Does anyone know how to denounce their British Citizenship

[Leaannb]

My 18 yo who is a dual citizen of the UK and US would like to denounce his British citizenship due to tax reasons. Any idea how?

Your son needs to speak to a tax lawyer. If he is earning so well it will be an investment to do so in order to get this right, based on correct information

I’m sure I’m not the only one thinking, this is all smokescreen and mirrors. This isn’t really about tax is it? There’s an underlying thread of pure contempt for the British citizenship for reasons unknown. Op is showing a very ‘cavalier’ attitude to her ds’s UK citizenship, which is let’s not mince words here, ‘much coveted worldwide’. It’s curious why she couldn’t really care less for him to give up such a valuable citizenship at the tender age of 18yrs when there are yrs of possibilities for him and future grand children in holding said citizenship.

People have given good advice about tax including pointing OP to specialist sources for professional but all urging her to hold on to the citizenship but she seems hellbent on her DS renouncing it. Something is not adding up.

I think your son needs to see a tax adviser used to dealing with US / UK clients first, such as Frank Hirth, then an immigration lawyer, such as Fragomen. The Internet is not the place to ask for this advice.

Umm. Don’t you mean the other way around? British citizenship - you’re taxed in the money in the UK only. US citizenship you’re taxed on all money everywhere snd are required to fill in FTCA and FBAR filings for all your accounts if they ever read h US$10k. Many financial institutions will not accept US citizens.

There is a tax treaty between USA and UK that your income in UK pay not necessarily be taxed by USA as well

If your son should live in USA, UK taxed never apply to money, assets that are outside the UK

So I’d think very carefully about which to give up (or just keep both).

There is a tax treaty between USA and UK that your income in UK pay not necessarily be taxed by USA as well

I think this is correct - DD's partner is a US citizen but lives & works in the UK and he has to file a US tax return but I don't believe he pays anything

I've just read all 5 pages and I just want to know about the shopping trip too.

No, you aren't the only one @Aoki. Comes across as wanting to impress upon us all that citizenship of this crummy country is no more than a logistical headache for a tremendously savvy and sorted 18-year-old.

@Aoki I get that impression too.

Whether you are a British Citizen or not does not affect whether you pay tax. It is based on whether you are resident or not. He will be resident. The US is a bit of an anomaly in that you do have to pay tax as a citizen, even if you are not resident, however, with reciprocal tax agreements in the UK this usually means you file a tax return and don't actually have to pay anything.

Other posters have provided links to how to renounce British citizenship, but this will not have any impact on tax.

Most of this has been said upthread, so just adding my voice to the choir.

If you are posted abroad with the military, it is under a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), as was mentioned by a PP.

We spent 7 years abroad with the Royal Navy. Tax was paid by dh in the UK. No tax was due in Belgium.

I don't think you should be advising your son on this. You don't seem to be entirely clear on some fundamental points. I think your son needs to talk to a UK immigration lawyer to be certain that he is, in fact, a British citizen - since you seem to think that but for your shopping trip, he wouldn't be - and a tax specialist to clarify his tax liabilities in light of the fact that's he's military personnel posted abroad (who almost always have different rules applied to them for tax). The military equivalent of HR would be my first port of call, because they have a long history of sending people around the world and your son will not be the first to have dual citizenship, if he does in fact have this.

OP, get him to see the Pay Office. They will know about this, or they should. I can't see any way HMRC can tax your son on US government paid military income, any more than your IRS could tax the salary of UK military posted to the U.S. It just doesn't happen.

@MumInBrussels How goes it there? I moved back a year ago from just outside Brussels. Was going to come over for the Leuven Christmas market next month, but evidently not now!

It never ceases to amaze me when people try to do things on the cheap (or in this case for free) and then get arsey and snippy when they don't get what they paid for.

OP asks a half arsed question, then starts to drip in the details and it becomes immediately clear that this is really a very very very very niche area of legal jurisprudence (all nationality issues are, if you consider the stakes).

If the prize is as great as the OP believes, they should be forking out for proper legal advice. Especially since it will be freely available to someone serving in the US military which is more than experienced with staff who have dual or even treble nationality.

