citizenship- is it worth it?

[katkit]

hello,

first real AIBU (other one was on the fairly safe topic of buggies), so pleease be nice...

my husband's from outside the EU, i'm, british. we've been married 3 years and have a baby together.

he has the right to stay here for ever and ever, works, pays tax, votes etc. his visa will never expire.

he has often talked about applying for citizenship, but this week i was horrified to hear that it might cost £750!...when i told him how expensive it is he said it is still worth doing!

the only benefit i can see is that when we go abroad (very rarely) we could both go through the same passport queue.

is this citzenship business just another way of border control taking big chunks of money from people? he works and pays tax as it is.

i'm wondering if anyone can explain if there are any benefits to paying a huge wad of money to get citizenship? (other than a shorter queue at the airport).

AIBU in hoping that he forgets all about it cos it looks the same as flushing a big wad of money down the loo?

How can he vote without citizenship? My Dh is from the USA and he had to take British citizenship to vote. Even getting a mortgage was a pain in the ass until he did so. The only trouble we have now is that he's liable to claim his income in two countries for taxation purposes. That sucks.

Henny - the USA is not part of the Commonwealth - that's why your DH couldn't vote.

Please do it. It is expensive, but my lovely supervisor says (who is Australian, but has worked in Britain for a long time and who is certainly persona grata here): You never know when the law will change. Get all the citizenship/ rights you can, while you can.

Btw, he must study for the citizenship test. My two uni supervisors and my partner all need to take it soon, so I tried a test paper. British resident all my life, thought I knew a fair amount. I was useless. It is a really odd, hard test.

we got it for my wife, it was only about £300 then (and not that long ago either). The reason was having to get to the German embassy at 5am to queue for a visa to go there for a couple of days. Horrible.

Now she can go anywhere I can without having to prove she's a millionaire with a return plane ticket.

The US and the UK have a treaty so there is not double taxation.

LittleRedDragon,

I know what you mean about the test. We had a professor of politics who was made to take it, and was so annoyed by the whole process, he decided to base his Christmas pub quiz on it.

None of the other British academics got more than a couple answers right

Tell me about it, tweety! My mum came across a question asking what a standard 'full English breakfast' was! I mean, what a stupid question!

woow just checked back... thanks so much for all the info. these are not the type of replies i expected! i guess we should do it quite soon, having read all this. thanks for enlightening me- i knew nothing about this subject!

Henny, your DH should have been filing taxes every year with the US government, anyway...I have to!! And, there is a tax equalisation in place between the two countries, so though he will have to file every year, it would be a very rare and unlikely event that he would owe any taxes to the US. Addtionally, because US citizens do have to file no matter where they live...your DH should still be able to claim Child Benefit, if you have any DCs. I'm doing that, and it's a pretty good amount of money!!

Right of abode is a right
Leave to remain is permission - and therefore can be withdrawn. OK, unlikely but isn't it better to have something that is irrevocable? Once you become British then it cannot be revoked. If you plan to live here permanently then it is definitely worth it. As others have pointed out, not only does it give you full citizen's rights here but lots of access to the EU (although let's see what happens over the coming years ). I used to work in this field providing advice and found people came up against all sorts of problems with visas, extended time away from the UK. A lot of people would give a lot of money for a British passport - nothing to do with jingoistic pride, just pragmatism.

It is a lot of money, I agree but do it. Mind you, you will still be forking out an eye-watering £77 for a British passport every ten years (and no doubt that will be increased too )

I'm in a similar position. Was born in another EU country, but have lived here all my life and as far as I'm concerned I'm English. One of the things that's a pain is that the embassy will not change my passport to my married name without interviewing us. The embassy is in London and we are at the other end of the country, it would be expensive to do. So when we go on holiday I'm on the tickets etc as Miss Blah as well as hotel rooms etc - I hate it.

On the other hand it's a lot of money and there are always better things to spend it on. My mothers british, my husbands british, my children are british and I've lived here all my life so I don't think it's fair I have to pay hundreds to change my nationality.

Whoa Whoa, can someone please provide a link about the inheritance tax thingie?

I am married to a British subject, but it is extremely hard to find time to go take the citizenship test (I passed it years ago but gave up on applying and then lost the Pass Certificate when I found out about the high cost).

Do you not have British citizenship by descent from a British mother, housewife. It depends on when you were born, as rules change (as others have pointed out).

I'm interested in this reference to inheritance tax too! Any link please???? Surely this is to do with Non Dom Status! A whole different kettle of fish.....

Inheritance tax on non-citizens - me too for more info... I have lived here for over 20 years, married to dh for the past 15 and I haven't heard anything about this before.

There is some confusion in this thread about having dual SA/British Nationality.

You can have both BUT you must apply to retain your SA nationality before you acquire UK (or any other citizenship)- see this page on the South Africa House website.

Also, when you have dual nationality you have to use your SA passport to enter or leave SA.

Again, these rules are also open to change so I would recommend doing both, i.e. applying to retain his SA citizenship as well as obtaining British citizenship.

As a consequence of my doing this, I have been been able to register my children as SA citizens (you have to do this very shortly after their birth) which entitles them to work and study in SA (although so far none of them has). My son did get an offer from the University of Cape Town to study engineering five years ago and the cost of doing that (excluding flights but inclusive of tuition and full board and lodging) would have been £3,000 a year. Cheap even now and due to become much cheaper when tuition fees in the UK are allowed to go up.

There is a UK inheritance tax hotline; I am going to phone them on Monday and clarify what the situation is. Will report back here .

I'm an EU-citizen and want to apply for British Citizenship, which my English husband can't understand.

For me voting is a big issue, as I can only vote in local and European elections, but not the general election. I pay my taxes here, I live here and don't intend to leave, so I want to be enfranchised.

But that's not the only thing. I want to have citizenship as I chose this country to be my home, my husband and my daughter are British citizens, and I don't want to be the only one with a different passport.

£750 is quite a lot to pay for something wihich is mostly an emoional, not a practical issue (and I haven't seen a spouse's discount anywhere), but I'm determined to save up for it and do it in time for the next election.

I know what you're saying, WW, but I don't feel important enough to justify spending that amount of money on me . I feel guilty about it as I grew up in a very political family and follow politics closely.

I phoned the hotline today and they clarified that it's a non-dom issue, not a citizenship issue, about tax-free allowance inheritance tax applicability between spouses. So if one of the spouses is UK citizen and the other is a non-dom (citizen or not) the surviving (non-dom) spouse would only have a tax-free allowance of 55k.

There are many ways to establish yourself as domiciled, eg., having paid UK tax in 17 of last 20 years.

hth

ps: I wonder what Philip Green is doing about this -- his wife is domiciled in Jersey to save tax on the Aracadia group which she owns but he runs... ah, the intrigue of the money matters of the super-rich!?