scrubbedexpat099

I just assumed that most people kept their dual citizenships, that seems to be the case with Immigrants to the UK.

You can make sure that your US tax declarations are up to date which would deal with the issue that was previously mentioned.

I sort of assumed that US/Canada had bilateral tax agreement so that unless you were earning meg dosh there was no tax to pay, just the hassle of filing.

Most people here are going through the mega hassle of US residence/citizenship, even the link that you mentioned raised the plus points. It is a lot easier getting into a country you are a Citizen of, as the link mentioned, what are they going to do, deport you?

Dan

No one will ever claim that you are an American citizen unless you prouve it
first...

There are many "accidental" dual nationals due to the nationality of their
parents who just do nothing about it. You are right, THEORETICALLY you are
a US citizen, but how can anyone prove it without you providing
documentation about your mother birth and residence in the US before your
birth?

Live your life, stick to your native citizenship and stop worrying about
some customs officer discovering the dark side of your ancestry. You mother
was not microchipped.

"gajegeja" <member32022@british_expats.com> wrote in message
news:[email protected] m...
    > I am a dual Canadian and American citizen who was born in Canada to a
    > Canadian father and an American (landed immigrant in Canada) mother who
    > later became a Canadian citizen. I have never resided in the US.
    > I am not interested in having any obligations to the United States and
    > accordingly would like to renounce my citizenship. The primary reason I
    > haven't yet is that I don't want to end up in some database somewhere
    > and get myself arrested should I visit the US at any point.
    > In particular, I have not registered for Selective Service despite being
    > a male U.S. citizen between 18 and 26, and am not interested in doing so
    > or in finding myself obligated to do so. I understand that I cannot get
    > into trouble for this while I am in Canada, but again, not so delighted
    > at the prospect of crossing the border anytime soon.
    > If I were to renounce my citizenship, would I still be liable for not
    > having registered while I was still an American citizen required to
    > register? Does anyone have any experience with getting in trouble while
    > crossing the border?
    > Conversely, would attempting to renounce my citizenship make it *more
    > risky for me to cross the border as it would make it more likely, not
    > less, for my (former) citizenship to be registered and noticed? (Right
    > now, the only document I have attesting to my American citizenship is my
    > Certificate of Birth Abroad. I do not have an American passport, though
    > I realize it's illegal for an American citizen to attempt to enter the
    > U.S. on a 'foreign' passport.)
    > As you can tell, I'm rather paranoid about this and I am essentially
    > planning to forgo any travel to the US until I get this settled. I've
    > enjoyed all of the many trips I've made to the US, but the cases of
    > Maher Arar and Berna Cruz are fresh in my mind and I'm aware that
    > getting the wrong INS official can land you in a world of hurt.
    > --
    > Posted via http://britishexpats.com

gajegeja

Thanks; that's very reassuring.

I'm going to be discussing this further with an American immigration paralegal of my acquaintance, so I hope to be able to dig a bit further.

Thanks to all those who provided information. As for the rest...

Really? Could you send some more up here? We can use as many as we can get, and I find they're excellent in bed.

Stephen Gallagher

(snip)

    > The website, though informative, was frustratingly vague (it "may"
    > have no effect on my military/tax status, which I find bizarre -- how
    > could they tax or draft a foreign national who's not resident in the
    > US? -- and which is not described in any more depth in the Selective
    > Service website.)

First of all, "drafting" simply means ordering a person to report for
induction. So, if the US were to pass a law that said anyone who
renounces citizenship for the purpose of evading a draft is still
liable to be drafted, then they could be drafted. Whether the US
could enforce that ruling by forcefully bringing him to the US
to be inducted is unlikely but it doesn't mean that they couldn't
"draft" him.

Additionally, they're saying that if a person fails to register then
just because he renounces his citizenship doesn't mean that
all would be forgiven, necessarily. They COULD (but not necessarily
would) penalize a person who didn't meet the obligation of registering
when he was a US citizen. Again, enforcement would be a different
story, but the penalty would always be there. You'd never be able to
even visit the US as a non-citizen without risking arrest.
By the way, they won't penalize a person who registers late, as long
as he registers before he's age 26.

