Originally Posted by
MLCJ
If she doesn't have a US passport and lives overseas, how do you think the IRS will know she is an American earning taxable income abroad? I know some might fear big government but that's a bit of a stretch. Her parents could have renounced the citizenship at birth, not that hard to do, but they didn't.
I am not talking about the likelihood of getting caught, you tried to claim that if she did not apply for a passport, she would not owe tax. Now you are saying it's OK because she probably won't get caught, so she shouldn't worry about it. Part of that illegal tax evasion would include never visiting the USA, as she would not be able to visit the US on a UK passport that showed the USA as her birth place. In any event, I don't think most people would agree that it is a "stretch" to be worried about the IRS, and even if you don't get caught, who wants to go through life worrying that you might?
Originally Posted by
MLCJ
Originally Posted by
Blogndog
More nonsense. There is no "process" to show the father is an "actual US citizen". The child is a citizen irrespective of whether or not the parent applies for a "birth of US citizen abroad" certificate, this is only a document that CONFIRMS citizenship, it does not confer it. Provided they meet the prior residency requirements, if either one of your parents is a US citizen, you ARE a US citizen, and it does not matter if you apply for a citizen birth abroad certificate and/or a passport.
You are incorrect. A child born to an American father and non-USCIT mother abroad is not automatically a U.S. citizen as you suggest. There is a residency requirement for the father that he must prove. Only a USCIT mother automatically passes citizenship abroad.
The transmission of citizenship is automatic in either case. There is a residency requirement for both parents, but if the requirement is met, the child is automatically a citizen irrespective of whether it is ever proven.
As an example -- let's say I -- a US citizen who has lived for at least five years in the US, including 2 years after the age of 14 -- father a child with a Chinese mother in Viet Nam. We do not bother to register the child's birth with the US embassy, or to apply for a passport for the child.
The child grows up and also never applies for a passport. However, he ends up working for ten years in the US before returning to Viet Nam, getting married, and having a child of his own with a Vietnamese national, but again, does not claim the child as a US citizen. Then that child grows up, learns something about his family history, and talks to an immigration lawyer, who advises him he can apply for a U.S. passport. He gets his father's and his grandfather's birth certificates, and collects evidence that his father spent at least five years in the USA and submits everything to the State Department. Based on the evidence, the State Department confirms that indeed his father was a US citizen FROM BIRTH having been born to a father who was born in the USA. The DoS also accepts the evidence that his father spent at least five years in the USA, and on that basis accepts that he too was a US citizen FROM BIRTH.
Alternatively, if the child never applied for a passport, but for whatever reason the FBI wanted to convict him of something applicable only to US persons, they could dig up evidence proving the child was a US citizen FROM BIRTH. The child cannot raise a defence saying, no you cannot convict me because I never wanted to be a citizen.
Notice that in NONE of these scenarios did either the grandfather OR the father ever go through the process of "proving" that he met the residency requirement. The citizenship is automatic at birth, all the evidence is around CONFIRMING this fact, not ACQUIRING citizenship.