All very odd.

Best advice to OP is to find someone to pay for real advice. There are specialists out there.

It does come across a tad smug OP. If he's 18 and so fantastically savvy and high earning why is he not simply dealing with this himself as an adult? Surely he is more than capable of researching and arranging the particulars, it's hard to believe he sourced gainful employment at a high level to be a high earner without the wherewithal and independence. Or is his source of income not via employment?

I know quite a lot about British Nationality Law from a previous job. If your son is British, you or your husband would have needed to be either a British Citizen or settled in the U.K. If neither of these applies, he isn’t British. Birth in the U.K. doesn’t automatically confer British nationality, and hasn’t since1982.

If he is British, he may not be eligible under US rules to come to U.K. under a SOFA. My friend’s posting to U.K. was cancelled when the Americans found out he was a dual national. It is complex and there are reasons other than tax why this may have been the case.

Finally, if your son does renounce his British nationality, if he has it, then he can get it back at a later date, should he want it.

And also, you do need legal advice on this!

@MrsSchadenfreude - that's really interesting re the dual citizenship and sofa. I have learned something so thank you.

I sometimes get to see this stuff after they've determined it so know it's not going to apply. I don't see what goes into a determination (and my clients are defence industry not actual military)

Are his military commanders aware of his dual citizenship?

I also would be surprised about him being able to be posted to the UK as US military personnel while also holding UK citizenship as, essentially, he'd be 'more' subject to the UK's jurisdiction than a pure US citizen would be? I don't know how or if being in the military alters this, but I know that if, say, he needed an embassy to support him if he was, say, falsely arrested in India he could call on either the US or UK, but if he is arrested in the US or the UK as it currently stands he couldn't ask his 'other' nationality's embassy support as he is seen to be in his home country. I know this was a concern of a friend of mine when his girlfriend was visiting a repressive country where she had dual citizenship (but had never lived or spent time) and he was worried about some political facebook posts she'd made getting her into trouble and her embassy not being able to help out if anything happened.

I think as everyone has said its worth him checking with the military first. But as others have said, nothing to stop him meeting a girl in the four years he's posted here and wishing to have the option to stay, or even visit freely, afterwards. Dual citizenship can be a huge benefit, and UK citizenship doesn't really impose any additional burdens if you're not living in the UK so if there's a way for him to keep it that seems sensible.

how did he even get automatic UK citizenship? I'm Irish and my baby is soon to be born in the UK - the baby is not entitled to a British Passport - just an Irish one?

Also fairly sure this is the wrong way around - The US tax their citizens for life - pretty sure the UK do not once you leave the Country or are not working here

@ProfessorSlocombe

It never ceases to amaze me when people try to do things on the cheap (or in this case for free) and then get arsey and snippy when they don't get what they paid for.

OP asks a half arsed question, then starts to drip in the details and it becomes immediately clear that this is really a very very very very niche area of legal jurisprudence (all nationality issues are, if you consider the stakes).

If the prize is as great as the OP believes, they should be forking out for proper legal advice. Especially since it will be freely available to someone serving in the US military which is more than experienced with staff who have dual or even treble nationality.

All very odd.

Best advice to OP is to find someone to pay for real advice. There are specialists out there.

Yes, ProfessorSlocombe.

As the old saying goes, 'Free advice is worth what you paid for it'.

@tyrannosaurustrip

Are his military commanders aware of his dual citizenship?

I also would be surprised about him being able to be posted to the UK as US military personnel while also holding UK citizenship as, essentially, he'd be 'more' subject to the UK's jurisdiction than a pure US citizen would be? I don't know how or if being in the military alters this, but I know that if, say, he needed an embassy to support him if he was, say, falsely arrested in India he could call on either the US or UK, but if he is arrested in the US or the UK as it currently stands he couldn't ask his 'other' nationality's embassy support as he is seen to be in his home country. I know this was a concern of a friend of mine when his girlfriend was visiting a repressive country where she had dual citizenship (but had never lived or spent time) and he was worried about some political facebook posts she'd made getting her into trouble and her embassy not being able to help out if anything happened.