The same holds true for US tax obligations with the additional proviso
that the US and Canada already have an agreement to collect outstanding
taxes for each other. If the IRS judged that you owed them tax from when
you were a US citizen, the Canada Revenue Agency would be obliged to
add that to your tax liability in Canada. By the way, most US citizens living
abroad do not actually pay US tax (although it's not impossible). It's mostly
there to prevent wealthy Americans from setting up their finances abroad
to avoid US taxation. The exemptions mean that a US citizen abroad usually
files a US tax return saying that he owes them $0.00 each year, along with some
extra paperwork. Yes, it's a nuisance, but is it worth giving up citizenship?

That might not sound like much now, but about in 20 years from now
when your "son" marries a girl from the US, and you can't go to the US
to attend the wedding. Or to visit your grandchildren, if they decide to
live in the US? I'm just saying that you don't know what's down the road.
You'll have to decide in the end, but you're worrying about very little.

Stephen Gallagher

Stephen Gallagher

Boiler <member22431@british_expats.com> wrote in message news:<[email protected] om>...
    > > Yes, and I know my mother applied for a social security number for me,
    > > for her tax preparations.
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > > No, I've never applied for one.
    >
    > So your Mother has by the sound of it submitted her returns to the IRS
    > evry year.
    >
    > As I understand the position you would need a US passport to enter the
    > US as you could not do so with your Canadian.

Legally he's not allowed to use his Canadian passport to
enter the US, but that doesn't mean he absolutely needs a
US passport. US citizens entering from Canada
are supposed to present proof of US citizenship. Since his
birth was registered with the US, he could enter the US by
presenting his certificate of birth abroad, along with a piece
of photo ID. To return to Canada, he could use either a
Canadian passport or his Canadian birth certificate plus
photo ID.

In his case, he can probably get away with entering the US
using Canadian documentation because there would be nothing
in his Canadian passport or birth certificate to indicate that he
even might be a US citizen. He's not supposed to do this,
but they wouldn't find out.

    > Well you could back file yout US tax returns, and I believe
    > that they only require seven years of back filed returns,
    > and register for Selective Service

as long as he does it before age 26.

    > there seems many who do not even know about SS, I have not
    > heard of this being a big issue but not really a topic that could be
    > answered on this board.

There are even some non-US citizens who live in the US and who
don't realize that they had a requirement to file until years later
when they try to naturalize in the US. Once they're age 26, they
can't register. With a few more steps and some time, the US still
allows them to become US citizens. They don't deport them.


Stephen Gallagher

Stephen Gallagher

    > No one will ever claim that you are an American citizen unless you prouve it
    > first...
    >
    > There are many "accidental" dual nationals due to the nationality of their
    > parents who just do nothing about it. You are right, THEORETICALLY you are
    > a US citizen, but how can anyone prove it without you providing
    > documentation about your mother birth and residence in the US before your
    > birth?

He says that he has a "Certificate of Birth Abroad" (of a US citizen) as
that is its official name. That means that his mother registered his birth
at a US consulate. In order to get such a certificate, a parent has to show
proof of his relationship to the child and that the child meets the
requirements for US citizenship by descent. He would have been a
US citizen whether this registration was done, or not. But the fact that he
has such a certificate means that his US citizenship is documented.

Stephen Gallagher

Stephen Gallagher

gajegeja <member32022@british_expats.com> wrote in message news:<[email protected] om>...
    > > So your Mother has by the sound of it submitted her returns to the IRS
    > > evry year.
    > >
    > > As I understand the position you would need a US passport to enter the
    > > US as you could not do so with your Canadian.
    > >
    > > Well you could back file yout US tax returns, and register for
    > > Selective Service. there seems many who do not even know about SS, I
    > > have not heard of this being a big issue but not really a topic that
    > > could be answered on this board.
    > >
    > > You are outside the reach of Uncle Sam and I would agree with the
    > > other posters, you never know quite what life will throw at you, it
    > > might come in handy some day.
    > >
    > > If you do not wish to come to the US, why bother with the doing
    > > anything, if you do, coming in as a USC will be less hassle.
    >
    > I've entered the US a number of times using a Canadian passport without
    > disclosing my American citizenship. Mainly, I shudder at the thought of
    > having to explain either a dual citizenship, or else, if I were to use a
    > US passport, what I've been doing in Canada for the last twenty-odd
    > years ("living here") to a hostile border guard.

