the way I was (mis)using it dropping it into a tax policy discussion.
Apologize for offense.
Oh, no need to apologize. I believe you when you say it was accidental, and I was less offended than pedantic.
I started paying taxes when I was 14. When I was in my early 20’s, I left the country and didn’t return for over 7 years. I didn’t file during this time. After my arrival I started working and paying taxes.
No one from the IRS contacted me and wondered why I had paid taxes for 8 years, then stopped paying for 8 years and then started up again. Although they certainly had this information.
The IRS only has X amount of dollars to spend trying to collect taxes. For the most part, they are looking at the most cost effective way to do this. They just do not have the resources to look into someone who has never lived in the US and never paid taxes.
There seem to be two sets of cases in the US regarding loss of US citizenship. One in which the government is trying to deny someone the right to come back or otherwise have the rights of a citizen because of something they did with regard to another country (e.g. became a citizen, served in the army) and the person is fighting it because they e.g. want to come back to the US. The other is with regards to Treason prosecutions (e.g. after WW2) where the defense argued that the defendant renounced their citizenship by declaring loyalty to Germany or Japan or registering with local authorities as a citizen rather than a foreigner (when the person was a dual citizen) and the US gov’t comes around and says no, that wasn’t sufficient to actually destroy your citizenship, you were still a citizen so off to jail you go.
Why wouldn’t he be a British Citizen by descent? Was that not recognized back then?
Because back then, a female British subject who married a foreigner lost her British subject status. Assuming the child was born after the marriage, his mother was not a British subject at the time of his birth.
The Perfect Master on renouncing U.S. citizenship: How do I go about renouncing my U.S. citizenship? - The Straight Dope
It ain’t easy, it’s irrevocable, and you can’t do it to get out of the draft (if there were one) or paying your taxes.
I suppose it depends on what you define as a “need”.
If you don’t live in the US, it’s hard to see that you “need” to vote in US elections. After all, if the police come to drag you away in the middle of the night, or the government takes your house and/or your children, or bars you from practising your profession, or makes you wear a yellow star, it won’t be the US government doing these things to you; it will be the government of the country in which you live. And if you have a contribution to make to public affairs in society, it’s likely to be in the society which you actually routinely participate.
So if you have a need to vote, it’s a need to vote in the country in which you actually live. And if you can get by living in, e.g., Canada without having a vote there, then it’s very hard to argue that you “need” a vote in US elections. Why is your need for a say in the formation of laws that, by and large, you dont live under and that don’t normally affect you be greater than your need for a say in the formation of laws that do affect you, and that you live under every day?
Renouncing your citizenship today does not relieve you of the need to have filed up until the renunciation. As I said before, renouncing citizenship probably just adds extra flags to whatever file they have.
Plus, as the Canadian news has mentioned, one of the penalties in US Tax law is failure to disclose foreign assets over a certain amount ($100,000?) THis means your house, retirement savings, etc. all put you in violation of US law.
To be clear - AFAIK (doesn’t matter to me personally) you deduct taxes paid locally (i.e. to Canada) from what you shold owe the USA, so most regular wage-earners do NOT owe back taxes. But failure to file and failure to declare foreign assets leave you vulnerable to serious fines and jail time should the USA care. This is the big concern in the current news stories. You may owe nothing in real taxes, but be liable for very big fines.
It’s not likely the USA will spend time chasing harmless poor wage-earners in foreign countries. However, should you decide to visit Disneyland or anywhere else, the authorities may notice the “born in USA” and shunt you to a back room fo further processing. Or, if somehow your citizenship is on their computers, the same flags may pop up. Of course, if you are amulti-milionaire businessman, odds are that your business may take you to the USA or intertwine with US connections, giving the US leverage to force you to come to a deal.
Also keep in mind how powerful the USA can be over world banking. They have effectively frozen huge swaths of finance for people who cross them. Most banks have international reach, and the US uses the “you are with us or outside our system” mentality to make them cooperate. Therefore, do no be surprised if your local (foreign) bank cooperates to tell the USA about your assets while you sit incommunicado in that Orlando airport jail cell; and then allows the US to freeze your accounts and then seize whatever its courts award them.
Is it a surprise that dual Canadian-American citizens are seriously worried about this?
I was referring to Canadians already living in the US, but in any case I wasn’t at all suggesting that they have a need to vote there. I was questioning what Balthisar defined as a “need” when it came to other nationalities. Presumably s/he meant avoiding certain eventualities in their country of origin - but I think there are very few circumstances in which (a) those eventualities are so grim as to make avoiding them arise to the level of “need”, and (b) no status other than citizenship will suffice to enable this avoidance. In most cases, asylum, humanitarian leave or permanent residence would be enough. Citizenship of course would add an extra layer of security, but unless your other status is actually under threat, that’s not really a “need” either.
I meant simply that if you’re already a happy Canadian (or x’ian) living in Canada (or x-land) with no loyalty or roots in the United States, then there’s no need to maintain a citizenship. After all, what would be the point? You mentioned, though, “what if they want to vote?” I then tried to remind everyone that there’re obvious distinctions between “wants” and “needs.” Or maybe the distinction isn’t obvious to everyone?
That’s fair enough on its own. I just don’t see why a happy Mexican wouldn’t feel the same way. Sure, they may want to have the option to move to the US instead, but that doesn’t mean they need to.
It’s not a major deal, just strikes me as a bit inconsistent.
Of course, there’s applying for a green card for your spouse or child, which is much faster if you’re a citizen - or for a parent, which is impossible unless you’re a citizen. And to do any of these, you have to file a U.S. tax return so you can file an Affidavit of Support. I’m having an issue right now with a client who is a U.S. citizen by birth, but who has never filed a U.S. tax return because she hasn’t lived in the U.S. since she was a baby, and is now sponsoring her husband so they can both move to the U.S. together. Good times.
What if that expatriate citizen has filed tax returns but never showed any taxable income because she always employed the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion? IIRC (that is, if I haven’t totally blocked out THE HORROR of many years ago), then technically the citizen wouldn’t qualify to file an affidavit of support because (according to the final line on the tax return) her income falls below the national poverty level. Isn’t bureaucracy fun?
I’m not an expert on the immigration process or Affadavit of Support, but looking over the form makes me think this isn’t a problem. Lines 22-24 ask you about your income and expenses. Line 25 is the only one that asks for AGI from the tax return. So I imagine that the people processing these forms are used to seeing someone with $60,000 in wages and $0 in AGI. It shouldn’t be a surprise.
In the case we’re dealing with right now, the USC will need a joint sponsor anyway because even her foreign income isn’t enough. But she would still have to file a tax return in order to file the I-864 at all. I have yet to run into a case where the foreign spouse had sufficient income not to need a joint sponsor but couldn’t also qualify based on assets alone.
In many cases, the individual is unaware that they have American citizenship and thus would have to take the steps to formally renounce their citizenship. Case in point: a great-uncle was born in the USA and spent all of 3 days there in the 1920s. His children probably have no idea that they are US citizens. Instead, they are living in ignorant bliss, happily not reporting to Uncle Sam until they get caught. (Since g-uncle never had an SSN and never filed US taxes and is now dead, they’re probably safe, but you never know… I wonder if I could rat them out for a cut? KIDDING.)