I think as everyone has said its worth him checking with the military first. But as others have said, nothing to stop him meeting a girl in the four years he's posted here and wishing to have the option to stay, or even visit freely, afterwards. Dual citizenship can be a huge benefit, and UK citizenship doesn't really impose any additional burdens if you're not living in the UK so if there's a way for him to keep it that seems sensible.

Gosh, that does raise interesting questions, doesn't it, with the military status confusing everything. This goes way beyond tax liability. When we took on our second nationalities, it was made VERY clear to us that our second nation would, under international law, not be able to intervene if we needed consular help while in our first country. If you are a citizen of a country and in that country, its status takes precedence over other nationalities. So technically, if a US-UK dual national soldier were wandering round the local UK town and war suddenly (and implausibly) broke out, he would become his own worst enemy! But that status presumably wouldn't apply while he were on base?

Incidentally, military personnel being taxed in their home country while on deployment is also common in the diplomatic service and international government agencies - wherever senior staff are sent on limited postings that change every few years Lower ranking admin staff are locally recruited and taxed locally, but also don't get shifted around.

Oh, and if you enter the UK as a British citizen you are supposed to use your British passport rather than your other one. It's never been an issue for me up to now because both of mine were EU countries, now sadly no more. But I suppose military personnel aren't queuing up at Heathrow immigration like the rest of us!

@thegcatsmother Things seem to be slowly improving after the long school half term and now they've shut all the bars and cafes - we'll see how it goes. I've been a bit cut off from everything since I had a baby a couple of months ago, so have been hiding from the world a bit, but it doesn't feel as apocalyptic now as it did in the spring, although I think the medical situation is probably comparable. People seem to be carrying on as normal (albeit masked) much more than they did earlier in the year. Which probably means we're all screwed...

I think it will feel worse when it gets closer to Christmas, too, as that's when things will really start to look different - no Christmas markets or lunches/drinks with colleagues or, for those of us living abroad, visits back to family. That's going to be the hardest thing about living abroad this year, not being able to see elderly relatives at Christmas, knowing they might not have another one. It's all a bit depressing, if I let myself think about it.

@MumInBrussels
I have still have close friends out there, and my db is posted there, but down in Wallonia. He plans to come back for a flying visit over Christmas (or he thinks he will), but my other friends are staying put, as if they came back they couldn't see their grandkids, so it's easiest just to stay put.

It will be odd without the Christmas markets. Even when the threat level was very high, in the 8/9 months post the Zaventem and metro bombings, the markets still went ahead.

Was speaking to another friend at the weekend, and she commented on how the number of people out walking increases greatly when the shops are shut. Rue Neuve reopens, and they all disappear!

This is such an incredibly huge mistake. When your son’s military career is over, it may very well be the American citizenship he wants to denounce and keep the British citizenship, as he may have injuries from the military that will be cared for in a terrible manner (read horror stories about the Veterans Administration) and face bankruptcy trying to care for his health in America versus trying to get help through the NHS. Even if he’s healthy, American companies often treat their workers like dogs (no sick leave, barely any vacation, barely any maternity leave and no paternity), and I say that not being anti-American. Lots of great things about the country, but in quite a few states, they can just fire you even if you’ve worked somewhere for 20 years with no protection at all (it’s called at-will employment and it’s horrible). Likewise, as a citizen, America is one of only two countries that taxes income you earn outside the country (the other is Eritrea), not the UK. My husband is former US military, we’ve left the US and he is looking at denouncing US citizenship for the tax implications, which are wild. We haven’t run into anyone trying to get rid of British citizenship yet.

Do not let your son possibly face becoming a homeless American veteran when he could also have citizenship in a country that, despite its safety net not being what it was even ten years ago, does have a much, much better social safety net (NHS, council housing, etc). Because it all looks rosy today (he’s an 18 year old supposedly earning $60K and getting an online degree), and in a year, he could be in a wheelchair permanently at age 19 after a single combat tour. It happens every year.