I'm a dual US/Canadian citizen, and unlike you, I wasn't born with
both. I naturalized as a Canadian a few years ago. When I enter the
US I present my US passport at a US port of entry I'm sometimes asked
how long I've been in Canada (because they assume I'm just returning
from a visit). If I say that I live in Canada they will "sometimes" ask
what is my status in Canada. My reply is "I'm also a Canadian citizen."
It has never gone any further than that, except once when the inspector
said "Really, me too." and then he went on to explain how he was
born in the US, but that his mother was Canadian.

    > I've heard horror
    > stories from American expats who've returned to the states to be grilled
    > for a half-hour as to what they think they've been doing, presuming to
    > live in a foreign country, when they're US citizens.

I'm not saying you're lying. I've just never had any negative reaction
whatsoever. It's not illegal for a US citizen to hold more than one
citizenship.

    >
    > Actually, it almost seems to me as though if I were to want to stay in
    > the US for an extended period, it would be better not to have been a
    > citizen and therefore avoid having evaded taxes between now and then; it
    > seems as though keeping my head down and hoping nobody notices me would
    > be a good way of opening myself up to a world of hurt, and renouncing my
    > citizenship would be a way of keeping things above-board. But my
    > inexperience in such matters compels me to ask if this is so.

The IRS will generally not go after people who "come clean" so to
speak. If you were to continue doing as you are now, and then at
some point in the future you did move to the US they will normally
accept the response that you didn't realize you were supposed
to file US tax returns (because very few countries have that type of
tax policy). That's if they came to you, at all. They'd ask you to file
seven years of back returns in which you'd probably owe no taxes
anyway.

Stephen Gallagher

(snip)
    >
    > "As explained, I would prefer neither to pay any further American taxes,
    > nor to enjoy any American benefits"
    >
    > He would become inadmissible to the US for life pursuant to section
    > 212(a)(10)(E) of the INA as an alien who renounced US citizenship to
    > avoid taxation by the US.

True. But that's only if the IRS says that he renounced to avoid
taxation. They will only presume this if:

1) the average amount of US taxes he owed in the previous
five years was greater than $50,000

or

2) his net worth on the day he expatriated was more that $622,000.

Something makes me think that if either of these were true, he'd be
paying a lawyer to find this out.

If the answer to questions 1 and 2 is "No" then they would not
presume that he renounced to avoid taxation.

And, even if the IRS did make a presumption that he renounced to
avoid taxation, he could request a ruling that he did not do so,
which they are more likely to grant if he has never lived in the US
and has always had his non-US citizenship from birth.

Stephen Gallagher

Ray

Its actually very uncommon.. most dual citizen have no great problems whatsover, neither will you ..

crg

I agree with Ray. I've heard of cases when someone's mother told them they had to pick one (dumb decision) and a few years later, they are applying for a TN visa in order to work in the US.

JAJ

It depends on *exactly* what they did to 'pick one'

Unless they showed up at a US consulate to renounce their US citizenship, it;s likely they're still Americans.


Jeremy

crg

This person renounced to a consular officer and went through the formal interview process.

I've heard of other people doing it so they can hold elected office in their other country.

Rich Wales

"gajegeja" wrote:

> I thought it was fairly common for a dual citizen to
> choose one or the other.

Actually, no. At least as far as Canada and the US are concerned,
there is no legal obligation of any kind for a "born dual" citizen
to choose a single citizenship upon reaching adulthood.

Laws of the "choose one" variety did apply at one time to some
(though not all) dual-citizenship situations in Canada and the US,
but all such laws were abolished by the late 1970's. Many people
assume these laws still exist, though -- kind of like one of those
urban legends that simply won't die.

Rich Wales [email protected] http://www.richw.org/dualcit/
*DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer, professional immigration consultant,
or consular officer. My comments are for discussion purposes only and
are not intended to be relied upon as legal or professional advice.